2014 G23 plumbing extra ballast over stock

[c640947]

Fair point about waiting. My kids are too young to fill ballast unfortunately. And many times we dont have enough people in the boat to make up for the ballast. I run to the river with 1-3 others, we ride and then head back out to the lake or house. So gear, coolers, etc are a lot of times at a minimum. We also ride on a shallow river (less than 15 feet in most places, avg prob 6-8 feet) so need the extra weight to get the wake the same as it is in deeper water. So put all that together and I am pretty sure we want the extra.

Plus why not? If I CAN get a bigger wake I will do it since my usual crew can ride bigger wakes. But overall fair points that I may really take my time figuring out the best option here. Especially if I can use same bags later to plumb in.

[ers906]

I agree with the "why not" part, that is sort of my life logo. At this point, my knees can't really take much more. I am a pretty stubborn SOB, and usually won't let myself get back into the boat if I am not landing a new trick that I am trying that pull. Which unfortunately has led to several shoulder surgeries (torn labrum, torn cuff, torn biceps tendon), broken ankles and feel, and more knee injuries than I care to count (currently torn or partially torn MCL). Getting old really isnt much fun :/ But I agree if your body can take it, your crew is smaller, and you need to cross some shallow spots to get to the best water, it sounds like extra plumbed ballast may be the call for you. There is enough room in the hull just in front of the batteries to place an extra intake, with a shut off valve that can fill two if not three bags at the same time. If you place a 1.75 through hull intake, I believe that you can get enough intake flow to get adequate water through 3/4" or 1" tubing. Although if you decide to get it plumbed, talk with Ryan at length about it, he had Buxtom do his and he loves it. I believe you made a comment that your dealer had said that it may void the warranty, so you may want to pay the extra $ and have Buxtom do the install since they are experienced with it and I do not believe that they would void anything. Just a thought. Let me know if you want me to take a picture of the area in front of the battery boxes so you can get an idea of what I am talking about.

[MLA]

I have the same question as I will wakeboard more than surf and think it would need bow weight. I plan to plumb some in there but mine wont come until December.

Along the same lines the dealer wont cut into the hull for another pickup and the idea of voiding the structural warranty before I even use it makes me cringe a bit. Dealer said you can put something over the drain hole that acts as a water pickup (but can still be easily removed to drain.) Seems like a good interim idea for the first year while I make sure the boat is problem free but that drain hole is small. I dont know the size of a traditional ballast thru hull pickup but Ive gotta think its bigger than the drain plug hole. Will that hole be too small to support three pumps sucking on it? Anyone have experience with this?

The boats warranty is upheld by the manufacturer, not the independent franchise dealer. There is a difference between a voided warranty and denying a warranty claim due to improper work or user error. To be perfectly honest, an authorized, factory trained dealer, can even to an improper repair that can result in the manufacturer denying a future warranty claim. If there are questions about what you as an owner can do and can not due to your boat, in RE of the warranty, I would suggest getting that info in writing, from the manufacturer. I have yet to find one that has voided a warranty or denied a claim because of a ballast install or other accessories.

For those that do not want to add an additional thru-hull in the bottom of the boat, a simple T can be put in on the existing thru-hulls. Now the new pump and and an existing pump will share a single pickup.

[c640947]

Does anyone know the size of the factory pick up in relation to the size of one ballast hose? I would imagine since the factory system has 3 (guessing 1") hoses going to pumps / bags that the factory through hull is around 3"? So T-ing off that for an additional 3 bags would create some pressure issues I would think.

[ers906]

There are three individual pick ups, one for each ballast hose that goes to the bag. I believe each are 1".

[nyryan2001]

These pics are from my 2013 g23..... but I have the exact same installed on my 2014.

Y valves plubed in off the factory pumps:

Those rear sunpad cushions were just in there when I picked up the boat.... I dont even have them in my 2014... so those 1100s fill that entire rear compartment.

I just got 200lbs of lead in the nylon bags yesterday.

[MLA]

The factory uses 1" hose, but IIRC, they used .75" thru-hulls. Here is a pic showing the 3 ballast intakes, the raw water intake and the 1" with a T we put in. Pumps are located back of the batteries and the impellers are accessible through the aft floor access. Fill/drain hose is routed to the back of the locker along the stringer and connects to the bottom of the sac. Vent line on the top forward sac port. All the ballast sacs can be filled and/or drained interdependently of each other, from the drivers seat.

If one wanted to T off a single thru-hull, especially with a .75", I suggest staggering the sacs. This way, you limit the chances that 2 pumps on the same thru-hull are filling at the same time.

[jonsquatch]

...
I just got 200lbs of lead in the nylon bags yesterday.

Which ones did you go with?

[nyryan2001]

Jared Cutler [leadwake@yahoo.com]
Jared Cutler
(Lead Wake™)
(626)353-0340

[RainDog]

...wait to see if the ronix system works as described.

Hey Eric, you seem pretty positive on the new system coming out from Ronix. What can you tell us about it? How is it so different than the Fat Sacs we've been using?

[ers906]

According to the Ronix reps the new ballast system/bags/pumps will be out in October (the latest update, but we will see). The friends of mine that have seen the product demos at Surf Expo were very impressed by it. The big thing is the rapid fill times if you do not want to plumb in a ballast system. For the system to be used with the rapid fill and empty times it needs their 3750 gal/hr pump, which I do not believe can be hardlined in. I also like the trapezoidal shape of the bag, since I have had issues with the fly high sacs putting too much pressure on the V-drive walls and bowing them in. Most of my info is second hand, but by people I trust. I may put an extra ballast system in my G23, but I figure if I only use it intermittently for surfing, throwing a pump that can fill 1100# in 3 minutes is better if I decide to get a new one in the future (unlikely). But since I have not seen them personally (I will get a chance to demo the system when it comes out), I hesitate to give a complete endorsement just yet.

[c640947]

OK so I finally got my 2014 G23 550. The graphics werent tone on tone as much as id hoped for in pictures but overall im very pleased with it.







I have been studying the ballast and have some questions. First off I think I will drill two new holes in the hull and two overflows and put in 800-1000s in the rear lockers as has been done before by others and feel comfortable with all that. However I am unsure of how to proceed with the bow weight.

1. Has anyone plumbed in bow sacs? There doesnt seem to be a convenient way to get ballast hose from the pump area up to the bow storage lockers. Especially on the starboard side since you cant get behind the helm.

2. iron32 has mentioned putting the xstar bow sacs under the seats as they fit pretty well. I can see them working well enough but I calculated each would fill only to roughly 150 lbs so your total bow weight would be 300 pounds plumbed in. Is that enough? Or the better question may be, if I run full stock ballast and want to put an additional 800-1000 in each rear locker, how much bow weight do i need for a proper distribution? Likely 24 mph, 75 feet.

3. I like the discrete switches under the throttle. To wire everything up did you connect to open spots on the breaker panel? 2 pumps in one breaker? Anyone know if it would handle 3 pumps on one breaker?

4. Is there a convenient place to get the correct parts? I'd like it to look clean and want to get the same hose and parts like through hulls that come stock but didnt know how to figure out how to get the same parts.

5. Random non-ballast question: the 550 takes only premium. anyone know if I can use regular and put in octane booster if i am someplace that doesnt offer premium?


Thanks in advance for any help anyone provides. I am going to go out and test some setups myself tomorrow but some advice before may help make things more efficient.

Andrew

[MLA]

c640947,

1) getting hose or cable from the bilge to the bow area is a pain. We tried to find a means to get battery cable form the helm under the floor to the port side locker. Ended up going around the bow.

3) The G I did, had 2 unused spots for breakers. We did 2 additional pumps and each got its own 20A breaker and we mounted them in those open spots byt just popping out the blank plugs. You would need a 60A breaker to handle 3 pumps. This would likely be a surface mounted breaker and not a panel mounted as we used. You would likely need 8ga-4ga cabling to supply it, depending on the distance to the breaker from the switch.

[nyryan2001]

^^^ Ive heard removing/lifting the deck allows for a single run of thick 0/1 cable down a narrow path to the port side from the Batteries.... I havent done it yet, but plan to here over the winter.

[ironj32]

2. iron32 has mentioned putting the xstar bow sacs under the seats as they fit pretty well. I can see them working well enough but I calculated each would fill only to roughly 150 lbs so your total bow weight would be 300 pounds plumbed in. Is that enough? Or the better question may be, if I run full stock ballast and want to put an additional 800-1000 in each rear locker, how much bow weight do i need for a proper distribution? Likely 24 mph, 75 feet.

Sharp looking boat.

Just to clarify, the XStar Bow Sacs do, indeed, fill up all the way. You can get about 220 pounds out of each of them, and there is still room to spare (quite a bit on the outter edges). For my current G23, I decided to put in 750s under each bow seat. From the math I've done, you get about 350 pounds out of each of these. The only down side to them, is that there is a lot of material to deal with when putting them in...can get frustrating at times, but I only remove them a few times a year.

I've actually been debating having Fly High make me some custom bow sacs. They will be a bit spendy, but maybe they'll cut a discount if there are others who would order some. If anyone is interested in this option, let me know.

As far as total weight up front, you'll want about 50% of what the total amount added to the rear is. If you are adding a total of 2000 in the back, you'll want about 1000 up front. Keep in mind that my previous statement is assuming you are spreading the rear weight the entire length that the factory ballast spans...far back all the way up to under midship seats. Unless they come out with a more agressive prop or tranny, I am 99.9% certain that you will not be able to get on plane with 1000 pounds all packed back in just each of the rear lockers (even 800 pounds will be cutting it close).

Best of luck!