I just spent beaucoup time doing searches and reading threads on modding 23's but most replies were vague replies by people who had not done it and most of the links for parts sources that got my excited when I saw them no longer exist.

So, my question is, have any of you modded a 23 Vanguard and do you have numbers to show improvements for each mod? Also what sources for parts are left for a 23?

Msg dguidry. He has a modded 23. There's lots of parts for em

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I don't have number for each mod, but my mini lite was a beast. I had all the bps mods except the pistons and rods. It would push a 16/48 gd hull 28 with me (180) and a 70 pound dog, and would run 25 loaded to the gills as long as there was mud to plane it out.. I ran 3 grown men ,the dog ,and 4 kids that were about 60# each in the mid 20's. The only reason I went to the 35 is the 23 wouldn't plane out in venice. Hope this helps

Thanks for the input guys!!

Renovator, did you do the work yourself or if not, who did the installs for you? So you had a 35-mm Mikuni carb, BPS single crossover exhaust, Iron mountain heads, roller rockers, and cams????? Anything else, or is any of that wrong?

Thanks again!!

My 23 has a performance vtwin cam and hi rev kit 1.5 roller rockers ported and decked heads with a 35 carb and stock pipe with. 12.25 x10 prop it is on a 1542 and runs 25 mph which is faster than my friends 1754 gatortrax with a stock 35 when loaded equal hope this helps

Thanks NHyde! Any idea how it ran on your boat before the mods? Did you do the work yourself?

My boat ran 20 with just me with the engine stock with a 11x10 prop when you put 3 or 4 people in it. It would only run 15. On a good day. And yes I did the work myself they are very simple engines to work on.

Cam, carb, heads decked...30mph.

I am a little perplexed about the rev kit. Have any of you removed the governor and do any of you even run over 4100 rpm? On my run yesterday my max alone with nothing in the boat was 4050 rpm. Is a rev kit even helpful if you can't turn over 4100? I don't have any real mods yet but I suppose my rpms would go up some once I have some.
Cams and roller rockers are still the same as magic to me. I wish there was some kind of power curve graph to compare cams or something. Where is the stock cam set to make the most power and the least vs the aftermarket cams?
While trying to understand rockers, I saw this post on an auto forum and thought it interesting:
"IMHO much more HP is possible with stock rocker leverage (which has less pressure on the fulcrum) and using a higher lift camshaft built for your own needs, as against a higher ratio rocker which is only just a cheap cam mod opening all valves a bit more and a bit quicker, changing the cam timing is a better way to more HP."
If you change the cam to gain more power at the bottom, do you lose at the top end or ???

I did all my own work. Ran 4600 rpms and was all over the rev limiter with a big blade. Speed gains were good but it really shined with a load.

I bet Clickster would either sell you his mods, or the whole setup.

Do you guys recommend aftermarket performance valve springs like the Iskenderian ones from cartpartsplus or is this only useful if you go to an aftermarket cam? Is this something that is replaced if you get head work done?

Also, a guy on another forum stated " Their rev kit is for a certain class of racing where you can't change the valve springs, so Performance V Twins offers the fat aluminum pushrods, valve spring SHIMS(no springs), strong spring retainers, and an offset flywheel key that advances the ignition timing. It's an OK deal, but was going to cost about $112 shipped. "

So, what is better, rev kit, performance valve springs, or some combination of the two?

Thanks to the EPA, my engine kills coming off idle most of the time if I throttle up normally (it does not if I accelerate slowly). Apparently most people turn up the idle speed to mask it, but I find idling very fast through flooded timber in dark/fog troublesome so my carb is going to EC Carbs to get re-jetted at some point, but for some short term help, I drilled out the caps over the adjustment screws. Unfortunately, they no longer mark which screws are which. I am not totally ignorant (I have rebuilt and tuned dual Mikuni carbs before), but this one is definitely different from the other Briggs carbs I have seen. I am guessing A (see attached pic) is the idle speed screw. Are B and C both idle mixture screws (one for each barrel)? I take it there is no high speed mixture screw? I don't see any others anywhere... Now that those annoying caps are off i am going to turn them out half a turn and report back after testing.

Google parsons racing and check out the two barrel 23 carb that retains the stock air box....problem solved.

After drilling out the plugs and turning my adjustment screws out 1/2 turn, I went riding and found that the hesitation was still there but at least it no longer kills, which IMO is a big improvement. I guess I still need to send it to EC Carb's. I would take it apart and rejet, but I read somewhere that they don't even have replaceable mainjets any more.

As far as Googling Parson's Racing goes, I found nothing except some Honda parts.

You did the hard part. Now just mill and open your air intake and open up the carb. Mine works awesome. Zero hesitation all power, does not turn off.
Spent several hours running and adjusting the idle jets and bending the spring tabs. Got it perfect.

The only problem is that I just purchased a new boat so I am upgrading to a 35.

I am surprised. You did not have to re-jet the carb to get rid of the hesitation? I would have thought adding more air to the mixture would make the problem worse rather than better.

So on the intake it looks like you milled off part of that lip opposite from the butterflies? What did you mill off of the carb?. I don't have anything except a die grinder at present although I have been looking at a Grizzly G0704 mill this week. What did you use?

THX!