I'm a first time mud motor owner.I bought a new to me muddbuddy 35 vangaurd and it sits on a 16x50 triton ds. The motor runs fine and turns about 4200 rpms but as soon as I drop it in the water I can only get 16 to 2000 rpms out of it and I only go about 10 mph.Am I missing something??? It's got to go better than this.

Something is not working properly...

Where are you located?

Is it LT or SD?

What year is motor?

How many hours?

x2 on other thread.... ck it out for additional info..

And yes, you have a problem. Something isn't right..

Just had it out again, yep about 10 to 15 mph tops and it turned to 2700 rpm under load.It's a 2008 surface drive with 55 hrs. on it. the prop measure about 12" tip to tip. I can muscle through some mud without getting stuck there is just no speed under load with the setup.My transom also measures at 20" .The motor seams runs and idles fine.I'm in wisconsin and thanks for any ideas.

sounds like its running on one cylinder. check to see if you are getting spark on both sides.

Air leak in fuel system. My motor did that new. I had a bad connection.
It woul rev like a mofo with NO load. Put it in the water. 2k and it was luggin to get there.. Put a new line and then Vroom vroom it worked.

Just ran a compression test and this thing is running on 1 cylinder.There is zero compression in one of the cylinders.

A lifter rod was off and the valve springs were loose was all it was.I learning anyway just got back from a test run I gps'd at 26.8 in the open deep water with a light load. The shallows were to tight to look at my gps while driving. Thanks for all the help guys.