Thanks,I am seriously considering the Tohatsu. I will look into the prop issue. -----Original Message----- From: montgomery_boats-admin@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:montgomery_boats-admin@mailman.xmission.com]On Behalf Of htmills@bright.net Sent: Friday, July 10, 2893 6:44 PM To: >Mboats< Subject: Re: M_Boats: Great News and a Question Congratulations, Irv! I'm sure 4 hp enough, the question is how well the outboard transfers the power to the water. That depends on whether the gearing and the propellor were designed for pushing a heavy load slowly or a light load fast. I tried opening the Tohatsu web page but, as with more and more web pages, my old windows 3.1 computer crashes. You might compare the specifications between the propellors. When I bought my Honda a couple years ago, there were two different props for it: 7 7/8 x 7 1/2 and 7 7/8 x 6 3/4. (Diameter x Pitch). The 7 1/2 pitch prop was standard. With it, the engine rpm maxed out at about half-throttle. I bought the 6 3/4 pitch prop after a year and with it the rpm's max out at about 3/4 throttle, so the 6 3/4 pitch prop is a better match between the engine and the load it's pushing and more engine power is being transmitted to the water. That doesn't translate into a particularly noticable increase in speed since resistance goes up quickly in relation to speed, but it does mean that the boat will be able to power against a stronger headwind. An even lower pitch of, say, 6 1/2 or maybe 6 1/4 for the Honda would have been better but those weren't choices. With the high-dollar bigger bronze props the pitch can be adjusted some but I don't think anything can be done with these little ones. Other desirable features for our application (high load, low speed) is blade diameter (bigger is better) and blade area (again, bigger is better). The latter you likely won't find in the literature, but the diameter should be easy to learn. Another thing is the engine torque characteristics. In our application, an engine which develops more torque at lower rpms will probably be better than one which develops it at higher rpms. I believe the Honda 5 is pretty good in that regard, based on a review I read. In summary, for our application, a large diameter prop with lots of blade area that turns relatively slower is better than a small prop that turns faster. Gee, this sounds like a British Seagull! Aside from those technical aspects, other things to consider are: Is there a dealer nearby for the engine? One of Honda's disadvantages is that their dealer network is not as extensive as some of the others. That may not be an issue for you. Happy decision making, Tod Mills M17 #408 "BuscaBrisas" _______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats