TexP51

Get the weight out of the boat and watch your gauges - temp, oil pressure, and what angle the hull is at. Full boat - people, fuel, ballast, etc - at 12 mph the engine could be under a hard load depending on configuration- are you surfing, wakeboard, ski. - or might not. Are you burning lots of fuel? I’d suggest taking it out empty, configured for speed - and see how she does. Flat wake tabs, no surf devices, etc. baseline some performance. First hunch might be that they have wrong prop on boat since you just bought it. Keep everyone posted.

Agree w/ Tim. Direct Drive boats shouldn’t have the problem once you’re at ski speeds. Try w/ a spotter to go through and document wake size w/ various speed benchmarks. Wake should fade away at +18mph or so with no weight in boat. Your skier size will change things as more load on prop = more rooster tail. Aim thinking a good specific ski-use tow rope should have you beyond the rooster anyway.

Appreciate you taking the time to respond. After I read it I realize I pull the rear garboard brass bilge drain, but not the drain by the v-drive. Actually I never have needed to pull that drain. Wonder if the rubber seals have gone bad? Mine doesn’t look like a t-drain, but looks like a bolted-in mount. Is the normal t drain location just ahead of the v-drive?

This site could use a category for keeping these older boats maintained. I just posted a similar post regarding my 2002 Elite V and a drip. Here is what i’ve found - If you have the stock bilge pump (mounted on a block of wood in the rear of the bilge area most likely under the alternator) you’ll see even if it does a perfect job it would leave 2-3” of water in the bilge. The rear brass plug gets you down another inch - but you will have still have some standing water inside. My thought is it depends on how your boat sits on the trailer at what angle. You have several hull pass-thru points - could have a thru-hull transducer, strake mounts, rudder pinion seal, or prop shaft seal leaking. By the way, I went with one of the new Whale style bilges mounted lower than stock and really like the amount of water it removes - and to a lower level. That was one of the first things I replaced, along with upgrading all of the bilge and ballast hoses. Not a bad job. Hope this helped give you some ideas.

Kinda have a strange situation that I'd like to hear some perspective on from members. Have a '02 Elite V C4 Air Warrior that we keep lifted in a boat house on our lake. Saturday I hit a submerged stump and put a small ding in the 3-blade prop, lots of vibration so idled in and pulled the boat out and trailered it a couple of hours home so I could exchange props on dry land. This boat never sits uncovered, and while home it sat outside the first night and wouldn't you know we had pretty torrential rains - like 4" Sunday nightt here in Houston. I came home from work on Monday and things were drying out but I noticed there was water on the driveway under boat. Looking closer I saw there was a steady drip - every 2-3 sec drip - coming from the prop shaft dripping water out from inside the boat. I looked in the bilge and found 5" of water standing in the engine and tranny bilge areas. I pulled the plug and ran the bilge to drain the water, and all is good. Got me to thinking I had never noticed a sizeable prop shaft leak, but then again maybe this is normal. Different perspective from water leaking into the hull, versus seeing water leaking out. One lesson- I need to pull the plug if/when I store this boat exposed to weather. Anyone have any thoughts if this is normal?

- Check brake fluid level in reservoir. - Check that the flex brake line quick-disconnect between reservoir and trailer is connected. - Cycle the surge brake actuator by hand to see if you have back pressure (on tongue) - See if hydraulic actuator (mini-looking shock absorber) in tongue is connected. - Check for brake fluid leak @ drums. - Bleed air out of brakes

Here are some pics...

Thought I’d give a product review for some of the ‘seasoned’ Centurion boats. I have a 2002 Elite V C4 Air Warrior that was recently purchased over in FLA. On the drive from FLA to TX to get her home the Tach bezel cracked. If you’ve been on I-10 you’ll understand! The boat had the factory Faria gauges. Playing around in the dash I found the instrument harness had seen several radio upgrades and was pulled up tight in places with zip ties. As I moved my hand inside in the IP the tach bezel on the outside broke completely off. Old plastic and too much force. The Gaige’s are mounted through the front of the Instument panel and use a squash ring on each gauge to hold in place, so all the force is on the outer ring. Well mine broke and the tach gauge fell into its hole into the IP. All of my Elite’ power went through through the tach connection. Faria has a lifetime warranty for the original owner of A Centurion boat, but they didn’t respond to my email inquiries. I Just ordered a replacement Faria white gauge, giving up on finding a Centurion logo with the chrome bezel, and since the speedos were acting up, went ahead and ordered matching GPS speedos that do not used the paddle wheel, and now have internal GPS antenna. Depth gauge was dead so I replaced it as well. On Amazon the tach was $120 w/ Hobbs meter, and each speedo was $79, the Faria depth sounder was $140 for a in-hull system. The euro white worked out well for my taste, but the Chesapeake has chrome trim. If you prefer that., Don’t be in a hurry as it does take time figuring out the leads. Generally you could just hook a replacement exactly as the old one, but I had to remove the wiring blindly in the Elite IP configuration, and figure out wiring afterwards. Also got rid of a few harnesses that were in the IP, as in 2002 you got all harnesses for the various options whether they were installed or not. Anyway, the GPS Faria speedos (F33147) are especially interesting as an option for us replacing older dash/IP setups. The speedos have internal gps antenna and just need ground, and a hot wire coming from the ign switch, and 3rd hot for illumination. Hope this helps somebody else.

Lake Limestone - 13,800 acre lake between DFW & Houston near Groesbeck, TX

Wake of - Appreciate your taking the time to explain your setup. Thx

Finished our boat lift. Went this weekend to FLA and hauled a new-to-me 2002 Elite V C4 Air Warrior back to TX and got to see how it fit on the system. Spaced the bunks at 40” and they worked perfect.

There are bias ply tires, and the more expensive premium radial tires - usually sold for long distance trailering. Either come in load ratings of A-E. A is lowest, and E is the highest weight supporting capacity. Tire manuf.s handle load through plys on belted tires. Semis, dump trucks, etc use large belted ply tires for the tires weight capabilities,, sacrificing ride comfort of a radial for payload needs. Air pressure is the most critical thing to tire life. One other suggestion - get the tires balanced. Some people think you don’t need to, and maybe they don’t if it’s slow speed and very short distances, but tires will last longer and you’ll find the boat trim screws not falling out as much if you get up balanced!

That’s a good tire, but just get a tire rated for your big heavy boat and you should be fine. The load rating is most important think on a replacement trailer tire. Add trailer and boat (GVWR), add fuel, and any add ons. Divide number by 4 for a tandem trailer to get load per tire. Some marine dealers don’t balance tires, but if your’re trailering long distances your bearings will thank you - and have much longer life. Dry rot, low air pressure and curbs kill most boat tires before you leave to get on the road, add heat from the overloaded tire and they let go. I use a 3000# empty steel 26’ pipe trailer and have found the road tires that last the longest are the highest weight capacity at the lowest air pressure. Some manuf. say 1650# @ 80psi, where another does the same @35psi - I go with the second tire. Travel safe.

Well I got the new bunks on my lift converting from pontoon to v-drive. I’m picking up a used 2002 Elite V C4 Air Warrior this weekend and driving it to Texas from Florida. I had to get this project moving. Screwed two 2x12x14s together and using table saw cut a 15 degree angle to top edge. Boards sit upright on the boat lift cradle, and are spaced at 5’ apart at back cradle, and 4’ 10” at front cradle. Cradles are 12’ apart. Bunks sit at 8” over front cradle and 14” off back cradle. I also added stanchion bumpers that aren’t in the pics on both cradles to guide the boat. BH-USA was very helpful and had everything I needed. I did have to use longer 5” SS bolts for the bracket/bunk mount since the bunks are som much thicker. Many people only do one 2x12, but I wanted to be sure. Biggest challenge was the bunk timber is very heavy when it’s doubled up, so working with it takes serious muscle. I still waiting on the glide/covers that I ordered that will sit on the face of the bunk and keep the boat from sitting on wood.

Newbie here - ‘02 Elite V C4 - wondering about bunk height for proper shaft clearance for those of you that have boat lifts. I’m planning on switching our boat house bunks from pontoon configuration over to a V-drive setup for our Centurion. Plan is to place (2) 2x12x14 treated boards screwed together and mounted on end, resting on the lift’s cross-cradle as a bunk. I’m putting a 10 degree cut on the top of the 2x12’s to provide some angle, and cover that 3” edge profile w/ synthetic gator bunk cover. Wow, four of those treated 2x12x14’s weigh close to 300#! I’ve seen Mastercraft boat lift setup similar w/ 2x10’s. Are my 2x12’s overkill?