Hey everyone,
I saw there was not much information on here about RZ4 ballast, and figured I would do an update on what I have done with my new to me boat. I have an 09 RZ4, with the stock ballast system. My wife's first time driving a boat was after we bought this, and I have 4 kids, and the oldest is 6, so I really do not want to list my boat since these wake systems are out there now. I decided on the Mission Delta.
My front ballast when I got it had a hole chewed in it from a mouse or something about the size of a silver dollar. I used the patch kit off my HO Fad that I bought for my kids, put a patch on the inside, and then another on the outside. It held up and did not leak through the first use. I do not intend on doing anymore here. 400 lbs and it fills up most of the locker, I don't think there is much more I can do, and since I do not plan to list, only filling up one side is not a benefit to me.
As for back ballast, all I had was the 2 hard tanks at 250 lbs per. I wanted to add ballast, but 1. did not want to drill more holes in the boat, 2. did not want to spend a fortune, and 3. ABSOLUTELY wanted it to be automated. I initially called wakemakers, who said that they do not sell piggyback systems for the rz4, and that they do not work well with the boat. I then talked to Mike (Chpthril) and he told me he could help me out. His pricing was on point, and he a great loyal following on here so I decided to trust him, and I am glad that I did. I didn't want the custom sacs, as they would have taken up storage space under the seats, and I really did not want to do that with the 4 little kids, as I am going to have to store a tube or 2 in the boat under seats, so I did not have more space to give up (I bought the RZ4 for the space, so I didn't want to lose all of it to ballast.) Mike recommended I go with the 1100 lb jumbo fatsacs. Said they would not fill to about 800 lbs in the lockers.
Installation was really not bad. Mike hooked me up with A diagram and instructions. It took myself and another guy about 5 hours total to get it all done. The hardest part was getting the false floor out of the lockers. (The screws were completely hidden. Kind of had to pick up the floor, and see where it was catching.) I even called Mike at this point (about 6:30 at night) and asked him if I was missing something or if the false floor was glued, and he told me it was going to be a nightmare to find the screws. I do not want to get into too many details here, nor will I share Mike's diagram, as I feel that if I did people would bypass Mike to save a penny (which I doubt you would save anyways.)
So on to the sea trial. I packed up the boat with everything we needed for the day. It was probably 15-20 mph winds, so there was white caps on the water, and the boat handled the water great. It was my families first ride on the boat, so we did some joy riding, then went into town for lunch, and finally it was time to test out the ballast. I pressed the three buttons, and everything started filling. The front filled in a couple minutes, and the back filled in around 10. I threw the delta on the side of the boat as low as I could get it, and took off. The 537 actually did not have a problem, but when I got up to 11.4 the wave was completely washed out. I then turned on the empty for the non surf side and about 15 seconds later the wave cleaned up and looked beautiful. I drove around for a few minutes and grabbed a couple pics of the wave, and then that was it. I did not try to dial it in, nor did I even remember to adjust the taps off of 1. I will do more this weekend hopefully and will be happy to update.
Emptying the bags, I left it in neutral and dropped the bags, wanted to make sure everything emptied, and it did just as Mike had said. Again about 10 minutes, but would normally do this under way.
Overall, very happy with the purchase, and service from Mike. I will add a picture of the wake from my phone in another post, however like I said, I did not really try to dial it in, nor did I change the taps setting from 1.
Let me know if you have any questions.
I saw there was not much information on here about RZ4 ballast, and figured I would do an update on what I have done with my new to me boat. I have an 09 RZ4, with the stock ballast system. My wife's first time driving a boat was after we bought this, and I have 4 kids, and the oldest is 6, so I really do not want to list my boat since these wake systems are out there now. I decided on the Mission Delta.
My front ballast when I got it had a hole chewed in it from a mouse or something about the size of a silver dollar. I used the patch kit off my HO Fad that I bought for my kids, put a patch on the inside, and then another on the outside. It held up and did not leak through the first use. I do not intend on doing anymore here. 400 lbs and it fills up most of the locker, I don't think there is much more I can do, and since I do not plan to list, only filling up one side is not a benefit to me.
As for back ballast, all I had was the 2 hard tanks at 250 lbs per. I wanted to add ballast, but 1. did not want to drill more holes in the boat, 2. did not want to spend a fortune, and 3. ABSOLUTELY wanted it to be automated. I initially called wakemakers, who said that they do not sell piggyback systems for the rz4, and that they do not work well with the boat. I then talked to Mike (Chpthril) and he told me he could help me out. His pricing was on point, and he a great loyal following on here so I decided to trust him, and I am glad that I did. I didn't want the custom sacs, as they would have taken up storage space under the seats, and I really did not want to do that with the 4 little kids, as I am going to have to store a tube or 2 in the boat under seats, so I did not have more space to give up (I bought the RZ4 for the space, so I didn't want to lose all of it to ballast.) Mike recommended I go with the 1100 lb jumbo fatsacs. Said they would not fill to about 800 lbs in the lockers.
Installation was really not bad. Mike hooked me up with A diagram and instructions. It took myself and another guy about 5 hours total to get it all done. The hardest part was getting the false floor out of the lockers. (The screws were completely hidden. Kind of had to pick up the floor, and see where it was catching.) I even called Mike at this point (about 6:30 at night) and asked him if I was missing something or if the false floor was glued, and he told me it was going to be a nightmare to find the screws. I do not want to get into too many details here, nor will I share Mike's diagram, as I feel that if I did people would bypass Mike to save a penny (which I doubt you would save anyways.)
So on to the sea trial. I packed up the boat with everything we needed for the day. It was probably 15-20 mph winds, so there was white caps on the water, and the boat handled the water great. It was my families first ride on the boat, so we did some joy riding, then went into town for lunch, and finally it was time to test out the ballast. I pressed the three buttons, and everything started filling. The front filled in a couple minutes, and the back filled in around 10. I threw the delta on the side of the boat as low as I could get it, and took off. The 537 actually did not have a problem, but when I got up to 11.4 the wave was completely washed out. I then turned on the empty for the non surf side and about 15 seconds later the wave cleaned up and looked beautiful. I drove around for a few minutes and grabbed a couple pics of the wave, and then that was it. I did not try to dial it in, nor did I even remember to adjust the taps off of 1. I will do more this weekend hopefully and will be happy to update.
Emptying the bags, I left it in neutral and dropped the bags, wanted to make sure everything emptied, and it did just as Mike had said. Again about 10 minutes, but would normally do this under way.
Overall, very happy with the purchase, and service from Mike. I will add a picture of the wake from my phone in another post, however like I said, I did not really try to dial it in, nor did I change the taps setting from 1.
Let me know if you have any questions.
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