Jrork went with the same deal if I'm not mistaken. I've been looking forward to see how it improves his rpm/mph.
Well, it's a little too early to give hard facts since I've only ran it once and had my fair share of motor issues but what I can tell you is the the Panther Energizer setup that Tommy and Josh put together worked fantastic.
With my old Panther setup the best I could do was the mid to high 60's at 5900 rpm and that was after talking at length to Steve at Panther and doing a ton of setup adjustments and fine tuning. I tried the Devcon epoxy he sold me, cleanedup the leading edges, replaced the water seal, adjusted the rideplate till I damn near wore the threads off the boals and no matter what, it'd cavitate out of the hole and then run great before it'd start cavitating at the top end. Only reason it would stop cavatating at 5900 is that was where my rev limiter is set. As it was, it stopped accelerating after 5300 or so and the rest of the revs were just cavatation
With this new setup that Tommy and Josh hooked me up with, I can stab it out of the hole with no cavitation and it would accelerate with a nice steady pull. I can cruise at 2500 or 3000 and stay on plane whereas my old Panther it would fall off plane so it was either idle or wide open to move around.
Reverse on the Panther was sketchy at best whereas this new setup provides an excellent reverse function.
We were having a ball running it this last weekend for the first time and with my son and I in the boat we could pull 5400 and it felt like it was hauling the mail (no gps at the time).
Unfortunately, we soon started having some motor issues and could never repeat the 5400 pulls but on Monday a group of us set up a speed trap with a boat that had a Radar Gun. At a semi sick running motor we still pulled 74.5mph at a measly 4800 rpm.
So, I can't say what the top speed of our boat is but I can say that with the old Panther pump we were at 5900rpm and the mid to high 60s and now with the Energizer kit we're at 4800 rpm and 74.5 mph.......with such a nicer cruising and reversing ability.
So with all that said, I'm a believer in this Energizer setup given that it literally bolts to the boat with the same 5 bolts that held the original Panther pump in.
Good luck with whatever direction you choose but I'm exceptionally happy with my decision to go with this pump setup and most of all, the decision to go with JetBoatPerformance.....damn good people