195DC Maiden Voyage

[Ron's 195DC]

Well Gentlemen, the long wait is over, I got my new 195DC on Saturday morning. My son and I hooked onto the bad boy and headed to the lake.

Woops, halfway there I felt the trailer kind of surge. Pulled over and both trailer rims were hotter than a pistol (due to brake engagement). I took it back to the dealer and they said that I had too much of a drop on my trailer hitch. I replaced the 6 inch drop receiver with a 2 inch drop and off we went again ( this seemed to level the trailer better but the jury is still out on the brake issue).

We finally got to the lake, and experienced the difference between a roller trailer and a bunk trailer, no problem though, she slipped right off.

Starting the 150 Yamaha 4 stroke was an experience. Had to check the water pump telltail to verify it was running, it was extremely quiet. We silently idled out out into the lake. After a few minutes, I punched it a little to get her on plane. What happened was a spike in engine RPM and very little else, either I have extreme propeller slippage or the transmission is slipping. She would climb quickly (immediately) up to 5500+ and either ventilate or slip or something. I had to quickly pull back on the throttle to prevent overrev.

I finally was able to get her on plane by keeping the RPMs at around 5000 for 20 seconds or so and she would finally break over and plane off. Very curious. The dealership put a 13 1/4 x 17" prop on the motor. This seems to be about right to me. (this should have provided the 195DC, with a 150 4s, head snapping hole shot in my opinion).

Well, we trolled around a little (no luck) and brought her back home. Today she sat in the yard and I'm bringing her back to the dealer tomorrow. The factory screwed up the Rod Holder install, as the aft removable seats need to be pulled to fold out the rod holders. I'll get that fixed at the same time.

All in All, a pretty poor start for the home team. It should be interesting to see how the dealer works with this one. I'll keep you all posted.

Frustrated Fisherman,
Ron

[ILLOGICAL GGC]

17 " on a 150 4s sounds small to me. my 140 johnson 4s will limit out with 17" props

[MolarBoater]

Might be under propped. I use 14X20 3 blade on a 140hp Zuke stainless.

[ILLOGICAL GGC]

oh i forgot --aint't no head jerking 4 strokes out there that i know of. well in '04 there were not any!!

[Ron's 195DC]

You guys might very well be absolutely right. I'm not use to 4s outboards, but I surely didn't think that the 17" prop would be that far off.

I figured she'd get on plane faster, but may over rev at the top end. Never in a million years did I think she would cavitate so badly that it would over rev the engine at start up (especially going from a high idle speed to attempting to break her over onto to plane).

I kind of expected performance similar to the Boats.com test as described below on the 195cc

http://www.boats.com/news-reviews/ar...html?lid=18879

Although the 3 to 4 sec on plane, and 7 to 8 secs to 30 mph speeds, as described in the article, isn't exactly head snapping, it ain't too shabby either.

I sure hope that's the problem. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks again for weighing in guys, your propping experience should help me find the sweet spot and get me back to spring fishin'.

Ron

[ILLOGICAL GGC]

have you already done the 2 hour breakin on the motor yet?? i wouldnt think you should be running and gunning w/o breaking in the motor. and yes ,you should have been able to nurse it onto plane by not going over the 6k rpms ,so there still may be issues with the prop nut not ever being properly tightened or other mech issues as well. the 17" is what jumped out at me first.

[Ron's 195DC]

Well, we idled her to around 800 to 1000 rpms for about 15 mins. I thought I'd see if she'd plane off ok. When that didn't work out, I continued the break in while dragging a couple of lures.

After looking at the Yamaha and Triumph sights this morning (specifically looking at performance charts for like length and weight boats), one thing jumped out at me: propeller diameter. The prop the dealer put on was only 13 1/4". I never saw any props less than 13 3/4" in the performance charts for the Yamaha 150 4s.

Like you guys mentioned, the 17" is on the small side, but combined with the smaller diameter and my full tank of 60 gallons of liquid gold, could be the smoking gun which prevented the prop from hooking up.

We'll find out what the dealer says, but I'll be armed with some data too. What I find kind of strange is that the 195cc has been out for a couple years now (it supposed to weigh the same). The Yamaha 150 4s has been a popular set up combination - I wouldn't have expected that propping the thing would turn into a "crap shoot" (if that ends up being the problem).

Best Regards,
Ron

[Ron's 195DC]

Oh yeah, by the way, after my initial attempt to get on plane, I went through the whole 2 hr break in to seat the rings before nursing her up to planing speed. I surely didn't want to mess up my $12k engine investment, thats for sure!!

[Ron's 195DC]

The dealer installed a 14 1/2 x 17" prop today, hope to get back in the water soon to try it out. They also did a great job fixing the side rod holders. If this prop doesn't work out, I'll suggest a 13 3/4 x 19", but I am optimistic.

Put the dock in at the lake today.

Gettin ready.....

[Deker]

I got a yami 115 4 stroke. it came with a 15 pitch. i moved to the 14.25 inch 17 and it was a million times better. before buyng a new prop, i called customer service at the factory and they hooked me up with one of the engineers, told him my 195 cc had the 115 and asked what prop should i use. i highly recommend it, they were glad to help and i am happy with their recommendation.