Let's hear about some I/O setups!

Let's hear about some I/O setups! Share with the rest of us your boat specs, how much ballast you use, and your choice of prop.

I ride behind a 17.5 foot Sea Ray with a Joystick Rollcage tower, 800 lbs of ballast and 5 people max, and am getting a 4 blade prop with an 18" pitch cos the stock propeller on my 3.0 litre 135hp Mercruiser is terrible.

What are the rest of you not so balla I/Oers ripping it up with?

(Message edited by slamminp on April 16, 2007)

I ride behind a 1995 Chris Craft with a Big Air Pylon the boat is 20 feet long and is 5.0 liter 19 pitch wake is fairly steep I have never tried ballast tanks if I did I'm sure that the wake would be alot bigger. The boat is fine for what I do I have seen people behind boats like mine do inverts and other advanced tricks. It is not really about the boat it is about the rider now if you have a nicer v-drive boat it does make things easier to do tricks.

I ride behind a 1995 Chris Craft with a Big Air Pylon the boat is 20 feet long and is 5.0 liter 19 pitch wake is fairly steep I have never tried ballast tanks if I did I'm sure that the wake would be alot bigger. The boat is fine for what I do I have seen people behind boats like mine do inverts and other advanced tricks. It is not really about the boat it is about the rider now if you have a nicer v-drive boat it does make things easier to do tricks.

2006 Sea Ray Sport 195.... We're first-time boat owners, wanted to go with something more "Family-oriented".... Not quite as rough through the chop, that sort of thing. Since we bought it, I've added some tower speakers, amp, LED's, new Clarion head unit with remote... Upgraded all of the speakers to Polk Audio.... Running roughly 600-650 lbs. of ballast. It does everything I need it to do, wake is ok (probably could be better). Just upgraded the prop last week, but boat hasn't been back in the water yet... Here's a pic the day we picked it up..... Don't have any of it in the water with all of the upgrades...

Sheezy, what stock prop did you have and what did you upgrade to?

matt, chris craft's are very nice boats, nothing to be ashamed of. The Lancer 22 looks like a real cool nostalgic layout.

M, again Sea Ray's are very well built boats. Looks like you have a galvi trailer, do you frequent the salt?

Slammin'... It had an aluminum 14.25X21 on it.... But something below the water line two weeks ago decided it wanted a piece of it.... I decided to stay with the same size and pitch, but I went stainless, cupped. Should get slightly better performance(not as much flex= little better holeshot) I forgot to mention in the other post, the engine is a 5.0liter, V8... Here's a pic of the damaged prop....

Evilone.... Yeah, it's a galvi trailor... We live in Houston, so I thought it would just be best with the galvi... It's never seen salt water, but just in case it ever does, I'm prepared....

M, I think I have that same prop on my 3.0 litre. Hole shot starts lagging when I load it too much. Maybe I shouldn't be loading my boat with 1500 lbs when manufacturer's limit is 900

Mine is for sale

1997 Sea Ray 185 BR

Merge360 - if you hit something with the stainless prop, you could twist a driveshaft now. Be careful.

As for my setup, its an 18' four winns with a volvo 4.3L, 18 pitch 4 blade prop, tower, and 1000 LBs of ballast. Hard to drive, but definately does the trick.

Slammin'... Yeah, that's quite a bit of weight for that 3.0.... Lessen that load, get a better holeshot....

Tony... Yeah, I thought about that and I almost bought another aluminum one, but, I went with the stainless.... Makes me a little nervous.... But, I guess I'm willing to live on the edge!

Anybody else have any thoughts on aluminum versus stainless? What would you do?

I choose aluminum for one its cheaper two you run across something and hit it something you want mess up the internals of your foot I would much rather mess up a $100 prop versus mess up something internaly in the foot of boat. I don't personaly think that if you take a 17 pitch aluminum and a 17 stainless stell prop that it would make that much of a differnce now I am not a boat mechanic but I just don't think there is that much differnce that it would make although I could be wrong?

Just got a new boat at the end of the season last year. 06 Glastron GX 205. Just had a monster tower installed. Unfortunatly I can't afford to put a better sound system in it yet. I was thinking about putting some weight in it this summer. Any suggestions?

Ohh yeah. New 4 blade prop and 5.0 volvo V8

M, when it comes to what's more important for me, wake size >>>> holeshot. Maybe my new prop will let me have both.

Slammin.... Makes perfect sense.... I may try and add a little more weight to my boat and see what kind of results I get... I realize it may take a bit more time to get on plane, but with a bigger wake I think everyone riding will be a little happier!

Just got back from the boat storage... Snapped a few pic's... Check'em out!

M, what speakers are those? they look awesome.

Slammin... Everything in the boat is Polk Audio, the DB series... The tower speakers are Polk Audio as well (DB series). I got the tower speakers and cans from AudioFormz... I ordered them 6-8 months ago. I have been very happy with them... You can check out their website at www.audioformz.com

My boat is a 1996 266 Crownline BR. It is 26.6ft long with a 7.4L Mercruiser TPI engine and Bravo 3. Bought this one so the whole family can go out and have fun. I bought it early last year. It has trim tabs and I just bought 2 Fatsac Bricks (155lbs each) and 1 Fatsac Tubesac (370lbs) for the ski locker. I put on a Trick Tower on it last summer and wow what a difference that made. I put two of the Airboom wakeboard racks on one side. I like them because they are quick disconnect. Then I added a Sky Ski rack from Airboom on the other side of the tower. Just had a new aftermarket swim platform added a couple of weeks ago. I installed a new Pioneer head unit last summer, but it has been nothing but trouble. I also installed 4 Polk DB650's and 4 DB525's which sounded ok powered by the head unit. Then I bought myself 2 Kenwood 6402's (40 x 4) amps and 2 7252's (500 x 1) amps. The 6402's will be powering all of the Polks. I purchased a pair of the Skylon Rubicon 450's that will be powered by the 7252's. Clamps were supposed to fit a 2" tower, but are way to big. Had to send the clamps back for the smaller clamps. Since I had a bunch of problems with the Pioneer, I tossed it aside and bought a Kenwood KAC-X590. I also bought 4 of the PAC-LC1's to control all of the amps and a pair of IR extenders. I am going to mount the head unit in an enclosed cabin, but with the IR extenders I will still be able to use my remote from anywhere on the boat. For power, I am going to take the two deep cycle batteries that are in the boat now and parallel them on one side of the perko, and I have 3 Blue top Optima's for the stereo that will be hooked up to the other side of the perko switch. Here is a pic before the tower and a couple since. No new ones with the Rubicon's. Hopefully next week.





(Message edited by 266crownlinebr on April 16, 2007)

(Message edited by 266crownlinebr on April 16, 2007)

(Message edited by 266crownlinebr on April 17, 2007)

I have a 1990 Galaxy 190. It's got the 4.3L V6 so I can put reasonable weight on it. I'm probably one of the last folks out there sporting the homemade pylon. It's a 7' floor jack with a massive wooden base and held in place by 4 ratcheting straps (2 on the lift rings and 2 for the nose). It's absolutely hideous but I can get some air with it. I also have a great system. It's an AM/FM with cassette. It even has 2 speakers. 1 of them works all the time and 1 of them only works some of the time. I had a cover leak so I'm in the process of cleaning out all the mildew. I might post some pics this weekend after I get it cleaned out. It's a big step up from my old 77 Ebbtide Captiva.

Nice boat cole, How do you like the forward bimini?

Dante

I LOVE the basement jack pylon. I applaude your innovation.

Plus I got a chuckle and by all means please post some pics.

For those concerned about SS props taering up your lower unit if you hit something, it's a myth. I've talked with numerous prop guys and they all say the same thing. SS props are built with a rubber hub that is desinged to slip if an underwater obstruction is hit.

I run a SS prop on my hunting/fishing boat and my I/O. My hunting boat sees everything from oyster beds to stumps and I have yet to damage a lower unit and have spun the hub a time or two after a hard hit. Re-hub the prop and it's good to go.

SS props offer better power transfer b/c of the decreased flex in the blade. Because of this, they also run a degree or two less in pitch than aluminum props of the same pitch.

2000 Sea Ray 180. I got a stainless steel 17pitch prop, monster tower, 750lb bag in the back (Going to add weight to the front this year), and hydrofoil which i think helped out a lot with plaining out.

I really like it. It gets so hot here in AZ during the summer that we really need it. I plan to get the forward bimini and the rear one modified to have a zipper between the two so I can zip them together.

Mike, I have that same boat 2006 model. Did you notice any difference in planing when you changed props? Is your prop a 3 or 4 blade?

I have a 3 blade prop that came with the boat so I never had anything different. The hydrofoil we put on helped the planing a lot. There is actually a guy we know on our lake with an 05 that tried the 5 blade prop and said there wasnt a big difference and he sent it back. We also talked to a guy at a boat place that told us our best bet for how we use it was to stick with the prop we have now. We have a stainless prop and he told us that the stainless prop is a lot better as well because it doesnt give.

2005 Monterey Montura 228SI MAG350MPI, Bravo 1 Drive, Wakeboard Perfect pass. 19 Pitch 4 blade. I dont have any ballast yet, but throws a killer wake as is and plenty of power. LOVE IT!

Finally got the Crownline back from the shop. Still waiting on the racks from Lucky Devil Designs (anyone know how long it usually takes?)

2004 Glastron GX 185, 4.3L V6, either 4 blade 19 pitch or 3 blade 21 pitch props, trim up 1/4 or so; WakeAir tower. Audio: Clarion head unit, four 6" and two 6x9 Kicker speakers and 12" sub. Our kid likes the music loud!

Ron, give us a little comparison between the props you're running in conjunction with how much ballast you're using.

We're trying to find out this season how the 4 blade compares to the 3 which is what we've used the past couple of years. The difference is the RPMs are slightly higher at the same speed with the 4 blade. Glastron boats come on plane pretty damn quick, but some riders prefer slow speeds and we want to stay on plane for them, that's why we are trying the 4 blade 19 this season. Tried 3 blade 19 a handful of times last year, not to bad, but I want to keep the wake nice for all newbies. (May have to add the 'foil.)
Our only ballast is people and gear, though some are some pretty big dudes! We usually have 5-7 people on board (including the driver in the picture).

any pics of the wake behind an i/o?

See the Sanger V210 ZX Driver (Rare I/O) thread for the king of the I/O wakeboarding boats...

here is my tiny little i/o wake

Here's my wake. 540 lb sack in the back, 4 people. Sea Ray 175.

Hey slammin I got a sea ray 180 with 750 lbs in the back and usually 3 people. How long is the rope when you ride and do the people all sit in the back?

very nice

I ride at about 60 feet. Anything more and the wake starts decreasing in size and gets too steep, so I'm landing in the flats on every jump. The sack is in the back so I have one guy in the passenger seat and two in the open bow. The boat starts porpoising if too much of that weight is in the back.

I had an I/o for a number of years - 21ft Cobalt. The wake was massive - With the i/o you have to put all your balast in the front. I used a 400lb in the ski locker, and a 350lb in each front clamshell - So, 1100 lbs forward of the windshield. You will get a much taller wake with this - you just need to crisp it up with the trim of the i/o. I had a Bravo III, so hole shot, speed maint. was never an issue

2002 Chaparral 200SSE, 5.0 mercruiser, 4 blade 19 pitch prop, DIY tower, I run about 600 in the locker and it throws a great wake riding at 65'. I love my I/O for now, wakeboard boat is probably another year or two away. Sorry for the bad pic, had it in the garage while I was working on it.

What's the best way to determine how much weight to put in an I/O? I know I want more, but how much?

I added up all my gear and a ballpark figure for how many people I usually have with me and then subtracted that from the maximum weight allowed on the sticker by your throttle. You can add more or not fill up your sacs all the way. Not really a standard formula for it, just gotta play with your setup and see what works best.

Rick ator, you need to trim that thing up and you will get a better wake. I never understand how people have I/O and don't use the trim. Triming that thing up at full out will probably add 7-10 MPH. What I used to do in my old I/O was have it trimmed right down for the hole shot and trim up to teh point where the wake was nice and rampy. If the bow starts bobbing up and down your trimmed up too much.

the weird thing is anything over 1/2 trim i get prop slip. The other thing is dad was driving and i know he had it all the way down LOL I had to take the pic and train him LOL. I'll try to get some pics of me riding this weekend for some more advice

Dave hit the nail on the head.