I run a homemade mud motor that is surface piercing and tosses a crazy high rooster tail. I am wondering if I could gain anything by adding a cavitation plate and knocking the rooster tail down or could this possibly booger up performance?

Thoughts?

As far as perspective, the boat is 18' long, my guess is the rooster tail is double the length of the boat.

What hp motor and how fast are you going?

25 Kohler, running 23 mph solo.

That's an interesting lookin motor.. Your the one that runs that wood boat with the long tail mounted to a custom huntdeck, right?

Yes, homemade boat and I took the 25 Kohler off my MB longtail to power this short tail.

This style mud motor has been around a long time before the surface drive but in smaller horsepower. It is more difficult to drive but it gets me into, and more importantly out of, more places than any other mud motor.

A cav plate will make it easier to drive, but gains will be minimal.

also things to consider is in mud, you will not be able to dig as deep with the cav plate on the end.

Cavitation plate helped me a ton when I had a 23. I could get up faster in shallow water than one without it. That should be about the only gain. It effects nothing when running in deep water.


Sent from my beeper

This is a surface running motor so I don't ever really dig in the mud. I run a triple cupped wheel and it'll push pretty good when I run out of water. I just wondered if there was any benefit to having a cav plate to channel that rooster tail back down to into the prop. I guess there isn't since it runs the same in deep water or shallow.

I've had some PM's about this motor. FYI, there isn't a tilt n trim on this setup either, my leg / knee is the tilt n trim. You'll never see this type of motor marketed to the public, too difficult for the average person to drive and the boat has to have a hunt deck to mount the motor.

A cavitation plate will only help you when the entire prop is submerged. A surface piercing prop is designed to run with the water line at approximately the centerline of the prop. To reduce the rooster, you would need to trim down and/or flatten the drive angle out by extending the length of the shaft. If you are getting 23 mph, you are not doing too bad.