• Welcome to Jetboaters.net!

    We are delighted you have found your way to the best Jet Boaters Forum on the internet! Please consider Signing Up so that you can enjoy all the features and offers on the forum. We have members with boats from all the major manufacturers including Yamaha, Seadoo, Scarab and Chaparral. We don't email you SPAM, and the site is totally non-commercial. So what's to lose? IT IS FREE!

    Membership allows you to ask questions (no matter how mundane), meet up with other jet boaters, see full images (not just thumbnails), browse the member map and qualifies you for members only discounts offered by vendors who run specials for our members only! (It also gets rid of this banner!)

    free hit counter
  • Guest, we are pleased to announce that Hydrophase Ridesteady is offering an extra $100 off for JETBOATERS.NET members on any Ridesteady for Yamaha Speed Control system purchased through March 7th, 2025. Ridesteady is a speed control system (“cruise control”) that uses GPS satellites or engine RPM to keep your boat at the set speed you choose. On twin engine boats, it will also automatically synchronize your engines.

    Click Here for more information>Ride Steady group buy for JetBoaters.net members only

    You can dismiss this Notice by clicking the "X" in the upper right>>>>>

Is the dealer an idiot or am I?

chrisinslc

Jet Boat Lover
Messages
118
Reaction score
50
Points
67
Location
Salt Lake City, UT
Boat Make
Yamaha
Year
2018
Boat Model
AR
Boat Length
19
After last season I had the dealer put a high altitude impeller in my 2018 AR190. I bought the boat late in the season so I only put 4 hours on it so that is all I am basing this on. I was hitting around 7,000-7,100 RPM and a top speed of 30-32 mph at a lake elevation of 4200'. I just took the boat out for the first time last night and I am now getting 6900 RPM and a top speed of 26-27 mph at same lake. I called the dealer and they first asked if I dewinterized the boat. I was under the impression you start things up in the driveway and go boating. Next he said I should change the spark plugs. The boat has 5 hours on it. Does this sound correct?
 
After last season I had the dealer put a high altitude impeller in my 2018 AR190. I bought the boat late in the season so I only put 4 hours on it so that is all I am basing this on. I was hitting around 7,000-7,100 RPM and a top speed of 30-32 mph at a lake elevation of 4200'. I just took the boat out for the first time last night and I am now getting 6900 RPM and a top speed of 26-27 mph at same lake. I called the dealer and they first asked if I dewinterized the boat. I was under the impression you start things up in the driveway and go boating. Next he said I should change the spark plugs. The boat has 5 hours on it. Does this sound correct?
You are correct about dewinterization as all you do for these boats is flush out the water, top off the tank and some fog the engine. After 10-15 minutes any additional oil added during the fogging process would have burned off. A high elevation prop is repitched in order to increase RPMs so something is off with the impeller that was installed.
 
Did you run the new impeller at all last year?
 
Was it a repitch or a new (different) impeller?

EDIT:
Those will often take some finagling to dial the pitch, may need to pull it out and adjust the pitch a couple of times. Impros used to do this for free (for the price of shipping) - pull it and send back, test, repeat.

--
 
Was it a repitch or a new (different) impeller?

EDIT:
Those will often take some finagling to dial the pitch, may need to pull it out and adjust the pitch a couple of times. Impros used to do this for free (for the price of shipping) - pull it and send back, test, repeat.

--
repitch from yamaha under warranty
 
Do these look ok to everyone?
 

Attachments

  • 20190420_103820.jpg
    20190420_103820.jpg
    533.2 KB · Views: 40
  • 20190420_103848.jpg
    20190420_103848.jpg
    489.8 KB · Views: 57
Do these look ok to everyone?
They look good maybe a little rich which I would expect if your unable to get your RPMs up to burn off the excess. EDIT: It’s nothing to be worried about at all. Being that it’s still pretty low hours, I would just clean and reinstall.
 
Last edited:
how long was the boat sitting ? often the fuel gets weak from sitting over the winter especially if you did not add Stabil or a good fuel treatment before putting the boat up
 
Since last October, dealer winterized it. I added fresh fuel before we left. I added about 3/4 of a tank of fresh fuel.
 
I would burn that tank of gas as low as you safely can and refill again with fresh gas see if it helps at all. I had a motorcycle with old gas and it back fired a lot ran it down to about a 1/4 tank and refilled but it still did it. Ran all most all that gas out refilled and than no back fires. I was surprised the stale gas corrupted so much new gas
 
Do these marks look correct? I don't know what this housing is supposed to look like. It looks to me the impeller blades are coming in contact with the housing? That could be why my RPM's are low?
 

Attachments

  • impeller housing.jpg
    impeller housing.jpg
    843.9 KB · Views: 36
Do these marks look correct? I don't know what this housing is supposed to look like. It looks to me the impeller blades are coming in contact with the housing? That could be why my RPM's are low?
You should be able to turn the impeller by hand, can you?
 
Based on the original post, it looks like RPM is down 100 from last fall and MPH is down 5-7ish. Here's a couple of random thoughts in random order from someone who boats up at 6200'. 100 rpm difference isn't really all that much much of a difference, I'd focus more on the speed difference. Although you're at the same lake, several things like wind, number of people in the boat, amount of fuel (essentially the weight in it) can affect top speed. A full tank of fuel of 30 gallons is just shy of 200lbs, or the difference of a little more than one adult. For example, on Lake Tahoe, I've literally held a steady course and RPM and I've seen my speed fluctuate by as much as 5MPH simply because the wind and resulting chop picked up.

As for fuel, if you left your tank mostly empty over the winter, there was a lot of exposed space for condensation to happen in the tank and the result is you could have some water in the tank. I'd recommend getting some Marine Sea-Bil and putting that in the tank now. Once you burn off about 1/2 a tank, refill and add the appropriate amount of Sea-Bil. Do that for the next few tanks and eventually the good fuel should overcome the bad fuel in the tank. Poor fuel could also be affecting the power it's developing as well.

To me, your plugs looked fine. I'd put them back in and then run it and see how it goes. There's a lot of debate about when to change plugs and some on here do it based on engine hours while others do it annually. I put about 65-80 hours on my boat per year so I'm in the annual camp. Although this may not necessarily be a requirement, in seven seasons, I haven't had down-time on the water because of bad plugs. I figure for the cost of a set of plugs, its cheap insurance to not have to spend time on the lake changing the plugs. I do carry spares...just in case though.

I'd give those few things a try and see if that helps her out and do some more testing, before going back to the dealer.
 
Based on the original post, it looks like RPM is down 100 from last fall and MPH is down 5-7ish. Here's a couple of random thoughts in random order from someone who boats up at 6200'. 100 rpm difference isn't really all that much much of a difference, I'd focus more on the speed difference. Although you're at the same lake, several things like wind, number of people in the boat, amount of fuel (essentially the weight in it) can affect top speed. A full tank of fuel of 30 gallons is just shy of 200lbs, or the difference of a little more than one adult. For example, on Lake Tahoe, I've literally held a steady course and RPM and I've seen my speed fluctuate by as much as 5MPH simply because the wind and resulting chop picked up.

As for fuel, if you left your tank mostly empty over the winter, there was a lot of exposed space for condensation to happen in the tank and the result is you could have some water in the tank. I'd recommend getting some Marine Sea-Bil and putting that in the tank now. Once you burn off about 1/2 a tank, refill and add the appropriate amount of Sea-Bil. Do that for the next few tanks and eventually the good fuel should overcome the bad fuel in the tank. Poor fuel could also be affecting the power it's developing as well.

To me, your plugs looked fine. I'd put them back in and then run it and see how it goes. There's a lot of debate about when to change plugs and some on here do it based on engine hours while others do it annually. I put about 65-80 hours on my boat per year so I'm in the annual camp. Although this may not necessarily be a requirement, in seven seasons, I haven't had down-time on the water because of bad plugs. I figure for the cost of a set of plugs, its cheap insurance to not have to spend time on the lake changing the plugs. I do carry spares...just in case though.

I'd give those few things a try and see if that helps her out and do some more testing, before going back to the dealer.
I would agree with you if I was using the same impeller as last year. But I had it repitched by yamaha for the high altitude.
 
That could be why my RPM's are low?
In a word, yes.
But hard to tell without disassembly/pulling the pump. You will not be able to rotate the impeller inside the wear ring (without having those disassembled completely), the shaft is literally coupled to the engine's camshaft. But you CAN check the clearance: see below.

If the repitching was done without adjusting the OD (outside diameter) than yes, the impelelr blades could be binding. The reason for that is - the trailing edge (towards the "cone") pitch would be lowered in your case (to help engine spin it faster at altitude/less power), so the blades would be pulled "in" effectively increasing their diameter.

Here are the specs, you could check the gap:
IMG_8570.JPG
 
Back
Top