99 Air Ballast Install

[Chexi]

I ran out of daylight yesterday and could not take any meaningful pictures of the progress, but here are my notes for the weekend:

1. The piggy-back setup did not work for the belly and bow sacs. It's too much pressure on the belly sac and while it started to fill the bow sac, before I filled it the vent fitting (waterbed connection) started coming loose on the belly bag. I suspected that this might happen. I re-did this part of the setup by capping the vent fitting on the belly bag and using a 1" T hose barb connection to tie the two bags' intakes together. I do not have a vent line on the belly bag at the moment, and hope to not have to. I was unable to test this new set up.

2. Re-securing the gas tank was a PITA. This time I had a helper and was also able to do some work from below as the hard tanks were out and I could lift up the access floor, but it still sucked. I doubt I could have done it alone, at least not in less than many hours with many bloody knuckles and a string of curse words from here to Terra Haute.

3. I could not meaningfully test the wake as the lake was way too windy and crowded this weekend. The wake kept breaking up due to the rollers and waves.

That's about it.

[Chexi]

Not sure if anyone is following this thread or cares, but I thought I would share the last part of my ballast project in case it will help anyone now or in the future.

For my belly and integrated bow sacs (which share a single pump), I added a hose barb "T" before the bags plus a ball valve between the "T" and the belly / ski locker sac. This allows me to adjust the flow rate to the belly sac to slow it so that it fills around the same time as the integrated bow bag. So far, it is working well. I have a vent / overfill line on my bow bag, but not on my center bag. Since it is right by the driver, I can keep my eye on it. It will also start to lift up the hatch when it starts getting really full.

[wcherashore]

I'm glad you posted, I'd love to see more photos when you have everything up and running!

[Miljack]

How much weight do you estimate for the integrated bow sack? Just be careful when driving with that much weight up front on these DD sport/air hulls. My boat with the custom belly sack WILL submarine the nose if the driver is not on his game! With my belly sack full, and ~200# of kids up front, no problem to get water over the bow, I can only imagine how much water you would get with 400 pounds up there!

[Chexi]

I will and have taken some water over the bow with both front sacs full in heavy chop on the 4th of July while trying to test different configurations for surfing. I have not had any problems with it in calm water while wakeboarding. I don't have any peeps up there though. I probably do not need quite that much weight up front and will be experimenting with different bow weight configurations. That said, with both front sacs full, the wake was pretty much perfect. I have ridden with about 250-350 lbs less in the bow and also had an awesome wake, so once I have a chance to really compare, I may not end up needing the belly sac. I wish it were the other way around, but my belly just can't hold enough to get the wake into the really good category.

[Chexi]

I'll try to take and post more pictures this weekend when I am down there. Adding a ball valve after the T to the ski locker sac worked like a charm. I have it open about 30% of the way, and now my integrated bow sac fills about 5 - 10 seconds before my ski locker sac, which is just what I wanted. Water starts overflowing through the vent line prompting me to check the ski locker sac, which is just about full at that point.

My only complication now is that my rear sacs have never overflowed. I am beginning to think that the factory things I tied into either (a) are not check valves or (b) are check valves stuck in the closed position. I'll take a look this weekend.

Wake with all the ballast full is sweet (no one but the driver in the boat). I added an extra 400 lbs on the rear seat (in addition to all the other ballast) and tried that. The wake got a little bigger, but not really better. Handling got worse, and fuel consumption got worse, so there were no noticeable gains for me on that limited test.

I'll have some extra people this weekend and can report back on how that changes things up.

As noted in another thread, with 2 extra 400lb each Fly High sacs (1 on the back seat, 1 along side the motor box), I was able to get a pretty nice surf wake. Not the cleanest I have seen, but it pushed quite well and had a decent pocket width. No one in the boat but the driver.

One last thing, in case I did not mention it earlier, instead of tearing up the existing floor piece, I made a custom floor piece for the rear with cutouts for the ball valves. I made it out of 3/4" plywood and wrapped it in fiberglass and epoxy. I'd have it carpeted, but my compressor for my staple gun is 4 states away at the moment at my other house.

[Chexi]

Note, Johnson pumps are fast and very loud. There is no way you are not going to hear the sound change of the pumps when the bags are empty.

Scratch that. With the rear hatch closed and the motor on, they are barely audible.

[h2obody]

Thanks for all of the posting and photos. I would really like to see global photos from start to finish, including photos of finished product and photos of the new wake. Thanks again for all of your efforts.

[Craigk]

Looking forward to final pics of install and what the wake looks like. I have a '98 Air with just the factory hard tanks right now and thinking about doing this as a winter project.

[74green]

+1 for pics of the wake (both surf and wakeboarding)

[Chexi]

Will do. I'll try to take some video of the wakeboarding and surf wake this weekend too and post them somewhere for public viewing. I will include a link.

My start to finish photos will be start to almost finish, since I can't carpet the floor piece I made as my compressor is in Iowa and my boat is in Texas, but other than that, it is finished.

[Chexi]

Okay, here are some "finished" pics. That said, I plan on carpeting the floor piece and building a fiberglass panel that goes between the pumps and the bags. I also need to check those factory check valves, which don't seem to be letting water out.

I only had one person with me today, so we did not have anyone to film the wakes. I will do that tomorrow.

Note, when we ran today for wakeboarding, I had all the sacs full. The wake was fairly clean, but only had so-so pop. I drained the bow sacs for about 30 seconds (so figure 3/4 full) and the wake became totally clean, more vertical, and a lot poppier.

Second note, it took 2:57 to fill the rear 2 bags. I consider that very fast. The front 2 bags, which run off 1 pump and have the ski locker bag flow deliberately constricted by the ball valve were more in the 5 and a half minute range. I did not get an exact time because I messed up the process. But it was roughly twice as long as the rears, which makes sense.

Third note, the fuse panel is now adhered by industrial velco to the side of my subwoofer. I'll take a picture tomorrow. It is basically hidden, but accessible since I can (a) pull my sub out very easily and (b) because it is velcro'd on.

[Chexi]

These are with about 800 in the rear and about 600 between the bow and belly. These are with 1 rider (which is why one side always appears washed out) and no one else in the boat. So far, I have had the best luck with no one else in th boat, as that is how I typically run. These are sensitive hulls, so with people in the boat, tweaking (especially side to side) is required, so have those fat bricks or pop bags at the ready. With no one else in the boat, I just use my bag cooler (full of ice and drinks) to level out the wakes.

Note, this was with only 1/4 tank of gas. The wake is a little taller with a full tank of gas. That said, it looks smaller than it is, as all wakes do from the back of the boat. I am very happy with the way this project turned out and the resulting wake.

[mhaaland]

Looks good Scott, nice work on the install! I'm sure the wake and install pictures do no justice! Enjoy!

[Chexi]

Thanks Matt. Your information helped me quite a bit. I hope that you are as pleased with your project as I am mine.

The pics definitely do not do the wake justice. I would say my wake is on par with a 2000 Xstar and 2002 Malibu VLX that I ride behind from time to time. Prior to this install, with the factory system the sweet spot on my wake was very small and unpredictable. Since installing this system and being able to tweak on the fly and set things the way I want, the wake has become much more predictable with a huge sweet spot. I have a clean lip from shorter than 60' to beyond 85'. I have personally ridden at 60', 65', 70', and 72.5' and been impressed with the wake at each length.

I should mention that the pictures and my results are at 22-23 mph. The wake is not good at much slower than that with this weight configuration. It remains clean at 25mph (the highest I tested), but of course gets smaller. With no weight, 18mph is good and clean.

I would also mention that since installing this project, I have increased my pop and can now go HS WTW at 72.5' and land in the flats. I have not tried any further, but I think 75' is definitely doable. The most I could do prior was 65' (I suck I know). I also was able to land multiple TS WTWs at 70' for the first time over this past weekend along with my first TS WTW 180s, as well as doing lip and butter slides on the wake for the first time at 22 mph (could only do them before at 18 or less). I have to give credit to The Wakeboard Camp for teaching me some fundamentals about riding position and approaches that ultimately resulted in my new tricks, but I struggled with them all week at the camp, and only now a few months later is it all clicking. A part of that is the clean and predicatble wake I now have to work with.

If anyone were to ask me whether this project was worth the $1200 or so I spent on it and the countless hours, I would say, "Without question, absolutely, positively, yes." I know a lot of people are hesitant to do this with a direct drive since it is more difficult and the ballast that you can install is less than you can in a v-drive. But if you have this same hull, I can attest to the fact that you can get a very nice wake with the right amount of ballast, and with the finickiness of this hull, having the ability to adjust on the fly is even more important than on a v-drive. This is now the single best upgrade that I have done to my boat, displacing WS-420, Tower speakers that the rider can hear, Fresh Air Exhaust, Isolator-combiner, and probably a few I am forgetting.

The only downer I would say is that I have not been able (yet) to get an epic surf wake out of this hull. I can get a wake that I can surf pretty much indefinitely if I don't try to do much, but the surf remains fairly washy. A better surfer could probably do some tricks, but so far the surf wake has not rivalled that of the v-drives I have surfed behind. If anyone has had better success, please post your ballast weight and placement.