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Ballast


JohnT

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I have an 02 Wakesetter VLX with factory ballast tanks in the back and ballast bag in the center bow. Trying to make a bigger wake for surfing. Has anyone every put in an additional ballast bag in the rear locker next to hard tanks and if so, how did it impact the wake? I am thinking about putting in 400 or 750 lbs in the back on the surf side. Will that be enough?

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I would just remove the hard tank in the rear locker and plumb in a 750 fly high sac. I have the same boat as you and it makes a big difference. The best part is that when the bag is not full you have tons of room for storage.

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Remove tanks

Replace with Pro-X 750s

Can just plumb them in using existing or replace pumps with 1200's for faster fill.

Drain pumps screw right into the sac drain holes

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For sure remove the hard tanks and install the 750lbs wakemakers system in the rear lockers.

It has been the best upgrade we have done to the boat! Simple to remove tanks and install the hose and bags. With only the driver we surf either side with 750lbs surf side rear bag full, plus center ballast, plus wedge down.

Add some people in the boat and the surf is awesome on both sides.

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Any idea on how many pounds the factory tanks holds? Couldn't I just add a sac and set it next to the existing tank? Would like to tear into it as little as possible unless it makes that much of a difference.

Anyway you could post some pictures?

Thoughts?????

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Factory tanks hold 200 lbs each (or maybe 250 lbs, I always forget). The reason for taking them out and replacing with a 750 lb sac is so you can still use the stock plumbing and not have to use any extra pumps. I guess you could just plumb the overflow from the stock tank into the fill of the additional sac to fill it, but then you have to figure out how to drain it. Either that or you have to have an extra pump that you have to throw over the side to fill and drain the extra sac every time you use it. Most of us like to have everything automated using the stock switches on the dash. By replacing the stock hard tanks, you can still fill and empty them using the switches on the dash. If you just remove the stock tank, you can re-use all of the existing plumbing and pumps, and the added bonus is that when you don't have the sacs full, you have about 75% more storage space in your trunks.

Do a little searching on this site, there are plenty of pictures posted of what the surf wake looks like with additional ballast. Here's what mine looks like with a 750 lb sac in the rear, 300 lb sac under the surf side seats, stock midship tank filled, no bow ballast, and floating wedge down.

SurfWave.jpg

Surfing1.jpg

Surfing2.jpg

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Any idea on how many pounds the factory tanks holds? Couldn't I just add a sac and set it next to the existing tank? Would like to tear into it as little as possible unless it makes that much of a difference.

Anyway you could post some pictures?

Thoughts?????

If you want to manually fill and drain the additional bag each time you use it then leaving the hardtank in place and filling Fly High's V-Drive Surf sac works just fine, and gives you a total of around 600-650 pounds.

If you want the additional ballast to be completely automated like the factory system then removing your hardtank and replacing it with a larger bag is by far the easiest, cheapest and most reliable way to add ballast. The install only takes 30 minutes per side, and depending on where you source your parts from, it is completely reversible so nothing is changed or modified in the boat.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm considering the same thing on my boat. But for boarding (not surfing) I'm thinking that filling all 1500 pounds in the rear would be too much, even without the wedge. How much rear weight is ideal for boarding, with or without the wedge? (I also have the integrated bow sac & am considering lead under the bow filler cushion to offset rear weight.)

thanks,

Mike

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If you're going to fill both 750's in the rear, you don't want to have the wedge down. And you're going to need all the weight you can in the front. You should be about 60/40 weight distribution from rear to front. That means if you have 1500 lbs in the back, you should have about 1000 lbs up front. The midship ballast will offset that a little bit and count towards your front weight, but I'd say you'll still want at least 500 lbs up in the bow if you run 1500 lbs in the rear.

When I wakeboard in my boat, which is the same hull as the '04 VLX, I fill my 750's in the rear to about 500 lbs each. I turn the two rears and the midship on all at the same time. When the midship tank starts overflowing out the side, I turn the rears off, which means they should have roughly the same amount as the midship. I don't have any bow ballast in mine and I do run with the wedge down. I always have at least one person sitting in the bow. This gives me a pretty good wake for boarding, but when I have more people to put in the bow, the wake does get noticeably better.

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  • 1 month later...

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