2000 Air Nautique Ballast Design/Modificaiton

[cdrymalla]

I have seen several post about the Air's and adding an auto ballast system. Well, this is what I have come up with. Let me know what your opinions are and where I may run into trouble.

Notes/Questions?

1) I already have a fly high sac in the ski locker and in the rear Tee'd into the stock fill line. Each sack has an additional fill and empty pump (aireator style) and each have manual ball valves in line to shut them off.

2) With the stock system, the pump has a hard time emptying while moving (e.g., pushing water out the bottom of the boat) so I would like to add a drain via the vents out of the existing vent line so I can drain out the side of the boat while running down the lake.

3) Question, is the fitting in the drain/vent line in the rear of the boat a check valve? If so, I think I can t-in past them to drian out the rear w/o adding new holes into the boat

4) I saw these valves that others have used...3/4" Active Open so I can activate them open when the fill or the empty pump is on for each respective line.

<http://cgi.ebay.com/3-4-Electric-Solenoid-Valve-12-v-Diesel-Water-B21N_W0QQitemZ290356157234QQcategoryZ87087QQcmdZVi ewItemQQ_trksidZp4340.m263QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DSIC%2 6its%3DI%252BC%26itu%3DUCI%252BIA%252BUA%252BFICS% 252BUFI%26otn%3D10%26ps%3D63>

With this, I can turn on the stock pump to open the first valve (using the dial knobs to cut off flow to the stock tansk if needed). And then turn on each of the sac pumps to fill in sequence with the main pump still on and the main valve still open. Then cut them all off to seal the water in (can also shut the white dials). To drain, I turn on each respective drain pump. B/C the first valve is only operated by the fill pump, the valve stays shut so water is directd out of the extra drain line. I can do this for each of the sacs. I am assuming the fitting in the stock vent/drain line is a check valve. I will probably add a check valve in the new/extra drain line too.

[wcherashore]

RE: 2000 Air Nautique Ballast Design/Modificaiton

I have a 2000 air nautique and am considering doing a similar install and I have a few questions about what you've done so far....

1. what sacks did you use in the ski locker and rear compartment? I am considering the rear seat sack for the ski locker, but clearly it isn't a perfect fit.
2. how much weight and improvement in the wake did you see adding these bags?
3. why did you integrate the added sacks with the hard tanks? or add a dedicated thru-hull fitting and a reversible pump?
4. how did you reinforce the floor of the rear locker? I had wanted to use the same space because of its location and because it would keep bags from being all over the floor in an already small boat, but given that the sack would be located on top of the hard tanks, I was concerned about collapsing them.

I know its a lot of questions, but I have yet to see a similar boat owner tackle this install and am eager to work with somebody on this project...

[cdrymalla]

RE: 2000 Air Nautique Ballast Design/Modificaiton

1) The previous owner already had the sacks. They are the fly-high x red sacs. He said they were fit for the boat, but who knows. I will measure them, and take pics and repost this weekend.
2) Much improvement. No tanks are mellow, stock taks are ok, rear sack and locker sack improve it alot. I am a newb and I added two additional side sack next to the engine this past weekend and the wake got decently big decently quick. We did it for my friend who has an LSV that sacks his out and is a really good rider. He was able to hit everyone of his tricks and at one point hit them all in sequence which he had never done behind he LSV. So I would say even if the wake is still a bit smaller he thought it was pretty good. For me the wake got big enough to be intemidating. I 'll post pics of the wake later.
3) They are not really integrated with the hard tanks. There is a t in the stock lines so the fill pump kind of assits all of the pumps (the blocks with the arrows int eh diagram are the pumps
4) I don't have any reinforcemnt on the tanks and it has not been a problem. I lifted the foor board and the sotck tanks are pretty stiff, narrow and short right there, so they appear to hafve plenty of strength.

[cdrymalla]

RE: 2000 Air Nautique Ballast Design/Modificaiton

BTW. That pic was at 21.5 mph @ 70ft+handle. We had about 4 people in the boat (about 400lbs of people in there total when I was riding)

[cdrymalla]

RE: 2000 Air Nautique Ballast Design/Modificaiton

Forgot to answer a couple of other questions stashed in there. I am/was tying to keep the boat as close to stock as I can (e.g., I really don't want to start poking extra/larger holes in the boat). Right now, I can just pull out the T in the main line and I am right back to stock. I can live with the fill times. Actually the tank and sacs fill up pretty quickly while running on plane. However, that being said, If I had more confidence, I wouldn't mind increasing the size of the intake and maybe pushing up to 1" lines, but then I may have to upgrade pumps and so forth so it is a balance of cost and modificaitons vs actual improvement. I also thought about putting an extra T and manual valve in extra drain so I could hook up the tsunami fly-high pump to help pump water into fill if I was in a hurry, or could connect an extra line to sacks onboard to fill them via the drain line and the stock fill pump if I dodn;t have the tsunami.

My biggest complaint right now is having to walk around in the boat to manually operate the two ball valves and not being able to drain efficiently while moving. The 10mins to drain before making the run back to the boat ramp is usually more of a time crunch b/c we are always pressed for time. I prefer to run with the tanks empty or emptying to save gas and time. With this setup, I think I will only need 3 valves + some tubing and adapters. Hope to upgrade for about $150.

[Miljack]

I did a project write up on the ballast system I built for my '99 Pro Air, which is the same deck as an Air.

I built a new "subfloor" for the trunk to support the sacks I was using as I removed the stock plastic tanks. I would have been easier to put a bag on top of the tanks, but I like the extra room in the trunk without the tanks, and we can store a lot of junk when we are not riding.

If it were me, I would remove the stock ballast system, the original hoses in mine were the thin bilge line and was beginning to fail (I think one of them was leaking already), and the stock pumps are 750gph. You will need an RV wastegate like mine, or a manual ball valve to keep it from filling the tanks.

http://planetnautique.com/index.php?...roject+ballast

Let me know if you have any questions.

[cdrymalla]

...You will need an RV wastegate like mine, or a manual ball valve to keep it from filling the tanks.

Miljack, thanks for the input. I think the automated valves would solve the problem with the backflow? I think this is what you are referring to with the RV valve?

How did you arrange your bags to ensure they empty well. Currently, my bags drain out of the fittings in the end/side, not the two on top. So the bags typically empty most of the way, but if there is some air in them, they leave some water in them. I usually just pick up one end of the sack and try to get the water down to the end to prime to suck out the last bit.
My pumps are belwo the sack, but typically an air bubble gets in the line and they loose prime.

[Miljack]

My pumps are below the bags in the trunk, down in the bilge area. I use the top fittings in the bag for vent lines, so when I drain, the pumps seem to keep their prime pretty well. The sack in the ski locker just has the drain pump at the back of the bag, and it does pretty well pumping all the water out.

[cdrymalla]

Miljack (or others)...

How are you venting the sacks? Just a line to the vent with a high loop to prevent backflow, or do you use a check valve. Also, are you filling into one of the top connector, draining out of the side and ventiing out of one of the top connector? I will look a little closer at your linked post to try to figure out too.

Right now, I have the fill/empty pumps in series through the side connector and it does pretty well pumping out too, but sometimes once the water level hits the side conenctor, it looses prime and I have about 2" of water in the sack, especially in the ski locker sack. Do you think venting helps to solve this by getting the air out when filling and providing a good suction on empty?

Thanks

[cdrymalla]

Does anyone know the size of the stock inlet? Is it about 1"?

I am wondering if I could add a tsunami 1200 and 1" lines from the inlet to the first T in the diagram above. From there I could use smaller 3/4" lines for each of the three fill line. I could move the existing 800 gph past the T to the stock tanks. This way I could push more water to all three lines and may be able to fill two or even all three simultaneously without staving each other?

[wcherashore]

I have been speaking to wakemakers in regards to adding a system to my boat and they recommended a dedicated thru-hull fitting to vent.... the reason being that there is not enough room in the gunnel to tee the bilge line...

That being said, I spoke to a SAN owner of the same year and he teed his system into the overflow for the cooler/glove compartment which you can tee into underneath the passenger seat. I have yet to look and verify this as I just found this out, but thought this might be a nice option because then it removes the need for another thru-hull and gives a visual for when the system is full and done emptying. Although I am not sure how well this would work because the outlet for these overflows would be significantly above the level of the pump and sack so it might strain/slow down the system.

[cdrymalla]

wcherashore, thanks for the input.

Off-hand I can't recall if my cooler exit is through the hull, but that would be a nice option. Right now, I am thinking about T'ing into the existing vent lines in the rear of the boat that come off the stock tanks. There is one on both sides. I was hoping to put in check valves so I could use them for vents and drains.

[wcherashore]

have you completed your install?

[cdrymalla]

No, I got hung up on the idea of enlarging the intake tubing, and I am considering creating an intake manifold with the three intake pumps attached, and using the three output pump and check valves to route the water out. Theroetically, it should take the about the same number of parts, I am just assessing room forward of the engine for the manifold. I am also toying with adding a 1200 tsunami pump before the manifold to help each of the pumps along so I can run them at the same time without starving them. Right now, I am not getting out on the water much and I have several other projects that took over my time, so it has been on the back burner.