Question on a 1700 Lund Explorers SS

I’m looking a buying a new boat . Looking at this one.. my question is for those who have one with a 60 hp 4 stroke Merc..In your experance what is your top speed and your slowest using a gps ? Jim

Jim, I’m not sure what your boat is rated for, but if it was me, I’d max it out or go no less than 75% of max hsp. I have the 60 merc 4 stroke sitting on the back of 1675 lund explorer tiller. Max hsp rating is 75. Trolls fine until the really cold water temps arrive, then I throw out a 2 gallon bucket on each side of the boat to really slow me down to a crawl. Fully loaded with 2 people I can reach 32-34mph, a third person slows me quite a bit, and a fourth gave me a lot of trouble to get on plane. I cured some of this problem by switching back to my stock aluminum prop when I have a heavy load, but I have to watch the rpms closely so I don’t go over redline-6000rpms.
After all this rambling, my guess is your boat will be under powered with a sixty 4 stroke.

I have a 2004 1700 Exp. with a 75 hp tiller, and I too would not go any smaller. With the counsel I would max it out, I just don’t think you’ll be happy with the 60 hp. 75 hp in the tiller seems just about right with 2-3 people in the boat. I think with the counsel you would want at least that. Hope it helps.

James, I would bet that if you asked anyone that has a boat, you would be hard pressed to hear someone say…Go smaller than what the manufacturer allows.

I have a Angler SS side council with a 90…if I could do it all over again, I would go with a 125.
For your slower speeds, get yourself an electric trolling motor if you don’t have one already.

James , My last boat before the one I have now was a 2003 1675 explorer,console steer, I bought it with a sixty 4 stroke merc although it was rated for a ninety( old tiller guy can’t get use to those big motors) I used it 1 hour and took it back to Starks and had a 90 put on ,The boat ran much better ,but I will have to say that 60 4 stroke was the smoothest motor I ever had. With the 90 I had to buy a 9.9 4 stroke to troll with, The 60 was fuel injected and the 75 wasn’t at that time. I have a 1800 mr Pike now with a 150 and a 9.9 and am thinking I’ll trade it off this year for a 17 explorer or 17 pro angler tiller, For what its worth James hold out for a Yammi,the 2005 75 is fuel injected and if its a tiller has a nob on the handle to set the rpm’s (no kicker motor)

Was thinking about a 60 four stroke (big foot) With this you get to hole shot and still should run around 33 mph. It’s about 140 lbs lighter than a 75hp-90 or 115 as they are the same size block. Would like to know how much longer a big foot is . I need to do more research I guess. Does anyone have any experance with the big foot and what is your oppion of it ? Jim

I ran a 50 HP 4s/bigfoot on my old Explorer 1650. Recognize that the bigfoot is essentially a pontoon motor. I had decent high end performance but lousy low RPM performance (RPM regulation, noise, vibration ), which is entirely consistent with what a pontoon motor is suppposed to do: puch a big boat with a lot of water resistance from point A to point B without trying to troll at 1.2 mph over spooky fish in shallow water. I was happy to see that boat/motor combo go away; I replaced them with a C-liner fishhawk 1750/115 4stroke Johnson, and I have NEVER been happier with a fishing platform in my entire life.

My advice is the same as you’ve heard above: go with as much motor as you can possibly afford. You’ll get better performance out of your boat, and you’ll be much much happier.