2006 VLX Spring Upgrades!

[Cayute]

Well I have been gathering products over the winter and now that the boat is out of storage I have finished up most of my upgrades so I'll do a bit of a write up on it!

 

First thing was replacing my swim grid padding. My old one was rubber and was all cracked and transferring the black when you stepped on it to my interior seats which sucked! Back in November a guy on craigslist was selling a sea dek pad so I figured it would be perfect! He said it was for a 2006. Vlx but it must have been for a different boat, the curve on the transom is flatter on my boat then on this seadek but i mad some cuts with a sharp knife and I don't think you would notice it if I didn't point it out, it sucked it wasn't a perfect fit but definetly was a big upgrade. No before pictures but here are some after pictures

 

next I replaced my tower lights, I don't have any of them on but they are very bright! I had the stock 8 chrome halogen lights in which the chrome was peeling and the lights were really yellowing and just not looking very good. I went with the cube LED lights off amazon I think they were about $140 or so for all 8. I used the mounting bolts from the old lights and they seem to work great

Since I bought the boat last spring I never did like how low the driver seat was. I always had the bolster up and then sitting on a leg usually and I'm 6'0". The seat riser off ebay looks awesome fits awesome and put my eyes just above the windshield when the bolster is down which is just what I was looking for 

Onto some lighting! I did the DIY for the lighted cup holders from a thread I saw on here. The end result is it looks awesome, but the soldering for each led strand was a bit of work for me as I had never soldered before. That said I am so happy with the finished product it looks so awesome and you can click to any color you want. My led speakers are blue so that's what I leave the controller at. I think I will add some to the speakers aswell to top it off. The 3/8 water line worked great and use a piece 1/4 aluminum dowel for the splice to keep it together with the most strength here are some photos!

 

And last but not least is my new stereo! I went with exile because of the customer service I have heard on them and they are nothing but stellar! I deleted my head unit and just control everything through my ZLD. I went with an xm30.2 for my sxt9s and a javelin for my kicker in boats and sub. Which eventually  will be exile as well I'm sure but they were new as of last year so I want to try to keep them a bit longer! I also plan on adding another xm 30.2 down the road. My system runs off two group 24 for now and I added a group 31 as my house battery and as a back up! 

The amp rack was built out of 3/4 hdpe and I then carpeted it. Also added a prostart 12 hd dual bank charger. Only thing I highly recommend to anyone else is when you set up your amp rack keep your amps on the right side of it. Once I installed everything I realized how much of a pain in the a** it is trying to tune the amps when you can't see where you are putting your flat head ahah. 

Other then that I am super happy with the system and for me it is LOUD.  Any questions ask away!!

 

[klinger]

Looks very nice!!! I'd love to see your LED lights on at night on the lake!! And a view from in the boat looking forward.

How did you mount your amp rack?? My understanding is that you epoxy some pieces of treated wood to the hull and then screw your amp rack to that. If so, what epoxy did you use and how thick of pieces of wood??

Sweet boat though! I'm just getting started on my stereo install. Pretty basic for now.

[Roush611]

Do you have a link to the cup holder rings?

[Cayute]

I will get some pictures of the lights next time I am out at night... Not sure if they will work any better than the halogens though, I always found they bow seats just reflected the light back at me when I was driving at night.

 

i used gorilla glue epoxy so far I have been out two full days in chop and it hasn't moved at all. I used pressure treated 2x6 against my hull. I scribed both pieces in line with the hull and tried to keep the amp rack a bit more vertical, the front 2x6 I was also able to screw into the front bulk head of the observer compartment. If I had to guess right now the 2x6 was scribed from about nothing at the top to about 1.5- 2" at the bottom.

 

this is the DIY thread I followed for my cupholder lights 

 

 

[minnmarker]

Seat riser is a great idea!  Just ordered one.  It's amazing how this site can help me part with $$$.