I/O power

Ok, first off, I'm looking to buy a boat but I'm on a tight budget. I want to go with an I/O because the boat will be used mostly for wakeboarding but some time will be spent in places where a ski boat wouldn't do, also the cost factor. I have two running boats close to me that seem to be pretty good deals, but both of them are pretty low on power. One has a 120hp OMC and the other has a 140hp volvo penta, is this enough power to pull a rider with a bit of weight? I would really like to be able to add at least a few hundred pounds to get the wake up some. Would I have enough power if I added a low pitch 4 or 5 blade prop?

.....that wont be a problem.....in my old 17.5 crestliner we have a 90hp yamaha. We had 700 fat sac in the rear and 500 in the front and 5 to 6 people. I had an 11 pitch prop down from the original 19. the boat at wot would top out at 24mph with that weight. It could hold 18 to 24 without fumbling with the throttle. The only thing is that when empty you couldnt go faster than 24 or it would over rev....but we wakeboard so that never bothered us. We did this for many years like this.

120 is really light to get you started.

thanks for the replies...
11 pitch is pretty low, I was thinking like 15-17, what kind of top speed would I get out of that? enough pull? topping out at 24 doesn't sound very cool. I guess it's ok if it takes a few seconds to get a rider up, as long as it not to much on the engine....

I have a 135hp and I can pull two adult wakeboarders at a time.

...I mean the 11 pitch was in my application and I did work my way down to it always trying to get more
out of the boat. The 90 is 15 years old now and never been serviced only changed spark plugs and gear oil...but it is a two stroke. def. go with the largest horsepower you can get....then experiment with the prop...what you said sounds good......but I doubt it will be your only prop....your gonna push and see what you can get away with just like us....its kind of addictive to see what you can get out of a smaller boat with the right prop.

..my boat would still go over 30mph with those props on it.....but like I said after a while wakeboarding will be whats important.

...oh and the guys that ride with me are your age and younger and they think the boat is real cool as it is so tweaked for boarding....they have i/o with 140 and 190 but arent tweaked and thus useless for boarding with lots of additional weight


(Message edited by absoluteboarder on October 30, 2007)

Yeah I get what your saying...
do you think the 140 would be MUCH better than the 120? would I feel the difference? the 120 is quite a bit cheaper.

.....lets put it this way ......one can always use more power even when you have 325.......but at your age and budget you can make the 120 work ......what length is the boat by the way and fiberglass i presume?.....save the extra money for stuff as you need it. what make are each boat that may also come into the equation.

120hp
http://www.used-boats.net/zBoat70.html

140hp
http://www.used-boats.net/zBoat69.html

I'm fairly confident I can talk them down at least some, probably more on the 120hp, it being in a bit worse shape. I can get cheap seats, but they still cost so I suppose that should be factored in a bit, but its not really a big deal.

(Message edited by legalize420 on October 30, 2007)

here is a pic of my old boat.....and of randy jumping (he is 19) so as you can see you can have fun with nothing.

ok cool, so even if I cant squeeze out the extra $ for the extra hp, I can still have plenty of fun.
thanks man

.....well the galaxy looks like the better boat all around....plus it has the open bow so you can easily put a fat sac in the bow and still sit up there...which we often did to get the boat to plane out better. I think the other boat would cost more in the end.I would go for the galaxy but offer 1800 and when he says no say 2000 thats all you can do and then walk away if he says no. Call him again at the end of november and try 2000 again.....you should def. bargain maybe have an older person do it for you if you dont feel comfortable doing that yet. But the boat can def . be had for less.

these boats are old....can you test drive them? ....thats very important here I think.

(Message edited by absoluteboarder on October 30, 2007)

i wouldnt do either one. there just going to give you problems. unless you are a mechanic. the omc im sure is going to need gears in the outdrive. if they can do just the gears it going to be 1k easy and if something breaks witch probally will they price goes up from there. and on the volvo one. thoes motors were not good from the start. if anything is wrong with it. a shop is just gunna tell you to cut your losses and dump it. i dont want to be the negitive one but either one of thoes boats are not worth the trouble of buyin. save your pennys and if your stuck on a stern drive get something from mercruiser or something 86 and up omc just my .02

Had an IO, ended up putting 7k into, 4k just for engine outdrive stuff, then it the outdrive went, and we said f it. (we got ripped off once, yes) Save up and get a DD. I was in your shoes two years ago, and would have save a lot of $ if I would have went to an ol ski boat of sorts... you can pick up old supras, mcs, nautiques for 4 to 5k, especially while its cold. And yes omc doesnt exist anymore they were bought out or something by mercruiser. Have put on 40hours of no problems on the malibu, and we had problems every two hours with the other boat, seriously.

......judging from my experience with a two stroke outboard....it is a pretty safe type of engine to buy used...not a lot of moving parts ...so not much goes wrong with them. That might be an option if you cant wait.......I think even a ski boat will cost you more maintenance money etc...the outboard cost me 10 bucks in gear oil a year and some spark plugs....and thats it for 15 years....no fogging nothing....still runs like a champ.

Am I lost, IO or OUTBOARD? lol...inboard is the way to go, $24 for an impeller, and nothing else if you want the thing to rot. fog what?

.....oh yeah you guys live south there....keep forgetting that. Just throwing things out there...he does have a pretty low budget.

(Message edited by absoluteboarder on October 31, 2007)

I have an I/O and back up pretty much everything Rodney said due to the age. IB/V drive, contrary to popular belief, is NOT the only kind of boat on the market. You could easily need a trans for an older IB also. There are alot of moving parts in an outdrive so the older you get the more you can expect to spend, if something goes wrong. The part that breaks isnt necessarily expensive but the time it takes a mechanic to get to it and replace it is what costs so much and the tools arent cheap if you want to do it yourself. I think so many like Jason are turned off to I/O's due to what happened to him. I bought new in 2001 and I'm still not ready to get rid of it and "STEP UP" to a real wakeboard boat. Dont let the low initial cost decieve you or cloud your judgement to what it could cost the first time it breaks. The 79 has trim tabs which means it is hard to get on plane to begin with. Outboards are actually a great starter boat since you can find reasonable low horsepower (around 115 hp) motors if yours is broke beyond reasonable reapir. They have less parts then and deal with corrosion better then both I/O's and IB/V dives. This is all based on a very limited budget otherwise I'd be recommending a cheap D drive and tell you to stay away from the areas it cant go.

Is that a Stringer drive on the 120HP? Even if it's not, I wouldn't touch an OMC outdrive in this day and age. They're hard to find parts for since OMC is no longer in the business of making I/Os. Good luck finding the rubber boot if it goes bad.

To be honest, if you're looking at that old a boat, I'd go with an outboard. But if you're choosing between those two, do yourself a favor and get the Volvo. It's not a cakewalk to find parts for but at least they exist and mechanics still exist who understand the drive.

get the volvo!!!

We use to have an OMC I/O, and it was nothing but problems. The gears kept stripping out. I would get the volvo, but I am biased.

I'd say to stay away from the both of them and try to find yourself a Mercury powered boat. You are a lot more likely to find someone that can work on it and you won't know how much it sucks not being able to find a part for the other two that you have mentioned above until your boat is simply out of order because you can't find the parts you need to get it running.