2006 wakesetter ballast
 

Hey Everyone, I have decided to go against the grain a little and not do a "piggyback" setup on my 06 vlx.

I have snooped around the bilge a little to decide where I will do my thru hull for the jabsco pumps, but i wanted to consult with all of you for any feedback on what you ended up with on a similar era VLX as far as thru hull location and pump mounting location.

My ballast set up on my last boat was a little more elaborate with the jabsco's, i plan on doing this a little less complex without vents and just drain through the bottom thru hull versus above water.

I was thinking to do a single jabsco with a wye fitting that would fill (2) 400lb bag on each side of the engine. I understand without vents I may have to burp the bag every now and then, but with a completely closed system it shouldn't be too bad... right... or...? will i constantly be fighting with one bag filling faster than the other. I would have valves on the fill/drain line for each bag if needed.

Why such small bags?

Obviously you aren't going to damage anything boat wise with a bag that small, but could damage the bag itself from the pump. Vents are just a good idea and not all that expensive.

Also, with a wye and no vent, it has to stop when one bag fills. So any restriction on one side more than the other = unequal filling.

IMO, if you are going to do it, do it right the first time. Two pumps, 750 bags with vents. Done.

I did a really similar setup on my old boat. Just wye'd off a reversible pump. It works great if you don't want to surf. If you want to surf, then you'll need to add shut-off valves. The other difficulty is weight balancing. I prefer to have seperate pumps for each side that way I don't have to move people in the boat, and I can just dump/fill ballast to tweak the wake.

I'd strongly urge 1 pump per bag, but I do understand it gets expensive FAST.

on the same token, i guess when one is full, it will just naturally divert to the bag that isn't full and fill until they both have equal pressure.

My reason for not doing the vents was to keep air from re-entering the system. I had vents on my last boat, even with check valves on the vent line, a lot of air entered the system. Wasn't until I rode someone elses boat and saw their bags would get sucked completely dry with no vent/no air entering the system.

All 5 of my bags are vented with check valves and all 5 suck down pancake thin. Maybe you got a bad set of check valves as all 5 of mine work perfectly.

I guess I am not out anything if I decide to add them. I messed around with orientation and positioning of the check valves on my last boat and they always sucked air. I think I asked wakemakers on it at one time and the check valves are not really designed to be a check valve for air.

What check valves were you using?

Any takers on positioning of thru hulls, pumps, etc... for this boat. I know after I did my ballast system on my last boat I would have mounted some things a little differently, looking for input from someone who has already been down that road on this boat.

Sign up on themalibucrew.com and check out BretB's set up. I did this on my 07 VLX last year and I love it. Sounds like it's exaclty what you're looking for. Bret is also here on wakeworld so maybe he'll chime in and have a link for you.

3/4" fitting to convert drain to thru hull
 

Thanks for the feedback, i did see brettb's set up on the malibu crew.

Have many people used this 3/4" fitting to convert their extra drain to a thru-hull? I wonder if it lacks integrity compared to a normal thru-hull fitting. Is the drain hole fitting really capable of having a heavy ball valve attached to it. The standard mushroom thru hull's are pretty beefy.

I would use it for the pump in the rear and add a thru hull for the front bag in the area where the center access panel is, I still want to have a center drain plug.