RZ2 basic ballast to Surf plus

[Ewok]

Thanks for the tips, the barb couplers is a good idea.

Thanks Dingle for the explanation, along those lines, anyone know what DINK stands for?

Dual Income No Kids

yup

[IDBoating]

Correct. Also TINK (Two Income No Kids) is common. OINK is for One, etc.

[Ewok]

Got the OK from CINChouse to pull the trigger on the ballast parts! Moving around sacs with kids in the way is a great motivator!

[IDBoating]

Got the OK from CINChouse to pull the trigger on the ballast parts! Moving around sacs with kids in the way is a great motivator!

I'll bet another great motivator is her improving skill set.

Let me know if you can ever use an extra set of hands, I'll be happy to come over and help.

[Ewok]

I officially ordered the gear today and I went with Atwood 800 for the pumps. I read CHPThrills thread about actual flow testing and determined the rule 1100s would only gain me 1:00-1:30 in fill time so I went with the cheaper pumps to keep the CFO happy. I was also informed they are a little smaller and easier to make a manifold for in the system Chpthrill and WABoating helped me design. Thanks guys! I'll try to take a few good pics during the install and log the time it actually took for me to put it together.

Also, thanks to Talltigeguy for motivating me to go to harbor freight to pick up a heat gun and to WABoating for making it alright to order a gallon of KY. Truthfully it was never wrong to order a gallon of KY, just weird 'cause I'm married now and there won't be girls wrestling in it.

[IDBoating]

Also, thanks to Talltigeguy for motivating me to go to harbor freight to pick up a heat gun and to WABoating for making it alright to order a gallon of KY.

Uh oh, you're on their "Gallon List" now. Just wait until the illustrated advertisements start showing up in the mailbox....

[skippabcool]

Truthfully it was never wrong to order a gallon of KY, just weird 'cause I'm married now and there won't be girls wrestling in it.

I guess you will have a supply to last several years or you will be able to go assist other TO's with their ballast installs.

[IDBoating]

So, Ewok, are you going to do the battery shelf mod to enlarge the volume for your ballast on both sides?

Are you going to do the separate sacs for the locker and underseat space, to minimize sloshing?

Details, please! Since we can't actually boat this time of year we need to live vicariously through boating projects! {grin}

[Ewok]

No, not doing your battery shelf mod this winter anyhow. It won't give me as much space as yours did, plus I have the under floor tanks installed at the moment. I'm just adding the bags on top of the hard tanks and I'm going to remove the cosmetic divider at the front of the lockers to add more volume for the sac to fill. The w719 sac is very large and it will fill every nook and crany of the locker and just a little forward of the locker. I actually use the underseat storage for kid stuff and we use the built in cooler too.

My goal is to balance the ease of installation with maximizing ballast and maintaining as much storage as possible. When the bags are drained I use the locker space to keep the boards when I trailer to/from the lake. Because I invite many different friends with different aged kids I keep lifejackets onboard to handle infants to jumbo sized adults, they all fit in the storage in front of the driver, the other space is full of towels, toys and other items so I need all the storage I can get. Luckily this boat has just enough space for everything.

[IDBoating]

No, not doing your battery shelf mod this winter anyhow. It won't give me as much space as yours did, plus I have the under floor tanks installed at the moment.

I know about the tanks, but they shouldn't prevent you from extending your above-tank ballast rearward. If you moved the equipment out from behind the locker walls you'd still gain the volume behind the walls all the way back to the transom. That's a huge amount of space, and thus ballast. Just thinkin'.

Whatever you do, it will be a great improvement. And it will be nice not having to hoist those sacs back and forth between the two sides. Since you have both normal and goofy in your family, are you going to install some cross-sac pump(s) to shorten switch time?

[Ewok]

I'm going to experiment with one hose between the sacs and see how much gravity can help with speeding up the transfer time. I know that once the sacs are equal the transfer line is a hinderance and I'll have to shut if off but it should help a little. I also think that with the hard tanks draining and filling that the list of the boat might help transfer a little more than half of the load but I'll see what happens and do a little video for y'all. It won't have the same production value as a wake9 video but I'll try.

[IDBoating]

Worst case, if that hose doesn't do what you're hoping and it's near the bottom of both sacs, you could drop an impeller pump in the middle and accelerate things.

[Ewok]

That's the plan, a future upgrade with the plumbing installed.

[adamsjstt]

I'll carefully tread in here and say that I did this a different way. I was originally going to vent and drain to the opposite side, but after considering hose lengths and routing I went forward instead:



This pattern is repeated on the other side. Vents and drains are on the same side as the sac in question. But by having them high and forward like this, they are always above the top of the sac (because the bow rides higher than the stern) even when it is maxed out. There is no chance for syphoning, and check valves (with their backpressure and subsequent reduction in flow) are not required.

Furthermore, access to the back of these vents/drains is easy through the storage compartment. Cutting and chamfering the holes, installing the thruhulls, connecting the hoses, etc. is all easy with lots of room. And the resulting thruhulls and hoses are up at the top of the compartment so you don't lose useful storage space. They're also easy to monitor from the driver's seat without even turning around.

I had one guy say he'd never seen ballast thruhulls above the rubrail, but on the other hand I've have LOTS of people compliment their appearance and claim they "look factory". I can say this: They work great!

Just another idea to consider.

I'm starting my ballast install on a 07 RZ2 and I'm thinking of running my drain and vents forward like WAboating has done and I'm curious if anybody else has done this? Any down side?

[Ewok]

None that I could tell, I've been on WABoatings boat and it worked very well, the drain and vent hoses are well above the waterline even when heavily ballasted.

I received all the parts from Chp a day after I left for a business trip. My wife sent me pictures. I can't wait to get home and get started but that will have to wait until Jan. I did go to harbor freight and picked up a heat gun for $14. I made it very easy to get the hose off the fittings for my launchpad pump and put new hose on. It also made it easier to build my fake a lake from home depot parts.