7 hours- Initial Thoughts on 2019 AR195

[swatski]

Do you still have to compensate a little on throttle to maintain speed?

You will always have to do that to maintain speed in a turn but your boat should do it effortlessly while towing!!

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[2kwik4u]

@swatski and @2kwik4u thanks for the explanations. Definitely makes sense and I feel better about going to it now. I will probably do it next summer. After the upgrade what are turns like while towing? Do you still have to compensate a little on throttle to maintain speed? Thanks again..

So the turns are, well, different. And I say that coming from an I/O that drives much like a car. So long as you don't break traction between the prop and the water, your turn will maintain speed for the most part in an I/O. The jet, not so much. It's not bad, it's just different and requires a different style/methodology for the same results.

I've adopted a style of "point and shoot" so to speak. I somewhat avoid gradual turns, and instead "square off" most of my turns......FOr instance, say I'm cruising along at 30mph (6,300rpm or so), and want to go right into a creek or cove, or just head to the other side of the lake. I'll start the turn and throttle up a bit to maintain speed, make the turn quickly (not abrupt so as not to upset passengers), straighten back out, and reduce throttle. The goal here is to maintain the speed I was at throughout the turn, again so that passengers don't really notice any change in feel. It's a change in technique for certain from driving an I/O or outboard setup. Most of my passengers don't even know I'm doing anything other than driving along.

I'm hoping to pickup RideSteady in the spring (or whenever they have the next sale honestly), and I'm really really curious to see how it handles the throttle for me when making a turn at speed. I suspect it will do something very similar to what I'm doing manually now, but am curious anyway.

I should note, I can still get the pump to cavitate with a VERY hard turn and abrupt increase in throttle. That doesn't happen often, but is possible. The L13 doesn't solve 100% of cavitation issues when driving the boat hard/aggressive in the turns. It's remarkably better than stock though. I would spend the time and seal the pump housing as well. Here's my thread where I sealed the tunnel on my 190. It's not pretty, but is holding up well on it's second season.

 

[Mac’nCheese]

I would say that the L13 is definitely a worthwhile investment. I have it on my 2019 AR195, and it dramatically improved holeshot.

With that said, I still have to make throttle adjustments when turning (while towing), but I think that’s just the nature of jet boats. When the wheel is turned, the jet pumps thrust is now at an angle, and you no longer have 100% of the propulsion contributing towards forward momentum.