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Do you need front ballast


Buschy

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What do you lose or gain by not having a front ballast? Im looking at a vlx that has center and rear but no front? What are the pros and cons? thanks for the help.

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Personally I find the wedge works so much better when the front ballast is put in place. I have an 04VLX and did lots of experimenting with and without the front ballast before I installed a full integrated set in the bow of the boat. Also noticed that my ga$ went down when I have front ballast in place, especially when the wedge was down.

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What do you lose or gain by not having a front ballast? Im looking at a vlx that has center and rear but no front? What are the pros and cons? thanks for the help.

Yes, yes, yes!!! Either the factory or aftermarket.

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What do you lose or gain by not having a front ballast? Im looking at a vlx that has center and rear but no front? What are the pros and cons? thanks for the help.

Yes, yes, yes!!! Either the factory or aftermarket.

Plus1.gif

Briefly: Pros of no ballast up front: a little more storage, cheaper price tag

Cons: worse wake, hurt on resale

These points can of course be expanded upon but the core of the point is that they are widely considered fact and not simply conjecture.

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you need it even if you don't use the wedge! There's tons of space in a VLX, if you can't find enough you need to figure out what crap you don't need in the boat!

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What are the options? I have similar setup with rears and middle but no front. Can it be done by dealer to hook up as "factory" or is it all above-deck options at this point?

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I will agree that front ballast is a huge bonus. I wanted the space at first and when it was too late I wanted the the ballast. We use a sack that takes 2 minutes to fill up seems to work pretty well. Finally getting the surf wake dialed in.

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What are the options? I have similar setup with rears and middle but no front. Can it be done by dealer to hook up as "factory" or is it all above-deck options at this point?

I've read in another thread that the dealer can install it. These boat almost require front ballast. Especially so if you have the manual wedge. With the power wedge you can get away with less weight up front, but of course you're not pulling the rear down with the wedge fully down as much as you do with a manual wedge.

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Front ballast is needed to help w/ bow rise, shape the wake and to help "harden it". The front ballast is needed more imho if you have the PW, as it'll make the wakes much more vertical is you retract the wedge.

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Front ballast is needed to help w/ bow rise, shape the wake and to help "harden it". The front ballast is needed more imho if you have the PW, as it'll make the wakes much more vertical is you retract the wedge.

Yeah, basically it's needed either way. What I was saying is when you have the wedge only giving you 400 lbs. of down force, you can get away with less weight in the bow. With the manual wedge, you're getting all or nothing at 1100 lbs. With the PW only putting out 400 lbs. the wake doesn't get huge, but it puts a nice lip on it.

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Front ballast is needed to help w/ bow rise, shape the wake and to help "harden it". The front ballast is needed more imho if you have the PW, as it'll make the wakes much more vertical is you retract the wedge.

Yeah, basically it's needed either way. What I was saying is when you have the wedge only giving you 400 lbs. of down force, you can get away with less weight in the bow. With the manual wedge, you're getting all or nothing at 1100 lbs. With the PW only putting out 400 lbs. the wake doesn't get huge, but it puts a nice lip on it.

What we found is that with the wedge adjusted at a 25 degree angle up, the wake has too much of a lip and adding more weight up front is a "must". Seems like the shorter the boat the more the bow rises, the best wake we have had so far is with about 400lbs up front, center ballast full and the wedge all the way down (maybe up 5-10 degrees) but this is coming from a DD.

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We don't have a VLX, but I wish we had bow ballast! For wakeboarding we run 1000-1500lbs rear, 500 mid and it rides really high. I am going to look into 300-400lbs of lead or weight up there. If you don't mind towing the weight then that is another option.

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What are the options? I have similar setup with rears and middle but no front. Can it be done by dealer to hook up as "factory" or is it all above-deck options at this point?

Not in the VLX, you'll need to look at some aftermarket options.

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What are the options? I have similar setup with rears and middle but no front. Can it be done by dealer to hook up as "factory" or is it all above-deck options at this point?

Not in the VLX, you'll need to look at some aftermarket options.

Hmm... I thought I read on here in another thread that their dealer installed it. Maybe it was a different system, but I'm sure it wasn't sacks.

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It was available that way for a while, but Malibu cut that off. I have seen a few threads that referenced installations in the VTX, that apparently is available through dealers. It seems to be an ever-changing situation though, so I wouldn't be surprised if any of that has changed.

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Can you use an overflow off of the center ballast to fill up a sack in the front?

Plus1.gif That is what I'm setting up!!!

I set up a front system that uses the overflow from the center tank. It works great. It takes about 7-10 minutes to fill both the center and bow tanks. I have manual valve in place that prevents the bow from filling if I only want to ride with center only. Drain is accomplished by the center tank drain pump. I will have to look at exactly how I plumbed it, I can't remember off the top of my head.

Bottom line: 700 lbs bow shaped sack that fits under the seats (only fills to ~400-500 lbs because the vRide bow storage is a little small). No new pumps added. works flawlessly.

Bow Sack

I think bow weight is essential if you heavily weight the rear of the boat. The best wake will result from evenly weighting the boat, thereby keeping the natural balance of the boat.

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On the 05 and Newer VLX the front ballast is mandatory IMHO and then add acouple 100 lbs more of lead and have the flag person, Preferably a female sit up there for a little more. Thumbup.gif

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I think bow weight is essential if you heavily weight the rear of the boat. The best wake will result from evenly weighting the boat, thereby keeping the natural balance of the boat.

Does this include use of a wedge, e.g. manual wedge I've heard is equivalent of 1100 lbs.??

I just added a tube sac to the ski locker and like the increased size of the wake on my DD SSLXI classic. I don't however like the bow-high driving attitude. Anyone out there use mid and front ballast with a wedge for balancing a direct drive boat like mine?

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It was available that way for a while, but Malibu cut that off. I have seen a few threads that referenced installations in the VTX, that apparently is available through dealers. It seems to be an ever-changing situation though, so I wouldn't be surprised if any of that has changed.

Retrofits for the front ballast is no longer avalaible thru the factory, I certainly hope that the '09 vrides just add the front ballast as standard equipment.

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I think bow weight is essential if you heavily weight the rear of the boat. The best wake will result from evenly weighting the boat, thereby keeping the natural balance of the boat.

Does this include use of a wedge, e.g. manual wedge I've heard is equivalent of 1100 lbs.??

I just added a tube sac to the ski locker and like the increased size of the wake on my DD SSLXI classic. I don't however like the bow-high driving attitude. Anyone out there use mid and front ballast with a wedge for balancing a direct drive boat like mine?

It will really help, especially if you don't have any right now. We used the center MLS, wedge & a tube sack under the rear seat of our direct drive & it was really good like that.

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