www.iFourWinns.com

Hello to you all, I (We) are the proud new owners of a 1988 Sundowner 205. Bought it on a Thursday and spent all day Saturday on it and stayed overnight on it that night. So far we absolutely love it, aside from the exterior needing shined up the boat is in Excellent condition, the previous owners took great care of this boat. Although I spent many childhood years around boats this is our first boat owning experience. Unfortunately the boating season here in Indiana is quickly coming to an end which leaves us longing for next summer already. LOL
Since we are new to the sport and new to this boat I will be bugging the members of this forum for a long time to come searching for tips, tricks and general information.
With that in mind I'll begin with this question, should this boat, equipped with the 4.3 V6 and the OMC cobra outdrive, run faster than 30mph or is that all she has? It was only me and the Lovely wife aboard and I was using GPS to track the speed and at full throttle I was running around 4300/4400 rpm at 30 mph. Also is it common for the bow to ride high?, I played with the trim button on the throttle handle but it only brought the bow up higher never brought it down any.
Also seemed like the boat listed to the port side while cruising.

I'd love to post a pic as soon as I figure out how...lol

I appreciate any and all replys to my post, Thank you in advance.

Happy Boating,
Murf.

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1988 Four Winns Sundowner 205

Welcome Murfdog!

Congrats on your Sundowner! We have a '88 235 Sundowner that we absolutely love!

Our boat has the 5.7L OMC so I can't help much with your question on top end. At 4300/4400 rpm we run 40-43 mph. Our boat is equipped with trim tabs as well, that helps get on plane and keep the bow down.

To post a pic you'll need to find a hosting site for your pics. I use Photobucket, some use Flickr, and I'm sure there are more out there. Those sites will give you a link and/or image code to copy and paste in your posts.

Where do you boat?

Good luck with the Sundowner! I hope you and yours enjoy it as much as we have enjoyed ours!

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Jon & Rhonda

'88 235 Sundowner
5.7L OMC Cobra
'01 F150 4.2L

Hey there Rhojo, thank you for your response, I'll try the photobucket thing...

When we bought the boat it was docked in a covered slip at Monroe lake in Indiana near Bloomington. Along with our purchase the previous owner gave us his access cards for the marina to use as our own for the remainder of the season, unfortunately this marina is an hour and a half from our house so at the end of this season we'll pull it out and bring it home. There are a couple of smaller bodies of water within 30 minutes of our house which is where I expect we'll be doing most of our boating. I can tell you that it is going to be a very long winter thinking about that boat. We can't wait to get on the water again...

Murf.

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1988 Four Winns Sundowner 205

We have an 88 200 Horizon which is the same hull as the 205 Sundowner...and the same engine...4.3 Cobra with the 4 bbl carb...my speedo doesn't work and I don't have GPS yet but the Four Winns website listed 42 mph as max speed for slightly newer versions (they didn't have the performance data for ones as old as ours on the website)...
You should be able to trim it so the bow will come down...mine comes down right after getting on plane (trim still all the way down) at about 2800 rpm....
Make sure the drive is trimmed all the way down before you accelerate to get the boat on plane...then when the bow drops down...give it a bit of trim to raise the bow just a bit...that will give the best performance...
BTW what prop do you have...mine came with a 14 1/2 x 19 and that didn't let the engine get close enough to its rated max rpms (4400-4800) so I changed to a prop with less pitch (15 x 17) and now it performs much better...jumps up on plane and easily hits 4800....

One thing to check is to make sure that the drive actually moves through its full travel when you trim up and down...if the boat ride bow high and you have it trimmed all the way down...something is not right...

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88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II

Hi LouC,
Ironically the speedo doesn't work on this boat either, I had my Laptop on board and was using my microsoft streets and trips program which uses Gps .
With regard to the prop I do not know which prop it has on it, Good - bad or otherwise I bought the boat sitting in the water therefore am not able to see the prop. Considering how well maintained the boat was from the water up I wasn't concerned with pulling it out..
As far as bow rise is concerned please remember that this is my first time owning a boat and I'm certainly not experienced with the characteristics of the FW Sundowner205 so maybe everything is normal for this boat and I just don't realize it..
We love this boat so far and I am very happy with our purchase but I can't help but think it should be a little faster then 30 mph and what concerns me is how it will pull a skier out of the hole. maybe the prop is the answer, also wondering about trim tabs.

Thanx again for your input.

Murf.

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1988 Four Winns Sundowner 205