Adding weight to direct drive

[jnole]

Trying to add weight to my 03 20I, found a fat sac that would fit in my back ski locker. Little worried about putting weight on top of gas tank. Any issue with doing this?

[Thegerman618]

No there are no issues with this, just make sure that you don't have any sharp edges back there (I.E full tank mounting brackets) I run a 1100 sac in my rear locker behind the fuel tank. When its full the swim step is a few inches under water. The fuel tanks are very sturdy they shouldn't flex to much or at all. What are you trying to clean up the wakeboard wake or the surf wave?

[jnole]

Trying to clean up wakeboard wake and see if I can get bigger wake to surf. I know I need more sacs. Not sure if I can get the wake I want. Surfed behind buddies g21 and now I'm hooked on wake surfing. New boat maybe next years project.

[Thegerman618]

I have found that with the direct drive boats across the board (Tige', Malibu, Centurion, ect.) they are ULTRA touchy with weight. Even 100lbs in either direction will change the shape, lip, length, or push. I have been playing around with my boat for a few months now, and I will give you some examples of what worked and didn't and what was just plain not safe. Does your boat have any "V" at the stern or are you basically a flat bottom at the rear? This will make a huge difference overall. I am running on average 2700lbs for surfing and 1000lbs for wakeboarding. What I have found is that most of our boats whether DD or VD the hull is basically the same, the difference is motor placement obviously. So I treat the motor on DD as ballast basically, and add the weight of the motor in ballast to the back of the boat to simulate having a V-Drive. For wakeboarding its an even weight as I am sure you are aware, but a decent amount of weight in the bow will help out significantly. (800 rear locker and 400 bow) I get about a knee/shin high with a nice lip at 60 ft. at 23mph beyond that its washed out. Surfing, much different, I am sure some more people will chime in here as there are a few methods of weighting the boat...BUT, this is what works for me. 1100 Rear Locker as Full as I can get it, 800 surf side, 400 non-surf side (center on the motor bay not all the way against the rear bench) and 270 in the bow as far forward as possible. I have also made my own make shift (Vertical Tab/Surf Tab) I get about thigh high wave that is 10-15 feet long with good push at about 9-11 feet behind the boat. I run a bit slower than most at about 10.5/10.8 and I do not have an adjustable wake plate. I am 6' 4" and 210lbs I ride a Koal Fish 5-4 no problem, I haven't had any skim style boards back there yet still early in the season, but I see no reason why someone would not be able to surf it on one. Before the vertical tab, I was running 1100 on the surf side, 800 rear locker, 400 non surf side and 270 in the bow, and it scared the crap out me. the water was up to the top of my rear locker while under way, the wave was surfable (I did not test this just by sight) just idle the rub rail was in the water. Some guys are cool with this, but I am not comfortable driving around like that one wave to the side and it could swamp the boat. Wakeboarding, when I started I was running 400 rear locker and that's it and the wave at 50-60 was garbage seen better lips on seadoos. The bow weight is what really cleaned it up for me. Hope this helps, sorry for the long rant.