Prop shop called with some bad news

markrsimon

Active Member
Sep 1, 2018
418
Cleveland, OH
Boat Info
92 Searay 400 Express
Engines
7.4L Mercruiser Gen V
One of the blades has a crack in it, in the same place where it appears it was welded previously (by the PO) and the tip has lost a lot of a material during the cleaning process. They are recommending a new prop and suggested switching from a 3 blade to a 4 blade. Factory spec was 20x20c

For those of you who have a 400 Express (92 era, Gas 7.4) and 4 blade props, what size/pitch are you running?
 
One of the blades has a crack in it, in the same place where it appears it was welded previously (by the PO) and the tip has lost a lot of a material during the cleaning process. They are recommending a new prop and suggested switching from a 3 blade to a 4 blade. Factory spec was 20x20c

For those of you who have a 400 Express (92 era, Gas 7.4) and 4 blade props, what size/pitch are you running?
I have an 1986 390 with 454's went from three blade 20 x 19 to 4 blade 20 x 18 runs great!
 
If you have a good prop shop, they would be a great resource to answer your questions. You can also call Sea Ray, they can tell you what prop came on that boat.
 
I'm not sure if I have a good prop shop of not, which is why I'm trying to gather more information on what real world information is out there. From the factory, the boat has 20x20cupped. If you know of a good prop shop in CLE OH, please let me know.
 
Ken at Prop Gods knows more than most, recommend talking with him. 941-735-5808, https://propgods.com/, if you don't like the way a prop performs, he'll exchange it for another for a small fee.

When I needed a new prop last year, I switched to a 4 blade cupped at his recommendation, works great. My boat is smaller than yours, 260DA, single stern drive, with the 4 blade it gets out of the whole and up on plane much quicker with very little bow rise and I can stay on plane 3-5 mph lower in most seas. Last time in the shop my mechanic commented he was impressed how well it performed.
 
North coast prop tech is about an hour from you, I sent my props there on the recommendation from @my3sons and while I can’t comment on performance just yet since were still laid up, Ray was a pleasure to work with and they have propscan in house which was important to me. They recommended 21.5” of pitch for us and they measured exactly that after the work.
 

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