I have a 27 horse long tail kawasaki mud buddy and i was thinking about ordering a fully adjustable surface tracer cavitation plate from Backwater mud motors for $130 its supposed to find and run on the surface of the water seen many videos of the backwater motors on youtube and they look like they do a good job and run more torward the surface than my mud buddy just want some opinions when i talked to backwater they also said they put this cavitaion plate on a beavertail and it made a world of a difference but of course there gonna say what they can to sell their products let me know what yall mud motor experts think!

I have the same engine, I would be curious to know if and when you do get this if you have any performance gains.
Good Luck.

i think im gonna get it before duck season go on youtube and watch the beavertail motors they do actually run on the surface a lot better than the others and the only thing i can think that would make it do that would be the cav. plate so i think i will be ordering this soon to go along with my new tiger prop

i have one of backwaters motors they do run great on the surface my buddy has a home built with the backwater cav.plate and it runs the surface close to were mine does seems alot nicer but thats just me

I heard the same thing about the plate and easier planing- I will look at the site, does this bolt on to the existing mud buddy cavitation plate? I have a 27 Kohler MB (2004) longtail. The existing "trim tab" works pretty well, though I always have to tinker with it, especially after changing props as each one behaves a little differently. Thanks for the info!

No you will have to cut your plate thats on there now off and you have to weld the new adapter up to your shaft and the cav plate just bolts to it and you use shims to adjust it from what i understand

Ok. Not as easy as I thought. I've done some rough welding in the past but could not trust myself to do this. Please let us know how it goes if you do proceed with that. The video and testimony to the easier planing design have me very interested.

I have the same problem with my mudbuddy... does your like to dig when you are heavy mud?? sometimes I think the handle is going to break.

I replaced the bolt under the plate with a longer one so it wouldn't go down so far. It would dig to china if it was longer! It can help too if you can't get your cav. plate adjusted that is if its to deep and not popping out of the water.
SS

Cav plate has nothing to do with it digging.

Well I run my backwater with the adjust screwed up actualy to far and i just let the motor do its job as it picks up speed the cav plate finds surface and thats it . the motor doesnt actual run on the ajustment knob other than a start point

I looked on the site and the drive system is described a a "triple sealed bearing system". Are these roller bearings like MB or sleeve bearings like GD? There is also not enough detail regarding greasing the shaft- are there coventional fittings on the drive tube? I also assume it should not be difficult to remove the U-joint cover to grease any fitting on the yoke? All in all, the tubular support design seems like an improvement and the weights are comparable to the other mfg. longtails. The props offered are a little cheaper than the competitors and I wonder how it might perform on my 27 MB? Keep us posted!

I have broke my handle in the mud from it digging, it dug so quick I couldnt back off and could not dig it out. Had a piece of pipe with me, had to take off the handle and hammer the pipe down the tubing and reattatch the handle to get home.

Ordered the backwater plate today should be on in a week or so i will post pictures and maybe a video if i can!