Reg yama gear lube or HD

[Joe Raimondo]

Yamaha has 2 lower unit gear lubes the Reg GL -4 lower unit gear lube and the HD GL-5 gear lube . I have a 2016 VF115 yamaha SHO which gear lube will be best ? I have read that the HD is made for V-6 SHO and all V-8 , but many are saying you can run HD gear lube in my 4 cylinder. I want to use what gear lube yamaha thinks is best for my lower unit , which lube would that be. Joe R

[boscoe99]

What does the Yamaha owner's manual say to use?

[Joe Raimondo]

Lower unit oil

The owners manual says either and the yamaha HD bottle says that the HD is for V-6 SHO and V-8 motors , doesnt say anything abour 4 cylinder 115 .
I am just going with the reg yamalub to be safe . Thanks anyway. Joe R

[boscoe99]

I wanted to make sure that you knew that the proper gear oil to be used was specified in your owners' manual.

As you know, it says to use either Yamaha HD oil or hypoid gear oil.

Between Yamaha regular and Yamaha HD, the choice would be the HD stuff.

The notice on the bottle was written long before the VF115 was ever a gleam in the engineer's eye. The label has never been updated. Probably never will be. Yamaha does not like to update their data.

[Joe Raimondo]

Thanks I read that in the owners manual but after seeing the bottle , I wanted to make sure before putting any GL-5 gear lube in my lower unit that may have a copper or brass parts inside .GL-5 gear lube isnt compatable with every gear box. The regular gear lube GL-4 has worked great in all my previous yamahas F150,tlrb115.90,85 . Plus I just finished replacing the lower unit gear lube with the regular GL-4 gear lube . This 115 on my HPX carbon/kevlar boat is not a hi load stress over HP set up so I will be fine . When two Yamaha items say two differant things it makes you want to stop and ask Yamaha which one is correct . Thanks for your input . Joe R

[panasonic]

What kind of Carbon/Kevlar boat is it..model?

[Joe Raimondo]

18 Maverick, HPX v. With VF115 SHO. Yamaha .

[tweakjr1]

Nice Joe,

I have the same VF115LA. What prop are you using, just curious. Right now I have a plain aluminum.

Scott

[Joe Raimondo]

I am running a 13.5X21 Yamaha Pro Series that Steves Custom Prop Service B&B ed for me , my second prop in a Mercury Spitefire X-7 thay mercury racing Blue printed . I run the Yamaha Pro Series K21 most of the time. Joe R

[tweakjr1]

What's your top speed with each prop and what would you say the other differences are between the 2 you own?

This is my first boat so I'm unsure what the trade-offs are between different types of props.
With my current prop the fastest SOG I've registered is 40mph.

Thanks,
Scott

[Joe Raimondo]

The boat type of bottom (pad bottom )set up motor total weight balance and prop all come into play when you are talking about speed .
1. Prop # 1 the Pro Series K-21 Yamaha is a 3 blade Stainless vented hi rake bow lifter prop with a more tha average amount of cup. This prop will run 53 at 6100 RPM.Loaded down to fish with two people. Prop is designed for speed and bow lift
2. The Mercury spitefire X-7 is a totally differant type of prop , it is a 4 blade prop that has a good hole shot and better than average amount of over all lift and grip. Good over all prop , grips good ,good speed, good lift. Not fantastic at one thing but good at everything .

Just because a prop works well on one type of boat does not mean it will work well on another type boat lots of testing props to find what your set up likes.

If you have a aluminum prop it wont be hard to find a prop that will give you a performance gain . As your boat gets dialed in closer it gets harder to fine tune it to get the exact set up that you are looking for.

What kind of hull do you have ?

[boscoe99]

Just because a prop works well on one type of boat does not mean it will work well on another type boat lots of testing props to find what your set up likes.

Truer words have never been written.

Alvin thinks that if Bob's boat works well with propeller X then propeller X will also work well with Alvin's boat.

This is the same logic used when thinking that if a bad coil caused a misfire on Bob's motor then Alvin's misfiring motor must also be caused by a bad coil. It results in a lot of spare coils being sold that aren't needed.

[pstephens46]

Or just buy an Etec. They work with any prop and never need coils. For at least five years. Or seven. Or ten. Depending on what state the boat lives in.

[walleye1]

Etecs need injectors and gear case.

[walleye1]

I dump Mercury HP gear lube in every thing.