As the day wore on and the wind kicked up, I noticed I still couldn't trim the outboards up enough to keep the windshield dry and the outboards would want to ventilate periodically,
Before cutting up the extension, I would purchase a level indicator of some quality. Stabila make them ($50)and you can check the running keel angle when on step at your cruise speed. If the deadrise is around 18 degrees, you would want a running trim angle of about 5 degrees for the best fuel efficiency at that particular cruise speed.
If it is within a few degrees of this, then the issue is still the ventilation plate height.
I have attached a poor sketch but
1) The bottom sketch is a method of taking the hull line and carrying it over any inflection/bump at the original hull to transom intersection. ie the gap/relief does not contact this area. Note that this straight edge MUST be parallel to the keel, EXACTLY
parallel or you will see a discrepancy, down turn or up turn that is not really there
2) The channel, "B" is the piece that would be built to attach to the existing mounting profile that is on your extension. I would use something like 1/2 inch thick material but as I dont know the weight of the motor or the dynamic loading
that the engines could place on this piece, you would have to make the call on this thickness. Judging by the thin material on the jack plate, this should be overkill.
After B is built, then A would be welded to B to make a tubing.
Really important here. I don"t know the diameter of the mounting bolts so the center to center spacing needs to be addressed. Touch base by PM and I can walk you through the spacing issue. With a proper starting measurement
for the top hole on the B channel and a different starting measurement on the A plate, you can produce say 1/2 inch increments of height change of your motors. As compared to running the same measurement on both and only having say 1 inch
changes.
The idea of the channel is that you would use short bolts to attach the mounting assembly B plate to your existing mount area and short bolts to attach your motors to the A plate. Use larger flat stainless washers, 1 inch diameter prox and stainless nylocks as compared to lock washers
The channel permits access to get a wrench on the bolts to tighten things up