i have a lowe roughneck 17' 52" tunnel that i have been running a jet on and i am wanting to upgrade to a mud motor now. i know the lowe is not the best for that kind of motor, but it will have to do till i can upgrade that too. what would be the smallest or biggest surface drive i should go with, brand and all the good stuff.

thanks

None....

Tunnles are bad news from what they say one here they dont ride right in the water for the motors.

that boat is big enough to float a 35, its just never gunna preform like a true slickbottom hull.

i can enclose the tunnell with no problems i can weld aluminum over the tunnell to fix that problem, and i won't be going in that much mud until i can upgrade boats too. mainly just really shallow water 6 to 10" lots of hydrilla, that is the only problem with the jet. so i don't think a slick bottom is that big of a rush, the lowe will work for now, won't it? the mb dealer told me that it would be fine with the tunnell in straight aways but the turns would be the problem, what about the ribs on the hull how bad does that affect the motor performance? remember very little mud more water

I have a 16x52 lowe (no tunnel), I know have a mini on the back but here is my review with the Hyper I had.
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4596

thanks richardb thats about what i thought it would do. do you see any problems with the lowe and the mud motor? does it turn ok, so on?

I don't see any problems and it turns fine. But everyone is correct it will not perform like a turn slick bottom. If you have the funds (which I do not) buy a mud rig. But if you are in my situation it gets the job done and you can hunt and fish out of it and it still works better than an outboard for shallow water and vegetation.

Stick a 35 on it and give it hell

when the hydrilla is thick you can def. feel the extra drag from the ribs vs. a real slickbottom hull.

Im with the rest 35 and run it like ya stole it!!

thanks guys i was hoping yall would say a 35 the price difference is unbelievable for anything bigger

The nice thing with the stock 35 if ya need more power you can always put mods on yourself. Just save some money and do them one at a time. Thats what I did and the guys on here are great about helping ya out with almost any question you would have. I run a 1652 G3 with a modded 35 its does alright for ribbed bottom boat . I will be upgrading this summer to a custom mud hull for sure though

i got to looking at the mud buddy website and i have a dumb question, but is the 35 all the way up to the 7000 still on the same block just with a shit load of aftermarket parts? i've figured out that the 5500 black death is only going to cost 650 dollars more than the 4500. if i could swing it would spending 1800 dollars more be worth it to get the 5500 black death over the 35? may just take a few more months but i wanna do this right the first go around. thats a pretty big price jump if it is i guess i will have to sell a few more toys.

yes the 7 is on the same block as the 35 with all bps parts. to me the 5500 would be worth it just because it will carry a load alot better than the stock 35. u can take a 35 all the way to a 7000 but u cant take the black death 5500 to a 7000 because its a cdi motor and rev limited at 4300.