Slow to plane out

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I have a 97 sportster with 717 and it really has trouble getting out of the hole , but once it’s on plane it really moves effortlessly .. what can I do to fix this .. any help would be awsome
 
What's your compression? Have you replaced the gray fuel lines if it has them? Have you rebuilt your carburetor recently?
 
I’m not exactly sure what you mean by bottom end. These boats are direct drive, so if the engine is revving fine, the impeller is turning fine as well. You could have a worn wear ring, a damaged impeller, or a leak somewhere in the pump if it seems like it takes too long for the boat to catch up with the engine speed. It will feel like a clutch slipping.
 
If you’re meaning the boat doesn’t get moving at low revs, that’s just the nature of the jet boats. Even my Speedster with two jet pumps won’t get up on plane until you’re close to 5K rpm. Once you’re on plane though, it will stay there until you bring the revs down below about 4K and the boat slows down. It takes a lot of power to get past all of the weight and drag to get the hull on top of the water, so I wouldn’t stress that unless you’re cavitating or it’s taking a really long time to reach planing speed.
 
I would check the wear ring and impeller. I ran over some debris after a storm and started having similar problems. I replaced both and it runs great with plenty of power.
 
This is my first post on this forum, but I've been using it as a reference for a while and I appreciate all the great advice I've gotten from it, so I thought I would take a few minutes to reply to your post.

I have a 97 Speedster. Yesterday, I put a single Nauticus Trim Tab on it and it makes a huge difference in performance. This may be what you're looking for. (nauticusinc dot com/smart-tabs-sx/)

It stopped all the porpoising in chop and gets it up on plane with far less effort. It still doesn't jump out of the hole like my standup ski, but it gets up on plane in close to half the time because it cuts down on the bow rise. I can also keep it on plane at a slower speed (4k instead of 5k).

When I was trying to pull kids on the tubes previously, the bow rise was so great that it was sucking air into the impellers from the front of the boat, causing the engines to rev up to limit. Now the bow rises about half as much and no more hitting the rev limit. I've been trying to solve this issue for the last two years - impellers good, new wear rings, re-aligned drive shafts, new carbon rings and boots, etc... I wish I had tried this first. Even if there are other problems, these trim tabs are well worth it.

For the twin engine Speedster, there's not enough room to put two tabs on the boat, so I had to put a single tab in the middle. I bought the 80lb actuator and I've been running it in the #3 position (adjustable from 1 to 5, so the "medium" pressure setting). For the Sportster, you can probably get both tabs on the back, so I would try two tabs with the 40 lb actuators. Email the guy on the Nauticus website - he was helpful. He also said he'll sell you a single tab, but I had already bought a pair from Amazon.

The only possible negative - I may have lost a little top-end speed. I need a calm day and flat water to really tell, but with the bow rise issue solved and increase in speed in chop, I don't care.

I hope that helps.
 
This is my first post on this forum, but I've been using it as a reference for a while and I appreciate all the great advice I've gotten from it, so I thought I would take a few minutes to reply to your post.

I have a 97 Speedster. Yesterday, I put a single Nauticus Trim Tab on it and it makes a huge difference in performance. This may be what you're looking for. (nauticusinc dot com/smart-tabs-sx/)

It stopped all the porpoising in chop and gets it up on plane with far less effort. It still doesn't jump out of the hole like my standup ski, but it gets up on plane in close to half the time because it cuts down on the bow rise. I can also keep it on plane at a slower speed (4k instead of 5k).

When I was trying to pull kids on the tubes previously, the bow rise was so great that it was sucking air into the impellers from the front of the boat, causing the engines to rev up to limit. Now the bow rises about half as much and no more hitting the rev limit. I've been trying to solve this issue for the last two years - impellers good, new wear rings, re-aligned drive shafts, new carbon rings and boots, etc... I wish I had tried this first. Even if there are other problems, these trim tabs are well worth it.

For the twin engine Speedster, there's not enough room to put two tabs on the boat, so I had to put a single tab in the middle. I bought the 80lb actuator and I've been running it in the #3 position (adjustable from 1 to 5, so the "medium" pressure setting). For the Sportster, you can probably get both tabs on the back, so I would try two tabs with the 40 lb actuators. Email the guy on the Nauticus website - he was helpful. He also said he'll sell you a single tab, but I had already bought a pair from Amazon.

The only possible negative - I may have lost a little top-end speed. I need a calm day and flat water to really tell, but with the bow rise issue solved and increase in speed in chop, I don't care.

I hope that helps.
How did the install go? I have a 1996 Speedster and have been worried about fitment of the SX tab because of my drain plug. I would go with the original metal Smart Tab because of the smaller hinge plate that has to mount to the back of the boat, but those tabs appear to only accept up to 40lb shocks.
 
I had to drill a new hole for the drain plug and fill-in the old drain plug hole. I put the drain plug in the trim tab's mounting plate - ie. through the plate and the hull. Other than that, it's just a few screws.

I also cut a little off the corners of the mounting plate to get the plate flush with the bottom of the boat.

I am very happy with this product. If it's choppy and I want to go cruising around the lake, I'll set it to the #2 setting - no porpoising hardly at all - even when we get completely air born. If I'm dragging 4 teens around on our largest tubes, I'll set it to #5 (max) and it helps get us on plane faster.
 
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