Battery placement?

I have a question regarding battery placement. My tracker seems to be light in the bow or stern heavy. It has the 40 4 stroke motor, a 6.6 gal gas tank, and 2 batteries in the back. I was surprised when I could pick up the tongue of the trailer with 1 arm. It also seems to want to porpoise if I try to trim out the motor. Over the weekend I moved 1 battery to the front compartment for a test and I think it did better, but it started to storm and my test got cut short. What do most of you do with the weight distribution in these boats. Honestly, I thought the boat would do a little better in the waves than it does and I wonder if part of it is just being to light in the bow. I'm considering putting 2 batteries in the bow compartment along with my onboard charger which I have not installed yet. What do you guys think?

Thanks for any help,

Tom

Sounds like you may be alittle stern heavy.
Is your livewell in the bow?
It's probably a trial and error thing,seeing as you have a trim/tilt and it still wants to porpoise,probably needs alittle weight up front.

All of the weight is in the rear of my boat. My porpoise problems come when I add weight past about the center of the boat and try to go higher than approx. half trim.

So far as handling waves, what style hull do you have? A mod-V hull with an otherwise flat bottom will beat you to death in much of a chop.

Quackrstackr said:

All of the weight is in the rear of my boat. My porpoise problems come when I add weight past about the center of the boat and try to go higher than approx. half trim.

So far as handling waves, what style hull do you have? A mod-V hull with an otherwise flat bottom will beat you to death in much of a chop.

Click to expand...

Mine was better when i had the battery forward as far as porpoising goes in fact I think it was gone. I'm going to run up to the lake after work and try it tomorrow with 1 battery and 2 up front and see how it goes with my gps.

As far as I understand the grizzly is a mod-v hul but is otherwise flat bottom. Is the triton that you have different than this. By the way, awesome boat you have there. I love the camo on it.

TrackerTom said:

As far as I understand the grizzly is a mod-v hul but is otherwise flat bottom. Is the triton that you have different than this. By the way, awesome boat you have there. I love the camo on it.

Click to expand...

Thanks!

My hull is a bit different than the typical jon boat hull. It has a pad and stepped hull like you will find on a fiberglass bass boat so it runs completely differently on the water. The ride and performance is so much better than any other aluminum boat that I have had, it is pretty hard to believe.

That is a picture from Saturday morning of my daughter and I taking off. I wanted it taken when I got up on full plane but I blew by them so fast that she couldn't get the zoom on the lens focused in before I was already past. :lol: When up on full plane, the only spray that you will see from the boat itself will be about the last 12"-18". When I had a prop with a lot more cup and rake, there was even less than that in the water on full plane.

That's cool. Mine does well at most of the lakes, but at the big stuff, it does get rough.

What size motor do you have on yours and what kind of speed do you get out of it?

It has a 90 horse on it and it runs right at 50mph right now. If I played with the setup to raise the motor and got a prop with more pitch (which it really needs), it would be mid 50's probably.

I found for me that the best placement was all the way up in the bow. 2 reasons, kept the bow down much better and when i am fishing off the back i am not running into the battery and gas tank.

-Kassun

Well I went back to the lake after work today and did a little bit of testing. I ran it with 1 battery in front and then went and got another that I brought along in the back of my van and added it to the front. I think it rides the best with 2 in the front for trolling power and 1 starting battery in the back. I actually saw the best speed out of it that I have seen with 2 people while there were 2 batteries in the front. I did not get to test it by myself. I think it was a smoother ride and the trim seemed to work much better and without the porpoising. I saw 29.5 out of it on gps with 2 people where the best I had seen before was 28. I have seen 30 by myself so hopefully it will break into 31-32 by myself. I really want to put a turning point hustler prop on it, but I have to work on getting an expensive tach to work with the smartcraft so I can tell where I'm really at with the current prop first. It's no speedster, but it does pretty good. I'd really be thrilled if I can get it to 34-35 mph and have the ride smoothed out some at the same time. It seems that with the flat bottom in the back, keeping the nose more down so the mod-v can break through the waves helps when it's a bit rougher and trim it up a little but not too much when it's smoother.

I have had one of these for about 5 years. They work great. When engine is off, it displays time engine ran in running hours. When engine is running it is a tach. I find it to be very accurate. If you call them they will tell you exactly which one to get. I also orderd mine with an 18 foot long cable so that I could move it to a console if and when I install one. Less than $40. I have the 2008 60HP 4 stroke and installed this before i fired it up. I now have a grand total of 51 minutes run time. I am using this timing for proper break in recommended by Mercury.


https://www.tinytach.com/tinytach/index.php

dunk50 said:

I have had one of these for about 5 years. They work great. When engine is off, it displays time engine ran in running hours. When engine is running it is a tach. I find it to be very accurate. If you call them they will tell you exactly which one to get. I also orderd mine with an 18 foot long cable so that I could move it to a console if and when I install one. Less than $40. I have the 2008 60HP 4 stroke and installed this before i fired it up. I now have a grand total of 51 minutes run time. I am using this timing for proper break in recommended by Mercury.


https://www.tinytach.com/tinytach/index.php

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Wow, I didn't realize they had one that would work with the newer mercs. Is yours an efi. Mine is smartcraft enabled efi and I was under the impression that it was either a $180 analong gauge converter box or an expensive tach/monitor setup.

Tom

Those tiny tachs just wrap around a plug wire and sense the plug firing.

I had just went and checked them out. Definitely an inexpensive alternative to find out how well my prop is working. I'm really wanting to order one of these, but business is slow at the moment so I'm trying not to spend too much after just buying the boat.

https://blogs.mercurymarine.com/messenger/wp-content/uploads/899883363MercMonitorSS.pdf

I've been playing with weight distribution and have finally decided that the more weight I put on the front of my boat the better it does. I took the deep cycle out of the back and installed 2 in the front and it made a big difference in the smoothness of the ride in rough water. It was a BIG difference. If you put a person up there temporarily it smooths out even more, but i'm out of things I need to mount up there. Oh, I did put my onboard charger up there too. The boat got much more enjoyable to use with the weight better distributed.

Tom

Quackrstackr said:

TrackerTom said:

As far as I understand the grizzly is a mod-v hul but is otherwise flat bottom. Is the triton that you have different than this. By the way, awesome boat you have there. I love the camo on it.

Click to expand...

Thanks!

My hull is a bit different than the typical jon boat hull. It has a pad and stepped hull like you will find on a fiberglass bass boat so it runs completely differently on the water. The ride and performance is so much better than any other aluminum boat that I have had, it is pretty hard to believe.

That is a picture from Saturday morning of my daughter and I taking off. I wanted it taken when I got up on full plane but I blew by them so fast that she couldn't get the zoom on the lens focused in before I was already past. :lol: When up on full plane, the only spray that you will see from the boat itself will be about the last 12"-18". When I had a prop with a lot more cup and rake, there was even less than that in the water on full plane.

Click to expand...

I'd love to have that Triton, which model is it?

pbw said:

I'd love to have that Triton, which model is it?

Click to expand...

It is a 170DS SC. The interior is a little bit different than what is shown on their website but not much. They have a pre-2008 model still shown on there.

TrackerTom said:

I have a question regarding battery placement. My tracker seems to be light in the bow or stern heavy. It has the 40 4 stroke motor, a 6.6 gal gas tank, and 2 batteries in the back. I was surprised when I could pick up the tongue of the trailer with 1 arm. It also seems to want to porpoise if I try to trim out the motor. Over the weekend I moved 1 battery to the front compartment for a test and I think it did better, but it started to storm and my test got cut short. What do most of you do with the weight distribution in these boats. Honestly, I thought the boat would do a little better in the waves than it does and I wonder if part of it is just being to light in the bow. I'm considering putting 2 batteries in the bow compartment along with my onboard charger which I have not installed yet. What do you guys think?

Thanks for any help,

Tom

Click to expand...

I have had 2 set ups that work the best for me.

1) Fuel tank in the rear, live wells in the center, and batteries in the bow

2) Fuel tank in the rear, batteries in the center, and live well just in front of the batteries.

These are the two set ups I have ran in a few different boats.They have worked good for me,but I rarely fish out of a boat with another person.

Well I got my 2 trolling batteries installed in the front compartment and installed the onboard charger finally. The starting battery is still in the back. The change to the weight distribution makes all the difference in ride quality. It is so much better now.

Tom

Any concern if the batteries are not level? In my jon, I am thinking of putting the batteries up front where the hull slopes. Do I need to put shelves in to level them? Or, can I just leave them aligned with the hull? The batteries are the kind you add water to, and they have caps on the cells so I don't really see a problem.

Ken

kglade said:

Any concern if the batteries are not level? In my jon, I am thinking of putting the batteries up front where the hull slopes. Do I need to put shelves in to level them? Or, can I just leave them aligned with the hull? The batteries are the kind you add water to, and they have caps on the cells so I don't really see a problem.

Ken

Click to expand...

I would keep the batteries as level as possible so the electrolite solution covers the plates.