My design for a TAPS3-VX

[CarFanatic]

I've ridden vx boat with a mission and the wave was great

[99bison]

We have vx + suck gate on rzr and it works great.

[freeheel4life]

We have taken a traded rz2 out with a VX a couple time this summer and slapped a delta on it basically as low and as far back as possible. Still running ballast slightly listed (fill rears 100% fronts 70ish depending on if anyone's sitting in bow) then just drain offside for a couple minutes to help boat roll over a bit coming out of the hole to help wave form up quicker. No complaints yet. Had one friend riding wireless his second time out.

[bsreid]

Wow! One word, wow. That’s how good this design worked. The curl on that wave had to be 8 inches and the wave was waist height with tons of length at 12mph. Stupid me didn’t take a single picture

Here’s basically the design drawn by what looks like a 3 year old
IMG_3577.jpg

[JohnnieMo]

So you affix that thing to the side you a surfing on? Or do you attach it to the off side and list the boat the other way? I'm not really following. I tried to build exactly that design last night but I didn't have the parts I would need. It requires some welding, which I'm just not good enough at.

I got my "wood based" new design half done last night. Intend to test on Friday. It's not pretty but it will prove or disprove the concept.

[bsreid]

It’s attached to the offside of the surfer same as a suc gate or taps 3. It’s just a price of metal welded onto the aluminum handle. So when the boat is up and running it’s completely level and the wave is right there and goes back a mile.

[Chugh2o]

It’s attached to the offside of the surfer same as a suc gate or taps 3. It’s just a price of metal welded onto the aluminum handle. So when the boat is up and running it’s completely level and the wave is right there and goes back a mile.

Would love to see pictures if you get out again!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[JohnnieMo]

My design for a TAPS3-VX

Okay so my new surf ramp was tested today. Don't laugh but this is what it looked like.



Amazingly the bastard floats too! It was hard to attach due to its buoyancy. But enough about that, you want to hear what it did.

So with the boat weighted evenly (about 800/2000) the surf ramp stayed attached! Yay step 1!

The result would have shocked me completely if BSReid hadn't prepared me for it. The wave formed up on the opposite side. To be clear the wave formed on the same side it was attached to. Best pic I could snap is here.



The wave was better than this pic indicates but not what I would call a good wave. I have GoPro video I will try to extract from. However it was mounted to the opposite side of the boat!

I'm prepared to call the surf ramp an utter failure. Better designs could help but I think minor alterations of the conventional suck gate would likely yield a better result.

On to test #2.

Everyone always tell me they evenly weight using a gate. I've had no luck with this. The boat typically can't "get up". So I decided my test would be to start with the boat empty and fill all ballast while I drive. So that's what I did.

The start was clean. Decent wave on port side. As the ballast filled the wave kept getting bigger. It stayed clean.

As the front ballast hit max the back kept going. I have Wake9 bags so they are pretty huge. By the time we hit 6 minutes the wave was starting to froth. For the record that is about 900-1000lbs per side, 2 adults in the boat.

I tried moving my 300lb buddy to the nose but it didn't fix it. However I think losing him from the port rear corner likely had an affect. I assume more bow weight (lead) could allow for more rear weight.

So we surfed like this all day. I also tried moving my suck gate up a bit. I didn't grab a pic but I mounted it to the coloured stripe down the side of the Z1. This gave it a slight downward angle. When I did this I had the best wave I had ever surfed. Two adults and a kid in the boat. Suck gate slightly downward aimed and 800/2000 weight. As time went on we lost some of the bag weight and still had a crushing wave.

I have piles of GoPro footage to go through to back up my crazy claims. However I am sold on the gate design. It will work and work well.



Final tidbit. The Tigé Touch 1 has this goofy feature called Tigé You. This allows you to set profiles. I never use it because my transfer pumps messes with the values. However being evenly weighted I thought it could work. So I made a profile to match the settings I found that worked: 100% fronts, 75% rears, TAPS8 and 10.8MPH. It worked. But what it also did was lower TAPS1 every time the boat stopped and back to TAPS8 once you hit speed.

This is a nifty feature the REALLY helps get the boat "up". I just liked it. That's all. Vids pending.

[dukesofhazzard]

Neat idea for sure. I see the length and I like the extra to play in. But correct me if I'm wrong it sure looks like height is knocked down as well. Can't wait to see the video. And u r putting this on the surf side of boat correct? Keep us posted

[JohnnieMo]

Neat idea for sure. I see the length and I like the extra to play in. But correct me if I'm wrong it sure looks like height is knocked down as well. Can't wait to see the video. And u r putting this on the surf side of boat correct? Keep us posted

This picture doesn't do the height any justice. The GoPro footage will show a pretty awesome wave. I generally only capture the "low to the water" footage when I'm trying to directly compare one test to another. Otherwise I put the camera up higher to catch the surfer better.

Here is a screenshot from the vid. I am 6'2". 275lbs and I had a hard time losing the wave. As noted it is evenly weighted, TAPS2 set to 6 (wake9 TAPS plate) and about a 800/1600 split at the time of this video. Old suck gate attached. 2 passengers @ 10.8MPH. 2013 Z1 Vx.

surf.jpg

[dukesofhazzard]

Height is better for sure there. That's the old gate?

[JohnnieMo]

Height is better for sure there. That's the old gate?

Yes this is the old gate attached slightly higher than before. I'll put some pics in my video. Gate attached to far side as usual.

Best wave height I've ever had in this boat or any other. I actually started bringing TAPS down from 8. Usually us big boys need all the TAPS we can get.

[JohnnieMo]

Here is a test video. (I am trying to see if I can avoid YouTube and all the ads that come with it)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3...HFxazhJNXVRTFk

Again this video is with 800 front, 1600 rear, TAPS 6 and suck gate affixed to the far side. 2 passengers around 10.8MPH.

[JohnnieMo]

My design for a TAPS3-VX

Okay, here is my evenly weighted test.

https://youtu.be/fFun1ks1_kQ

I discovered that the boat topped out at around 6 minutes or so. If you assume these pumps are accurately pumping 1100GPH, that is around 900lbs. I guessed conservatively at closer to 800lbs. Either way, that was a pretty nice amount. My surfing at the end is at TAPS6, and likely closer to 700lbs in each rear corner. I found that as the day went on and the lake calmed, the RPM's went down and the wave quality went up a lot (despite the ballast leakage). In fact, I'd say the wave was the best I've ever had and I was likely running close to 700lbs in each locker.

The amazing part of this is the boat came stock with 600lbs in each rear corner. I think a factory 2013 with pro ballast and a suck gate could be a force to be reckoned with (proper Vx brackets not withstanding_

[JohnnieMo]

My design for a TAPS3-VX

Here is a screenshot from the vid. I am 6'2". 275lbs and I had a hard time losing the wave. As noted it is evenly weighted, TAPS2 set to 6 (wake9 TAPS plate) and about a 800/1600 split at the time of this video. Old suck gate attached. 2 passengers @ 10.8MPH. 2013 Z1 Vx.

[ATTACH]46575[/ATTACH]

For the record this pic was captured differently than the test. I mounted it above the chine along the coloured contour. As you can see it changed the orientation slightly but with the even weighting it still stayed under water.





Not content to sit around I started designing my first revision of the gate. Well I should actually call it my third revision since I did two others last year:

https://youtu.be/tST01BbRO4o

Funny enough - I was on the right track last year. I should have stayed the course. Either way I have lots more evidence now for the conclusions in this video.

So here it is. Taller and better contoured. Will test Wednesday.







--

Lastly I had a failure of suck gate 1.0 on the water. It no longer attaches with the voracity it used to. I had it fly off and boomerang back in to the boat. One time it chipped the swim platform. Another time it bruised a passenger. Not good. So JohnnieMo Suck Gate 1.5 has been created. Stainless hardware. Rust proofing. Stronger suction. Now in black! (And I'll attach to a fender from now on) This should get me through the season.