Building the perfect wake (or the best cheap one)

This is my first year living the wakeboard experience. My kids and tag along friends love to wakeboard behind my boat and are really starting to get impressive at it. I know from looking at this communities awsome action shotz and watching riders on the Delta, that I can do better for them by building a better wake to perform on. I have a late 80's Prostar 190 and want to gear up for next year for some more serious thrills and spills. A lot of boaters talk about fat-sacs, trim tabs, etc; but not any of these people I talk to have actually done the set up to a boat like mine. The best action I see is behind the newer boats, but unless I sell the kids that option ain't happening! With the kids sold, who would look good behind my boat? Any good info out there?

Do a search on weighting threads, and direct Vs. V drives threads. You should get a few Ideas there.

Been there, done that. I appreciate the direction and help, but I'm trying to find something/someone that has info that directly applies to my boat or something simular. Everything I find from my searches is geared toward newer boats or different hull designs,styles,etc. I'll keep looking and thanx for your help.

No problem , I hope you find what you need, you may end having to experiment with different weight configurations, and get creative. I know I have to with my lowly I/O, until my wife lets me get that V!!!

thatz what I'm thinking. except for a few more runs this month, I got all winter to crunch the info....

My suggestion is to borrow some fat sacs and play around with every weight configuration you can think of, and have fun doing it.

Once you have figured out what works best, design an invisible ballast system using reversable pumps utilizing whatever storage space you can give up, and possibly modifying your boats interior to accomodate it.

Good luck, and like I said, have fun doing it.

My storage space is limited on this boat.Should my weight be totally focused all on the stern, or should I play with some weight mid-ship to bow? I have access to lotz of lead weights and my 13 year old(wakeboarding pro wanna-be)would be more that happy to ride behind while I experiment with weight distribution. If needed in future,I can replace the back seat with a functional fat-sac/seat and put some weight in the side pouches(not much), and the bow is empty(except for vests and towels). Does this info help any?

You will likely need weight in the front, sides, and rear.

Off hand I could suggest a triangle sac in the bow, building a custom back seat to house rear ballast. I built custom side panels on an old boat to house some side sacs.

Thats the great thing about old boats, you can be very creative with them.

I can take care of the triangle up front as well as the seat in the back. I am more interested in the custom side panels. Tell me more. I'm not infringing on any pending patents am I?

My room mate had a 87 ps190 the setup that we used was 1200 or 1400 fly high fat seat rear 550 under the bow wake was nice and the most room inside. The 2nd setup was 2 550 on the side 350 across the rear and 400 in the bow, both setups worked well. Watch out other wakes and rollers when stoped.

I had a 1991 PS190. I got a decent wake by pulling the back seat out and putting two 550 sacs on both sides of the engine cover and angled them toward the back of the boat like a "V" I also had about 200 pounds of sand bags in the front of the bow. Although this will improve it a lot, you still arent going to get a V-Drive wake. I also experimented with this setup and adding more weight, but it seemed to put too much stress with 4-5 people in the boat.

This is the kind of info I've been looking for.I think the direction I now need to go has been narrowed down. Thanx for all the help and great info. You all stay wet now ya hear?