upgrading from aluminum to SS props ?

[wannalearn]

Is it worth a few more hundreds $$$ ?? I currently have aluminum on my Evinrude 150XP.

[Mississippi Son]

The only way that stainless steel will pay for itself is if you fish in areas where you will be hitting submerged structure with the prop. Otherwise, the aluminum prop will serve you well.
Where I live in South Mississippi, we have to have stainless steel because we hit stumps and logs on practically every trip. I was reluctant to spend the excess cash on a stainless steel prop at first but after ruining two aluminum props, I could have purchased one stainless steel and never had to buy another. Lesson Learned

[Barnacle Bill]

Actually you should see a little better performance with a SS prop as they do not flex near as much as an aluminum one. Especially on a high performance motor like yours.

[must buy my fish]

I have run stainless props on my motors,and the only bad side to them is you will tear up more lower units because an aluminium prop will break before gears.
Right now my lower unit is torn up for just that reason

[slabbandit]

I was going to buy a SS prop for my Merc. 35 one time but the owner of the marine repair shop talked me out of it. He said that he would sure sell it to me but in his experience you should not put a SS prop on anything less than a 50 HP. His explaination was that the lower unit would be damaged before the SS prop.

It is far cheaper to replace an aluminum prop than to rebuild a lower unit. He said that when you get over 50 HP you would be alright to go with a SS prop.

In the case of a 150 HP motor I believe I would definately go with a stainless steel prop.

[Moose1am]

My boat motor has a slip thing for the prop. If the prop hits something then something inside the prop loosens and let the prop stop while the spindle is undamaged. So I was told when I got the motor.

The really old motors had shear pins that would break and prevent motor damage when you hit a stump or something

But going over 50 mph and hitting anything with the prob is going to hurt something

My boat only will go about 22 to 25 mph depending on the wind direction and my direction of travel. I have a stainless steel prop that's still in good shape after 25 years of use.

I just got my boat out today and hooked up the garden hose to the water intake with those suction cup devises. These suction cup water things are made to hook up to the lower unit's water intake and provide a supply of water so that you can run and test your engine while it's out of the water.

Used some seafoam in the spark plug holes and cleaned the spark plugs with it too. Boat ran fine. Stainless steel prop looks like it did when it was new.

With only a 35HP Johnson Outboard and a 16ft aluminum Fishermarine Water Strider III boat I was able to pull water skiers behind my boat. Even got them to pop up on one ski. But they were not very heavy skiers. They only weighted about 125lbs at most.

I would not hesitate to suggest getting a stainless steel prop for your motor if you match it to the motor. ie get the right prop pitch and number of blades for your engine. That way the engine at FWO will not over speed. You want your rpm's to be in the right range when running at full wide open FWO.

I have run stainless props on my motors, and the only bad side to them is you will tear up more lower units because an aluminium prop will break before gears.
Right now my lower unit is torn up for just that reason

[Barnacle Bill]

Here is everything you ever wanted to know about props.
http://boatfix.com/how/props.html

[wannalearn]

Thanks for the info, sounds like SS props would be a good investment.
I'll get one for my boat for this summer.