Yamaha 50HP 4stroke Prop Upgrade?

[samsteele115]

I hear a lot of people upgrade from their 'stock' propeller to get the best performance out of their motor. Is this worth doing on my 50hp and does anyone know what type to get?

[archer63]

I have a 60hp four stroke and not long after buying my boat 3 years ago I went looking for a SS prop. I ended up with a Solas SS prop with the same dimensions as my alloy prop. I did not want or need to go changing pitches or anything. The difference is in the extra width of the prop blades...1cm more.

The guys at Solas will choose the correct prop for your motor...too easy !!

This made my boat get on the plane quicker and you can definitely feel the extra grip from that extra 1cm wide blade. I also got an extra couple of kph out of it at WOT, but I don't care about that as I don't sit on WOT anyway...only about 5 to 5.5 thousand revs.

Don't know about different pitches as I did not think I needed to go down that track...and still don't.

SS worth the money in my opinion....once you've got one you won't go back.

Some people say you should be careful upstream or in shallow water in case you hit rocks or floating debris etc, and that is fair enough as you could do a lot of damage to your gearbox if you hit something solid...something to think about for sure.

Cheers

Rob

[samsteele115]

Thanks very much for that info. Roughly how much am I looking at for the upgrade? Cheers @archer63

[archer63]

I think mine was about $340.00 but that was a few years ago...and that was the standard SS replacement for my sized prop.

 

[Arod]

I put a Solas on my F40 yammy and same outcome as Archer, picked up a couple of kph top speed but the main benefit was the reduction in cavitation as it just hooked up a lot better.  I've put a new motor on recently so back to an alloy prop and you can notice the difference, but a lot of it's down to driving style.  It'll blow out and cavitate on hard cornering where it didn't use to, but if I'm not trying to accelerate through tight turns then no issues.

[samsteele115]

Good to know @Arod. I don't do any tight or fast turns. Most of my driving is out in the bay and in good conditions I am travelling WOT or close to it, so a few extra km/h would be handy.