Nitro Bass Boat Performance Tips

If you follow any of the Nitro Bass boat groups on Facebook or the Internet forums you begin to see a pattern. From experienced boaters to newbies, one of the most common complaints/posts is that their boats do not have a good hole shot or that the top end speed is poor. Followed by a slew of guesses as to what may be causing the problem.

Reality is that you purchased a Nitro that has been factory rigged with a engine that meets the bare minimum HP needed to adequately push the boat. That very same engine is usually over propped and occasionally incorrectly propped. Advertised speeds, fuel mileage, acceleration, etc. are usually achieved under ideal conditions, lite chop on water, no gear, minimal fuel, and a driver that weighs the equivalent of a equestrian jockey.

Lets face it, few fisherman want to accept that they may be substantially overweight, carry way to much tackle and gear in the boat, as well as insisting on keeping the fuel tank topped off. Lets also call out the guys that flood their livewells seconds from the launch ramp. And if you just got the boat, you definitely don't want to hear that the Nitro hulls themselves are inherently slow and feel like they drag through the water.

Note: Nitro hulls seem to have a 'speed' threshold that needs to be met before it will get completely on pad. If you don't surpass that threshold, the hull drag will prevent the vessel from truly getting on pad and reaching the its true top speed. Sadly many Nitro's I have seen and read about are factory rigged in such a manner that often puts them 2 or 3 MPH short of hitting that threshold.

Below is some self help information that you can perform yourself. Its true; in just a few simple steps you can gather enough factual information on your own, info that you will get very close to the actual source of the problem.

Verify a problem actually exists: This will also aid in determining which general area your boat is deficient in, you will want to start your diagnosis with some factual info. Look at the engine tag and what the max RPM is for your engine. After you have done that, take the boat with a tournament load to the water, get it on pad and document what speed on the ground (SOG) your GPS indicates and document the RPM it is currently operating at under full throttle.

Note: if during your water test you observe smoke or hear strange noises such as warning alarms, knocking or ignition misfires, immediately take your boat to a good outboard mechanic.

Lets say your boat is achieving the recommended RPM range: If your complaint was a poor hole shot and not top end related, there are a few low cost things you can try. Most modern Merc props utilize PVS^® (Performance Vent System).

When you punch the throttle they essentially vent exhaust gases around the prop blades, causing prop slippage from a standstill or low speed launch, the slippage allows the motor to rev slightly quicker thus improving the holeshot. However they have zero effect on the boats mid and upper range performance. You can experiment with different size plugs which are readily available online 

Re-evaluate the weight you carry and how its distributed throughout the boat. Do you really need to haul around 50 bags of Senkos and all of the tackle you have ever purchased? Probably not, so consider packing just the quantity items you need for the duration of that particular trip or a putting together a seasonal bag of gear.

Don't flood your livewell until you actually have fish to put in it. A US liquid gallon of water weighs about 8.34 pounds, with some livewells capacity ranging between 36 and 40 gallons, the additional weight can be staggering. 

Do you really need to drive around with 40 to 50 gallons of fuel? Weighing 6.3 pounds a gallon, a full tank of gasoline can further add to your hull drag. I usually don't burn more than 6-10 gallons in a tourney, so I am more than comfortable running with half a tank.

Put your heavier items/baits like soft plastics in the stern compartments. Bow forward weight will momentarily aid you in getting on pad quicker, but that same weight will also kill your top end performance once you are actually on pad.

Jack plates. Nitro's have a setback transom per se, which is part of their rapid planning system. The idea was to put the prop farther back from the pad via moving the pad forward of the transom plate and theoretically placing the prop into less turbulent water, thus allowing the blades better grip on the water. Jack plates move the engine even farther back from the pad, as well as allow for lifting and lowering the motor. Some jack plates even offer tilt /trim.

Jack plates, according to most forum posters, offer a few MPH increase, as well as allowing the driver to make on demand adjustments to engine height. But can the factory installed jack plate cause a severe decrease in performance? Under most circumstance its doubtful that the jack plate is at fault.

You may have ran across chatter pertaining to prop to pad (P2P) distance. Unless you or a prior owner have been screwing around with the factory engine height that the P2P was originally set to, there is probably no reason to even measure it. My Nitro Z7 boat has a factory measurement of 4" prop to pad (engine is set to the middle mounting holes).

Also consider that the boat may be giving you all it has to offer, at least as it is currently rigged/loaded. Try the same water test with only half a tank of fuel, empty livewells and just yourself. Its possible that you may simply be out of horsepower for your load/application.

That's all dandy, but your main concern is only improving your hole shot: Ok you have concluded that you don't care if your top end suffers and only want a better hole shot without addressing any of the issues above. That brings us to a discussion on 4 blade props for bass boats. The bottom line, according to the guys at Mercury Racing, is that you can count on the boat having a lower SOG (because 4 blades will drag more than 3), but stability and hole shot will be noticeably improved. 

4 blade props are also narrower in diameter than the 3 blade props, so you are going to have to experiment with pitches, mainly because you will still need more horsepower to turn a 4 blade at the same rpm you were turning with a 3 blade of the same pitch. I removed my 23 pitch 3 blade and personally tried a 4 blade with a 21 pitch on my Nitro Z7 and it provided a solid hole shot nor did it blow out making sharp turns under power. On the downside, with so much emphasis on lifting the stern,  it was not able to offer much in the line of bow lift, the boat ran 3 MPH slower. Additionally my full throttle rpm dropped an additional 150 RPM when compared to my 23 pitch 3 blade coupled to a Merc 150 4S

Your boat fell considerably short of the recommended RPMs, oh the horror: As a talking point, lets say your engine is rated for 5800 RPM yet it only runs at 5250 with a 23 pitch prop at full throttle, where do you start? This is where your focus shifts almost exclusively to the propeller. You want the engine running close to the max RPM. Generally each inch in propeller pitch changes the RPM by about 200 RPM, so in this case you subtract 5250 from 5800 which leaves you with a 550 RPM difference.

So the course of correction in this case would be for you to raise the RPM by going down 2" to a 21 pitch prop, I would recommend staying with the same make / model / style prop when you make the change. Of course going down to much in pitch will cause you to consistently activate the rev limiter, that should be avoided.

I had a personal experience that was very similar to what was described above. In my case, my Nitro's RPM advanced to 5750 and SOG went from 42 to 54 with a just a prop change! The hole shot was also noticeably better, even with a full tourney load.

Tools: When it comes to diagnosing performance issues in a boat, you really don't have a lot of tools at your disposal. Below are a couple personal recomendations that could possibly help you.

Mercury Prop Selector   This is a good tool for determining if your boat even has the recommended prop. Believe it or not I have seen some Rangers specked out with 4 blade props that are recommended for pontoon boats. Don't take Mercury's prop recommendation as gospel, they are factoring their recommendations on ideal conditions with ideal boats. Every make of boat / load is different so expect some trial and error.

Prop Slip Calculator  This calculator is pretty straight forward, enter all of the data for everything except for the Propeller Slip field, then click the Calculate button under the Propeller Slip field. The consensus is that anything under 14 is acceptable. You will have to crunch numbers and do some hypothetical math to figure out how to re-prop your boat based on prop slip data. You can also call Mercury Racing for their opinion.

Propeller / Speed Calculator  This will give you a good idea of what SOG you can expect from your configuration, as well as reaffirming the accuracy of your acquired data, as well as your GPS SOG and Water speedo accuracy.

Reynolds Racing Marine  They have a propeller demo program that's worth its weight in gold.

2013 Nitro Z-7 Bass Boat with 150 Mercury Fourstroke Delivery Issues

Greetings,
as I mentioned in my last post, the intent of my first couple of posts was to offer a real review of a Nitro Z-7 with a 150 Mercury Fourstroke. I had originally hoped that I could knock that out in a single post, but due to all of the problems I had at delivery, the actual review will probably have to wait until my next post.

Rather than having to re-write everything, I am just going to post the main emails I sent to my Nitro rep.

Delivery of our 2013 Nitro Z-7 with a 150 Mercury Fourstroke

Email to Nitro Boats:

"Hope you are having a wonderful day. First off I want you to know that I am not emailing you because I want something from you. My intent is just to inform you of a few things that could be maybe improved on.  

When I picked up the boat it was inside, but the seats and other misc. items were sitting in different locations in the bay, on a tool box etc. Visually it made us feel like they were not done prepping the boat. My expectation of a prepped boat are more in-line with a turnkey scenario, seats are all installed, lanyard in the kill switch, old packaging and wire ties cleared off deck, etc. 

As previously mentioned there was the obvious bubble in the carpet, it was maybe 2 inches across. I pointed it out to the kid and he said “wow, I don’t know how I missed that”. I am going to keep an eye on that for a bit because after a few hours in the hot sun I put some pressure/weight on that spot, hoping that it will re-bond with the glue. So far so good but time will tell. 

At the shop, Peggy mentioned that she felt something was wrong with the console decals that said Nitro and Z7. Sure enough we figured out that the Nitro portion, which is affixed to the windscreen, was installed on the port side of the boat (which was corrected by swapping them around). Again a minor thing, but my wife didn’t need to be the one that caught that. 

Then we get home with the boat and I decided to toss some things in the boat, there was a plastic bag that had misc. nuts and parts in it, some of which were the rubber rod holders that belong on the deck. My first impression was that you gave us a few extras and I could keep them in case one breaks. But after inspecting the boat I quickly realized that they were never installed in the first place. My son bought some screws and  installed them for me so I could use them next weekend, but again another stupid thing that was overlooked. 

I hope you understand that my perceived value is kind of low now, largely because I am wondering what else was missed and will have to spend additional personal time going over the boat. Hopefully my shakedown cruise next weekend will go well and restore my confidence in the boat little."

 

Then in a second follow-up email:

 

" In regards to the boat, I have fished it for about 8 full days now and in addition to my previous feedback, here is some more. 

After our first outing the transducer cable became damaged (see attached picture) because it was routed in such a way that allowed it to be sandwiched between the mount and the trolling motor, thus damaging the cord which now needs to be replaced. I believe this happened our first time out and Peggy and I didn’t realize that there is a specific way that the motor must be pointed when you raised it to prevent the cord from being sandwiched between the motor and the front of the mount when you raise the motor. During the raising, there is a point where the motor hits/slides across the trolling motor mount. I have a lowrance mark-5x on the bow, but I do not see it on your website, is there a way I can order a replacement cable/transducer. I will install it so it does not bub against anything when you pull the motor up. 
 

The textured surface on the boarding ladder fell off on the very first use (see picture). My guess is that the adhesive is not designed to withstand being in the sun. I don’t know of a solution for this yet. 
 

We were told that we should purchase the retractable tie downs, which we did. But we could not initially unload the boat because the transducer is mounted directly in front of the tie down, (which was were bolted tight, in a upright position) and the transducer would have been ripped off by the tie down which is positioned directly behind it (see attached picture). As a short term fix, I had to loosened them up so they hung down freely when released. But because they hang low under the trailer frame they pretty much fill up with river muck and sand. One retractor is already malfunctioning and not retracting so I am going to throw both of them away and get what I originally wanted which were normal tie downs, something like your pro series transom tie-downs. 
 

The rear seat. The stitching is already coming apart and the sewing on this particular piece is atrocious (see pictures) but there is a larger problem. The foam padding is wrapped with a plastic and when you sit on the seat it basically sounds like a whoopee cushion when the air tries to find a way out.  Whoever made the seats didn’t think out the design very well, I know my wife was not thrilled about it. How do we resolve this? 
 

While I realize there is little we can do about it now, I do have to say that the overall gel coat finish on the boat is poor, it seems that the gel coat is super thin making the boat is super prone to scratches from the slightest of things. My Champion never had this problem, heck you could troll through heavy brush and never even see a scratch. With this Nitro finish all you need to do is run a piece of reed or bamboo across the finish and you will actually see the reinforced composite material. SO my question here is this. Does Nitro offer any touch up bottle / paint stick like you can get from a car dealer?"

 

 As you can see my 2013 Nitro Z-7 Bass Boat with a 150 Mercury Fourstroke was off to a very rocky start, but I kept my fingers crossed that Nitro would do the right thing. One big obstacle both parties have is the distance from a service center. My boat is in Yuma AZ and there are no service centers for 100s and 100s of miles. While I would have preferred to drop it off for repairs, the lesser of the evils was to accept a box full of replacement parts and do it myself.

 

It took me many weeks to complete but I have managed to address all of the issues with the supplied parts. All that's left is the year end service, which I will perform with the provided filter (they didn't give me oil).

 

At this point I am going say that the delivery issues have been satisfactorily addressed and will begin the review process in my next post.

 

So lets wrap thing up with a fish picture. P.S. While I normally wear Hawaiian shirts from Wave Shoppe while bass fishing, it's been so hot that t-shirts are the only garment that seemingly provides me with any comfort in the 110 + Arizona heat.

 

But give me a little credit for sneaking in the Hawaiian print swim shorts.

 

Remember, release so you can catch another day!