I'm getting to the stage of looking for a boat and I'm wondering what the maximum weight I should "cap" myself to to make trailering tolerable.

I've got a 97 F-150 4x4 EC SB with the 4.6 auto and 3.55 LS. I will be adding a Superchip and new Exhaust system so I hope to bump output from 220hp and 290lb ft (stock) to around 255hp and 330lb ft or thereabouts (I'm just using the estimated power gains from what I've seen on the various sites). I'm probably looking at the Gibson cat-back system. Are these increases conservative or pretty close to what I could reasonably expect?

The terrain is not mountainous but it can be fairly hilly with the odd long grade. I'd like to be able to travel at highway speeds without feeling like it's taking forever to get there. I guess 55mph would be nice if possible.

The owners manual numbers seem a little high in my eye of what would be tolerable. I was thinking of nothing bigger than an 18 foot fishing boat (probably closer to 16 foot). Would 3,000 or 3,500 pounds be out of the question? I'm thinking about 2,200 tops for the boat, motors and fluids and 800 for the trailer, give or take a few hundered or so.

Do you think this would be painful to tow given my truck and planned mods? It would probably be towed quite a bit during the year because of the different areas I like to go to.

Thanks for your help, I know this isn't an easy topic.

 

Your truck should be able to handle that with no problem.