Vandalizer! Set up guidance

[LakeFever]

What a year. Boat projects going left and right and nothing running so I found a really well cared for 84 vandalizer with a 75 Merc hanging off it. Runs great, hits mid forties on the dash speedo for what that’s worth. It’s on the lowest mounted hole now and an aluminum prop probably what came with it new. It’s a two owner boat and doesn’t have a lot of use. I ran it all day and what a fun little rig I was quite impressed with how easy it is to get up on pad and that little 75 has some good legs. Spun to 5200 today, I believe the motor is also an 84. Brown stripes on the cover and it’s a four banger.

So what’s the ideal set up for this;

engine height?
set back?
prop suggestions?
jack plate or no?
Low water pick up worth doing?
foot throttle most likely going in


cant think of anything else to ask right now so any thoughts fire away. I tell ya my old cross flow would be wicked on this thing. The Merc pulls well up top but its a dog out of the hole and it stalls at idle often. Tune up coming immediately

[LakeFever]

Forgot to mention it porpoises a lot and I would like to reduce that as well if possible. As it’s currently set up the trim has to be pretty much all the way down to cruise without porpoising but it runs very wet there. Thoughts?

[LakeFever]

Not a lot of vandal fans I guess lol. I believe this 75hp lower is 15 spline which if it is I kind of lucked out because I have quite a few props for this. The smallest of which is a 21 laser 2 which I will try and I’m going to raise the motor up a hole to see if that helps with the porpoising and hole shot. This week sometime I will try this and see how it goes.

anyone know the lower unit gear ratio for these? I searched and searched but there’s not much info on the 4cyl 75hp mercs out there.

[Merc 2.5]

Look up ur motor on boats .net. mite b able find gear ratio. Sry dont know bout the boat tho

[Capt.Insane-o]

2.3:1 Those motors had issues with bore taper and get doggy at idle, only thing that cures that is boring and new slugs. They run pretty good when fresh. The laser should be in the ball park and you should be able to run it up a couple inches.

[LakeFever]

It runs good up top just doesn’t have a lot of snap off idle, when it does idle lol. I read an article about sloppy timing arms that I will look into to try and stabilize the idle. It’s a fun little rig and handles very well, better cornering hull than my Valero or v-king and even with the aluma prop there was zero cavitation cornering aggressively trimmed up a bit. I’ll play around with it and see how it goes

thanks for the suggestions

i also have a 23 laser if it spools the 21 up I’ll try it

[FlowMaxx]

I have had a Vandal since 1978 and it has seen regular and consistent use since new. 1. Get the motor up on the top hole. 2. Get a decent SS prop with a little cup in it. 3. For the porpoising, you just need to trim it down. Adding a planing plate to the cavitation plate helps a lot both to get on plane and for porpoising.

[LakeFever]

I’m going to raise it up a bit and toss the 21 pitch on it and go for the time being. Almost certainly going to repower it but so many options. Going to stay away from the V6 stuff I want my kids to be able to drive this thing and be able to water ski behind it and whatnot which this 75 doesn’t sound like it will do that job. Even a cross flow omc might be a bit too hairy plus those things are thirsty.

inline 6 Merc maybe? What do you think captain?

[LakeFever]

I’ve run the hull enough to be familiar with it now and I am hesitant to say that the vandal handles and drives quite a bit better than a v-king. I’ve had three now a Valero and two v-kings granted one is a project that I have yet to drive but this vandal is a really nice hull imo. You can’t even tell when it transitions onto the pad. There is no chine walk and no hairy handling it just starts to do the slight bow movement thing to let you know and thats it. Plus the cornering of the vandal is really quite good it’s not on rails or anything but it sure is a spirited cornering boat you can lean into it pretty good with the trim down and even trimmed up i had no cavitation with a cheap aluminum prop. All in all I’m very pleased with it aside from the motor being doggy down low and tapped out at 5200 rpm.


I also really miss my old cross flow. Aside from being thirsty it has been the most trusty and reliable motor I’ve ever owned by such a large margin so I bought another one. A 79 140 cross flow which I think will make this vandal a really nice little ski boat and still have plenty of snot for calm days and wot runs. Not sure what it’ll run but I would guess it’s going to hit 70 or so. Plenty fast for a 14’ boat. You do feel the smallness of the vandal and it is a little freaky if not for the superb handling which really calms the experience. Plan to add hydraulic steering, blinker trim, foot throttle, and bolt it straight to the transom no set back at all hoping for a really strong hole shot.


as for trim my old cross flow didn’t exactly have the fastest trim in the world. Any idea how to improve that with an omc? Also these motors have a 13 spline prop shaft so that really limits my options. Another SRX in my future I guess. Any other prop suggestions?

[Da Bull]

A 140hp Cross flow now you talking. I love Vandals and they can handle V-6 power as well.

[LakeFever]

Super fun hull. Blew my mind I was not expecting this level of refinement. So smooth! It hauls pretty good with the 75 but the 140 is gonna really scoot.

[LakeFever]

Swamped it!!! Damn wakeboard boats! We’ve discussed those here before and yesterday i found the limits of the little vandals swell limits. Avoid 3’ or larger the huge hard tipped 4’ wake board wake rolled right over the bow on the second roller when I was nose down and totally soaked us. It came over the windshield and through the gap it was the worst swamping I’ve had in 30 years. I was idling in gear doing my usual approach to such waves but too big for this little hull.

Other than that we had a great day out. The motor seems to be running much better even though I haven’t tuned it up yet it’s idling better and running a couple mph harder than previous runs. I have started to find the sweet spots with porpoise and trim it just wants to run a little faster at cruise than other boats I’ve driven. It likes to cruise around 35mph. Any slower than 30 and it wants to porpoise or I have to trim it right down and it runs very wet there and slow. Haven’t raised the motor yet I’m sure this will solve most of it.

[Da Bull]

And my guess is that the wake board boat didn`t come back and check to ass if ya`ll were ok. I`ll be so happy when this wake boarding/surfing fade dies. It`s obvious that our state governments will never set laws to restrict these boats to large lakes and keep them out of the rivers where we can`t get away from them.

[LakeFever]

He looked kinda worried and didn’t say a word. It was a freaky incident because the water caused a nose down condition as it was pouring over the deck and bow forcing the boat to take on more water. Fortunately I blipped the gas enough to level it out and use the motion to roll over the third wave it was the middle of three that caught the nose. It was also lucky that this was at the end of the day heading back to launch so it didn’t ruin the entire day either. I’ll pay extra attention in the future and avoid wakes. In the calm water this boat is easy to drive fast, real easy. Like it a lot

[LakeFever]

I bought a 24p raker in 13spline for the V4. It'll be a good start I think. Probably going to leave the motor stock for starters and see how it goes performance wise. Im thinking its still going to scoot pretty dog gone good with a stock 140 on there. I'm on the fence about a lwp or not. IIRC the inline 6 lwp cone is the best fit