Chadillac MXZ
 

Whats up guys -

I'd like to keep everyone here posted on a Malibu MXZ build that I've got going.

I've got a similar thread going on over at The Malibu Crew, obviously there are a bunch that frequent both sites, but for those that arent on TMC I'm going to post the updates here as well. Its been a wicked fun project so far, we've put tons of work into it and we're not done yet!

Cadillac LSA power
Cadillac black
Cadillac style
This, is project Chadillac.
We started this build back in the spring, picked it up new from Peter and crew at Smooth Water Sports in NY (awesome people and an awesome experience!!). It has slowly transformed over the past few months, with plenty more work to come. I will post progress in this thread as we go!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-R...12645301_o.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_...o/IMG_8737.JPG

First up: rims and tires. No Cadillac is complete without fancy wheels, and a boat trailer should be no exception.
New Cadillac CTS-V wheels and Hankook V12 tires.
The wheels on a CTS-V are staggered (rear wheels are wider than the front). Boatmate trailers was awesome and, after some math and calculations, put custom length axles on the trailer to accommodate both the different wheel offsets and the larger wheels on the rear axle. Wider fenders, custom hubs from UFP to accept the different bolt pattern, some last minute machining, and some axle heigh adjustments thanks to Smooth Water Sports!
Ridiculous?? Absolutely! More time has been spent on getting these wheels on the trailer than anything else. But worth it - it tows awesome and looks great.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-b...o/IMG_5257.jpg
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-x...o/IMG_5261.jpg
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-m...o/IMG_5273.jpg
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-r...o/IMG_5285.jpg
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-G...o/IMG_5295.jpg
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-h...o/IMG_5283.jpg
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-G...o/IMG_5300.jpg

Ridiculous. In a good way.

Wow.

+1!

Very nice!

Looks cool! Wouldnt it have been alot easier and cheaper to just get 4 front wheels from the CTSV?

Not towing it with an escalade? Not impressed :D

^^^^ X2 ^^^^ LOL
Chat; that's a lot of work and it looks great. Those wheels are pretty bad a$$. You have a strange obsession with trailers. :) and wheels!
It looks like u need a few more lights and sick on reflectors. As a person that loves mods and doing things to the boat I have not caught on to the "Pimp My Trailer bug" with wheels and such.
There have been way to many times when I have accidentally nicked or had to hop the curb to want to throw thousands at wheels and tires for only to mess them up. A few times I could swear that if I would have had low profile tires I would have for sure destroyed a wheel and tire. And most of the time it's 300 miles away from home. With that said. If my boat ONLY ever drove a short drive to and from the ramp and never went on long trips and I won the lottery and had to spend it on the boat I defiantly would donk out my trailer with 22's and 4 axels!!!!! :)

I haven't been paying attention to trailers lately and I have never seen a rear step like this?
I don't understand why the step just doesn't continue like a traditional trailer what's the idea behind the triangle looking trailer step

^i've wondered the same thing. Why not just continue it from where the guide pole is.

Aesthetics my friend. Aesthetics.

So you went with the staggered wheels? Why not make it easier to replace a wheel or tire and just use the same width wheel? It looks good, just don't understand the staggered wheels on a trailer.

Oh and... Needs moar Escalade on 26's bro! :D

MA y I join yyou? Sweet boat!

Chat; what did it cost you to do this mod?

Thanks guys!

Wheels: yes, would have been easier to go with all the same size wheel. If I bought them retail I would have done that, would have made buying tires easier too as the rubber was not cheap at all... But, new take-off sets of CTS-V wheels (people buy a new car and immediately put new rims on) are much cheaper than buying at retail, especially since I have a buddy that is a manager at a Cadillac dealer who kept his eyes open for a set of wheels for me. The axles had to be shortened from stock anyhow, making them 2 different lengths wasn't much harder, and keeps it true to the car. Besides, how many other legit opportunities am I going to have to put staggered wheels on a trailer?? If I'm gonna do this, i'm gonna do it right!

Best part: I hardly ever trailer anywhere. The boat lives on a lift all summer long, this trailer is not seen much at all, other than being a lawn ornament and a good place for the guys to pass out on after a long night (yes, trailer bunks are fairly comfortable to sleep on). BUT. I've got no question that this a secure setup. Keep away from the curbs, yes, but no issues with ride quality or safety at all. Weight of a CTSV is similar to that of a MXZ+trailer, boatmate offers a similar wheel setup, and the tires are rated for the weight.

Transom step: Yes, designed that way for the way it looks. It looks great and functions awesome. This is a home run from BoatMate, I'll never own a trailer without one again, it is an awesome option without a doubt.

G,

I think you're confused. This is not Chatt, different guy, different boat, same love of trailers.

Is there someone else that comes up with crazy trailer ideas too??

yeah that would be chattawake. ftw, this thread is far more interesting on themalibucrew

We'll get there... settle down

Is that interior the driftwood/platinum combination? I just ordered it on my new boat and never got to see actual pictures of what it will look like. I'm confident it'll look great though! Your boat is looking ILL

nick; yes your right I thought this was Chat. I thought Chat got a new boat every other year and the last one I saw was a Axis with a triple axel trailer. I thought this was his new ride. Whoops

I just looked at this over on the malibu crew. Dang... I admire the people who are willing to spend this much time modifying things.

I am so anal about little maintenance things that I could never take on something like this.

Just curious, how many hours have you got on the boat, I just hope your finding time to use it!?

Thanks man!
Not driftwood - I was sooo close to doing driftwood, but in the end went with light graphite / moonbeam / graphite interior. I would still go darker if I could... Driftwood is sexy, but I just was not sure how it would look overall with the black, wasnt willing to take the chance.

Got about 85 hours on the clock now. I had major brain surgery in april, so most of the hours have been from mid summer on, and most of that has been surfing / low impact riding for me. (Dare I say the majority of hours this year are with me driving, not riding.. :( )

I'm fortunate that i've got a great crew who loves to ride and loves to work. Everyone has a specialty that they are good at (mechanical/trailer work, electrical work, audio work, chicks are great at cleaning and detailing or getting wires into tight places...etc). We do everything our selves - no shop labor, no paid work, no professionals - just a bunch of yahoo's that know just enough to get them selves in trouble! Maintenance too, and I am a stickler on that!

Our boat will be about 50/50 between red and charcoal. I think it'll end up looking great. I'll post pics on the crew when it gets here in a few weeks.

Stereo Part 1

Malibu's factory stereo options are great for most, but myself and a few buddies have fun thinking outside the box when it comes to sound, and enjoy the creativity and wiring work, so we ordered the boat sans stereo.

Sound objectives were simple:
1 - a simple and easy to use system. Ipods and Aux in are our only sources. No CD's, no radio, no need for a traditional head unit. Out of my comfort zone? Yup. But we tried it, and love it now.
2- Top notch sound quality.

The current iphone 4/5 fits almost PERFECT into the factory blank that comes with a boat ordered without a stereo. We cut into the backing, mounted a RAM iphone mount and wired in a right angle Ipod cable. The cable acts as a charger only, audio is transmitted via Bluetooth to an Exile ZLD (will post on that next).

The result: a mount that holds an iphone into the dash that looks slick, easily accessible by the driver, and permanent power (our main source is an old iphone that we keep in the boat, but bluetooth and the aux in means guests can easily connect and play their music), its always ready to roll. With the push of a button the ipod can be popped out of the mount and passed around the boat giving passengers ability to chose songs, build play lists, take pictures..etc.

Chicks love having control of the music anywhere in the boat, driver has ultimate volume control, great sound quality,very simple.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-k...o/IMG_0111.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-b...o/IMG_2539.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-U...o/IMG_2538.JPG

What additional components went ito the system?

It seems this thread is missing one thing.... A PICTURE OF THE ENGINE PLEASE!!!

Looking good. I like where you're going with it.
Is there any reason you went with the Exile ZLD vs the WS420? I know the WS420 doesn't have bluetooth built in, but there is the adapter for it. Also it has the dual zone eq, so you can adjust the volume and eq separately for the cabin and the towers.
Obviously unless you are running the exact same speakers all around (and you probably are wanting to run HCLD in the towers and not in the cabin) the speakers have different ranges they like to play in. It seems like running one EQ setting across them all would be really limiting and meaning you would have to compromise on what sounds "ok" on both tower and cabin speakers rather than having each tuned to their potential.
I like how you did the Ram mount in the bezel, it looks real clean.

OH MAN!! ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PARTS!!

Here, Peter of Smooth Water sports is diggin around in there for something!!

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-m...o/IMG_2025.jpg

does the warming tray still fit with the supercharged engine?

Good question, I've owned a WS420 and liked it a lot - especially the talk back feature, and I wish the ZLD had that.

That being said, the ZLD has a bunch of features I like. I'm not a big EQ guy - I've always felt that with the right components and quality gear there really should not be a need to EQ things much or at all. Sure, some high pass for tower and cabin speakers is a good idea, but we do that at the amps - I like that better as it cant be accidentally adjusted at the dash. Want more bass on the fly: turn up the sub level on the ZLD - thats where the low end should come from regardless. A well designed and tuned system (or even one thrown together quickly) really shouldn't need much for EQ adjustment, just level adjustment of the three main outputs (Tower, Cabin, Sub).

The way the volume control on the ZLD is set up, it works very well for us. Not having any head unit, we have no "master" volume control going into the ZLD like most systems would (head unit volume control). The way the 420 is set up, there would be 2 knobs needed to turn the whole system volume up or down (one for the tower, one for the cabin) every time we stop or start with a rider. Ya, on the 420 you can usally grab both zones (knob and ring) and adjust in one motion, but sometimes I would miss, or after a few cycles the mix would get off so I found my self constantly tweaking one because it didn't get turned the correct amount (usually the tower). Maybe we're unique, but we're constantly adjusting the volume, my hand is on the volume knob as much as the throttle (more to come later on speed based auto volume control).

With the ZLD, its one "master" volume control easily placed on the left side of the box that controls everything, and then one knob to the right controls the mix between cabin and tower.

So, we have the ability to easily turn the entire system up or down with one quick control, yet can still control the tower and cabin levels independently as needed. The sub level follows the master control, but can easily (and frequently) adjusted as it has its own level control too.

Make sense? Hard to explain until you've used both, but we like it alot!

It does, but you better believe its better served as sandal tray on the porch than covering up that beauty!!

Were using an Exile ZLD as our main volume control: Easy control off the entire system volume, and individual control of tower, cabin, and sub right at your fingertips with good ole' analogue volume knobs. No menu's to navigate, no digital 'click' up and down buttons - just volume knobs that can be adjusted in a split second without looking down.
My last boat had Exile Audio components in it and we were very happy with both the products and the company, so going with them again was a no brainer.

Easy volume adjustment has always been a priority for us in the boats. We're constantly adjusting it to hear conversation, turning it up to compensate for engine/wind noise, turning it down to converse when picking up a rider, ...etc (more on automatic volume control later..). This ease of control became even more critical after I permanently lost all the hearing in my right ear during brain surgery last march. With only one ear I have a very difficult time differentiating sounds and focusing on listening to what I need too, so the ability to mute, or cut the volume way down quickly has proved to be very important for us now!

The ZLD has two inputs - we wired a Milennia MIL-BTREC bluetooth receiver to the main input (an awesome dongle, hardwired, good range and sound quality!) and an 1/8" aux cable to the other input. We wired the aux input to the observers side so its easy to plug in over there.

Also, ignore the JL sub in some of the pictures. We stuffed that in temporarily for some low end and to aid in box configuration...etc.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-W...o/IMG_8936.JPG

I have been slow in updating this thread, sorry.
A couple pictures not directly related to the build, but worth sharing for sure:

Went up to the lake one early october afternoon to do some work on the boat. Got there, found this... Needless to say zero work got done. After drooling over the glass for a while, we wrecked that water. Chilly, but some of the best boarding I've ever had.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-P...8-no/photo.JPG


Everyone likes nice gear... We picked up a Ronix Muse Women's jacket this summer, everyone loves it, great jacket!
Dreaming of summer already.
http://s6.postimg.org/ot2hu63a9/IMG_9810_Version_2.jpg

So this is what Wakeworld has become; people will argue boat brands in any given thread and debate if surfing is a viable activity or not, but won't comment on the picture above?

Yikes...

Heres to more "life jacket" pictures and less brand fan boys in 2014.

(Also great job with the new 'Bu Chad)

uhhhh, what life jacket????

More ass pics pls

This thread is full of awesomeness!

Fine job, Chad.

My gawd... That vest is so nice.

attn: paging housekeeping, cleanup on aisle 5,,,,, cleanup on aisle 5

Am I the only one that noticed what appears to be her top in her hand? Let me know when she turns around ;)

oh I noticed alright

That's an amazing combination you have there

Wait...there's a life jacket in that picture? Nope, still not seeing it....