Hi guys, I hope someone can help me. I have a 25 kohler mud buddy on a 15'6" landau. The boat has a higher transom, not for a short shaft motor, so I heard this might be a problem that can be fixed. The guy who had it before me put about a 2" tab on the back plate and had it bent up, but It will not stay down on full throttle and I am constantly fighting with it. Should I put a longer tab on and try to bend it up farther away from the prop? Should this motor be easy to handle? Hell, I have stood up on my seat just to get more leverage for it to dig deeper. Or is it suppose to run shallow? It seems if it runs shallow in the trough it makes when moving I am hardly going anywhere. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Paul.

yeaa you need a short transom!

so I'm assuming here that you're running a short transom motor on a long transom boat...Yep...this is a problem..if it was the other way around, although not ideal, you could still run. I have a short transom boat that I run a long transom motor on. It's a 27 Kawi MB..I bought the handle for a short transom model, which really helped run the motor. I bent the cav tab straight which now keeps the prop in the water..I just added Beavertail pods and a 4" riser to the boat.....WOW...HUGE difference in the way the boat runs and jumps up on step...I turn 4150 rpm WOT out of water and 3270 rpm w/me (235lbs) at WOT in the water.. I haven't gps'd it yet but I'm hoping to run 15 to 17 under a load..
Good luck with your setup...you may need to get a motor that matches your transom height...or worst case scenario, cut the transom down to accomdate for the motor you currently run.

CBR, is the shaft suppose to be longer for the tall transom? If so how much longer? Worst case I can take the transom down 4". For now I just have not been running it at full throttle, and least it's not kicking the crap out of me. Thanks for the info. Paul.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4436

see this thread, I was asking the same questions you are, only my situation is a reversal of yours..

Hey, Thanks for the help, like I said it would not be the worst thing to cut transom, or I can go boy the longer shaft from mud buddy. Cheaper to cut back of boat (lol)

I'm starting to wonder why 20 inches cannot be the standard transom height, and all boat manufacturers and all MM makers can just make their shit to that. If I had a 16" transom, and I suddenly let go of the throttle, I know I would get water over the transom, I know all of you would too. What a retarded problem. I am fighting the dumb transom height on my motor as well, got a 16" motor on a 20" boat.

No shit; the last problem I had was just trying to find a decent used short shaft outboard motor for my last boat. Have you figured anything out on your boat that helps you? If I run 1/2 to 3/4 speed it does not kick the shit out of me that bad. I'm thinking of putting a longer tab on the back just to try it out, otherwise at the end of duck season I am going to cut my transom down 4". What is the cavitation plate considered? Is it the plate that sits above the whole top of prop? Can I tweek that at all?

I took my cavitation plate off (yeah it's the plate above the prop) and made a new, sleeker bracket with more angle, and I still had to bend an upwards angle on the back of the plate to get it to stay down. Welded it all back together, did some cutting to get it to stop grabbing grass like a rake, and took the skeg completely off, it steers no different without it. Get as much of the plate bent upwards as you can, not just a little trailing edge, I have about 2 inches of plate bent upwards.

Cavitation Plate 1.jpgCavitation Plate 2.jpg

[quote="DeathMetalDukk"]I took my cavitation plate off (yeah it's the plate above the prop) and made a new, sleeker bracket with more angle, and I still had to bend an upwards angle on the back of the plate to get it to stay down. Welded it all back together, did some cutting to get it to stop grabbing grass like a rake, and took the skeg completely off, it steers no different without it. Get as much of the plate bent upwards as you can, not just a little trailing edge, I have about 2 inches of plate bent upwards.

Looks like you cut some prop off too to gain a few RPMs

Lol, Scavenger saves money by not rounding the ends off I guess. It does push the boat though, my gps is broke but I'd say I'm getting around 17 or so with me and gas. And good to know about the skeg, it's all mushy here anyways, no stumps.