Land & Sea Auto-Pitch Prop

[Sweet-N-Low]

Looking for some input of the Land & Sea Auto-Pitch Prop.
Here is my current set up

25' Avenger
Currently a Mercruiser 350 sb 250hp. "Underpowered"
Bravo I drive.
SS 19 pitch prop. "Under proped" 50mph @ 6000 rpm.

[Rusrog]

almost exactly what the Torque-Shift Prop was designed for...

Non surfacing, non high RPM, heavy load situations. I have set up several of these props on boats such as yours and they work great. Give it a shot and I think you will really like it.

Russ Rogers
Ft Worth TX

[Rickracer]

...but there are enough used ones floating around you should be able to pick one up for less than half of L&S's price, and parts are still available. :cool:

[Sweet-N-Low]

Where do you find used ones?

[Rickracer]

I'm sure one will turn up. :cool:

[woody]

Hey Sweet-N-Low !
I have one , like new cond. 14/32 solid hub $650.00 cdn. also have a 14/26 that needs a syn. ring , have a spare blade and some extra parts . 1000.00 cdn. for all

[Rickracer]

Ain't S&F great?:D $650 Canadian is like $400 USD right?:cool:

[Boz]

or anyone else, any idea if these would do well on an HST; looking for something w/ grunt to yank me up skiing. Have a High Five 25" but i've always wanted to try a torque shift. I also run a 29 round eared (14 1/4)

[Rickracer]

You DO NOT want to surface a Torque shift prop. They will pretty much self destruct when faced with surfacing conditions. :eek:

[Capt.Insane-o]

I ran one on a viper/hopped up 175 at like 9 inches of transom height. That was the most wicked accelration I've ever experienced in a boat. I't held fine up that high, good blades, terrible hub. Split'er wide open. But JEEEEEEZUS did it go!!!!!!!!!:eek: :eek: :eek:

[Sweet-N-Low]

So would this prop be a good investment for me?
I bought this boat to be on the water and running until my Jet Boat is completed and running. So until then, im not going to be putting massive amounts of power to it and keep this boat running or my wife will kill me.

attached is the boat im wanting to run this prop on.

[woody]

The torque/shift can not surface . If you run it too high it will over shift , the blades will come out past the pitch limit stops.
Not even a OMC can turn one when it overshifts.:D

[Sweet-N-Low]

So i should be good as long as im not jumping 6' to 8' swells :)

[Techno]

The 2 flavors were 14-32 and 11-26. They shift using a cam, change the cam and the engine winds up to that chosen RPM and stays there.
The blades operate by centrifigal force, they move outward. As the move outward the cam, shaped like a wedge allows the blade rotation at the selected cams rate. As they move out they also spin.
It's all in the cam you select. An 11" prop will perform that much better than your present 19" prop, think of that way. How would your boat run with a 11" pitch?

I used the 32" one and replaced the set screw limit screws with longer ones this stopped the blades around 26" also the prop was big for my inline and the anode had to be ground for clearance.

What it did for my first boat was put it on plane in 2.2 seconds whether I had it trimmed for speed or trimmed in for no bow rise, made no difference. About 30-40 feet. 140 inline. A regular 26" prop took maybe 50'?

[racer]

If you have a stock engine check the tack as it would be floating the valves at 6k and well past the rev limiter

[Carter Powell]

Find an AeroStar Prop! I have found two this year on e-bay. This is the FINEST PROP of its type in the world.
You can surface this prop forever and it will it will outlast your boat!
There are many blade configurations to choose from. New they are about $1,600 Their website is www.aerostarmarine.com
If you want a variable pitch prop this is the ONLY way to go, You will NOT break it!

Best wishes, Carter Powell

[Markus]

I know that quality is supposed to have improved, but anyway:

Many years ago, a friend of mine imported these propellers to Sweden. According to Swedish law, you have to warrant what you sell for 2 years. Of course, L&S did not give him any warranty on what they sold to him.

Well, those props did not last for very long and he almost went broke giving new propellers to his customers.

They were a lot of fun, though, he said.

[Sweet-N-Low]

Racer, unfortunately the tach is correct. I'm not floating the valves though. I do not run stock engines at these rpm's normally. I only maxed it out in order to get my max speed and rpm to help me try and calculate what prop i need to run.

A bit more history on this boat
The boat is a 1999 and was custom built in Miami Fl some where and is called and Avenger. I purchased it about 2 months ago and am the 1st owner to title. Why some one would put a SB in a 25' boat built for speed has just stumped me. But i did purchase the boat at a real reasonable price cause of it.

I have a bran new Weiand Pro-Marine supercharger 177 I thought about stuffing on the 350, But after pulling all the specs on the engine I am afraid it will not handle the boost. "2-Bolt main and all cast parts". I'm not wanting to spend the money to convert to a BB as of yet until my other boat is completed. Finding a Torq prop was an idea to get a decent hole shot and better top end.

[O/B Dude]

The L&S prop will work on your boat. You can tune it to shift were you need it to. Everything I have read is that they are junk. What Carter Powell said about the Aerostar Switchblade is right on. Much stronger than the L&S junk. I swear, I have never liked anything L&S sells.

As for the blower, that should work fine too as long as you have 8.5-1 compression or less and you keep the boost to 5lbs. Since it has a bravo drive it shouldnt start grenading gear cases either. If the motor is not tired, bolt that sucker on.

[captcarb]

I have been playing with a torque shift for about 10 years now.

My conclusion is that it is not a good everyday prop, but it does perform well for water skiing. It has stainless blades, an aluminum hub and a plastic ring that controlls pitch. (Just so you know what you are getting into.)

The installation manual clearly states that the prop shaft rpm should not exceed 3500 rpm to prevent a failure from centrifugal force loads. This is about 5200 engine rpm with a 1.5 ratio I/O and about 6500 rpm with a 1.87 outboard. If you exceed these numbers it will probably fail, regardless of whether it is surfaced or not. For prolonged running they say no more than 3000 prop shaft rpm, which would be 4500 with a 1.5 I/O. Your Bravo may not be 1.5, it sounds like it is not.

It will jam the cams when it gets sand in them which can sometimes be cleared by shifting back and forth from forward to reverse. When running slow, one blade will sometime stick at a different pitch than the others and cause a vibration. This was reported in some of the initial tests and mine seems to do that more when installed on an I/O, than when installed on an outboard for some reason.

The 11 to 26 would be the choice for your boat and at an initial 11 inch pitch the hole shot will improve dramatically. As you pick up speed the prop will shift up to prevent over revving.