[Crawl79]

Since early summer I have been looking into purchasing a bigger and newer used bay boat to replace my Mako 1901 which had a 2005 Suzuki 115hp 4 stroke engine.
I had decided that I wanted a 2201 Mako or a blazer bay 2220 because I like both hulls and they were within my budget. I was being patient as my boat has been great to us over the years. We have put lots of fish in the boat both fishing inshore and at the short rigs along the coast without any issues. We just felt we needed a bigger engine to get on plane and get her going for those days when a bigger engine might be needed and a couple more feet of boat wouldn't hurt either.

During that time my buddy GasperMaster came across a really good deal on an H20B Xpress which had a 2011 150hp Yamaha 2 stroke installed. After talking it over with my buddy we thought we could be happy fishing in my boat for a few more years if we had a bigger engine. I made an offer and picked up the second boat for a great price. (We will be selling the 2011 Xpress with the 115 Suzuki)

Over the last few weeks we have learned allot about complete engine installs from the motor placement, gauges, hydraulic steering and more We also added a 5" extension to the Yamaha which was a 20" shaft. GasperMaster is very mechanically inclined but neither of us had done..... much more than change oil and water pumps on our engines. Besides the research, sweat and time we learned that it wasn't a project we could not do again and we saved a ton of money in the process and know that we did a good job doing this project ourself.

We still have a few things to work on as it is still a boat and always have something to do but after testing the Mako out on Saturday and Sunday we are ready to paint the shaft extension and take her back out on the salt where she belongs to catch some fish. Also, it didn't hurt that I finally bought a new dual axle trailer to replace the rusted out galzanized plated trailer that came with the Mako.

The engine numbers surpassed our expectations. We went from cruising speed of 28mph and max speed of 36mph to a cruise of about 36-38 and max speed of 48mph.


Power pole was also installed during this process and new leaning post on the way to replace the ice chest seat. Next small project will probably be to flush mount install my HDX-7.