I have a excel dealer within close proximity to where I live and was wanting opinions on their f4 as to whether it will hold up in the stumps and running muddy rivers

Get a custom, thank me later

No is the short answer.

Excel boats are made at the same place as they make my Natty light cans....

I love my Excel, but if I knew what I knew now, it would be a custom built to my specs. Hit up Chad at Prodigy.

Prodigy

Im a dealer so take this for what its worth. We have been selling Excels for 3 years now and have never had one come back. For any reason. I Don't know what kind of conditions you are using one for but my customers use them duck hunting in Arkansas timber. No real mud here so cant speak for that part. But as for jumping logs, stumps, roads, ect, we love them and can keep them in stock. I Have heard a bunch a bad about them but have never seen it and we cant keep them in stock. So in short from our experience hunting in Arkansas timber, they are excellent. Just my opinion. Im sure someone will get on here and call out that my opinion is biased. But truth is, our customers love them and we sell out of them, and we have never had one come back.

Have had both a 2007 and 2010 Excel 5052AL 0.125. The front/rake portion of the Excel is extremely well braced and takes impacts very well, Tim Scott called it the 'Impact Area' and has short pieces of stringer and cross bracing - and it doesn't hook. However when running stumps, the whole bottom is the 'impact area' and the rear bracing near the transom/hunt deck (where hooks affect motor performance the most) was not braced as well as I would like. After 3 years on both boats I flipped them and filled the hooks on the bottom with Steel Flex and its fine now. I believe they have changed their F4 bracing at the false transom so it doesn't come all the way to the bottom and give you a double hook point like the original hulls like mine. Its a tough boat and works well for me once I expoxied the bottom.

People are saying get a custom hull on this thread, but I will be more specific. With a custom hull, you want to specify the most stringers that can be installed in the boat for running stumps. The area between the stringers will flex when taking impacts and the closer they are together, the less deflection. I have a buddy that's been running 5086 custom boats in Cypress for years. With standard bracing they all hooked up badly (although with the longitudal stringers the hooks don't affect performance as much). When he ordered his newest boat he had them put 8 stringers in a 44" wide boat and the bottom is night and day vs. his old hulls- very little deflection between the tightly packed stringers. At a minimum get 5086 and 0.125, you can go thicker AL but closely packed stringers will have the most affect against hooks over the life of the boat.

Hope this helps.

Had an Excel on a stumpy lake. It had .100 ga material. It lasted 2 seasons and started hooking really bad. They might be ok for light duty but if your going to run a boat in the stumps or thick timber, do yourself a huge favor and just get a custom with a 3/16 good alloy hull. I did and have not had one single problem now in 3 years.

Oh and they dig down in the rear with such a shal loo w hunt deck. And X2 on heavy, a 1751 f4 bare hull is almost twice as heavy as my 1750 with a full 12 gal of gas, all the ones I have seen in the water look like they are plowing real bad.

If they are so good why is FREDDY KING beating the hell out of it with a sledgehammer in his thrash it crash it trash it VIDEO!!! Just Curious here?

Id go Custom ALl the way and probably buy a GD before that excel video sold me

The last excel that was at my house, the motor was about to fall off the transom.

Whoa, not that crazy! Must be a setx thing.............

Well I took a wild guess when i seen the vid. and fig he hit a tree..Just thought to myself here how they are advertising it to be tough and he was beating the hell out of it! they don't show that part where he hit a tree lol! I probably would have been sold if i seen the CRASH!!

Check it out http://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=_Q81d72pqvs