Ballast Thru hull fitting To Scoop or Not To Scoop

I am getting ready to install 3 simer reversible pumps into my 97 super sport and have a couple of questions. In my mastercraft I put in 2 simer pumps that I picked up the water from the engine intake line. This line was bigger in diameter than the line in the super sport so I am worried about starving the motor of water while driving.

I plan to put in a thru hull fitting but I am not sure if I should use a scoop or not. The way I see it the scoop would help to fill the sacs a little faster because it is going to force water into the pumps while under way. I think that the downside to this is that the sacs will take longer to drain because they need to overcome the water being pushed into the fitting while underway. Also I don't plan to have any valves in line because the impeller should stop the flow of water when the pump is off. My preference would be to not have a scoop if the sacs will still fill ok while driving.
Please let me know if anyone has used the simer pumps with a scoop or without and how they work.

I would obviously install a check coming from the intake incase there was a problem with a hose or something so the boat doesn't fill up.

You've got the right idea with some safety to make sure your boat doesn't sink. But a check isn't going to do it. You won't be able to reverse back through the check to drain. You need a ball valve (or some other non-flow restricting valve) right above your thru-hull.
I'm about to install a thru-hull with a scoop. but I'm using several aerator pumps, not a reversible system. the normal flat thru-hulls should be what you need.

Nacho- Thanks for the input, I meant to say ball valve. That is what I put in the last setup as well.

Anyone else have any opinions?

i run my Simers off the raw water line, but if i had a separate thru-hull i'd use a mushroom fitting. like nacho, however, i too am in the process of switching to an aerator-based system, and i'm adding a scoop intake for that. discharge will be thru-hulls above water line.

I run 3 Simers in my 98 Super Sport. 2 off the engine intake for the v-drive sacs, and 1 off a scoop for the locker and bow sacs. I run all 3 at the same time, and I've never seen my engine temp budge.

The rear sacs empty much faster because the engine is sucking along with the pumps, even when the boat is in neutral. The bow sac still empties through the scoop when moving but it is a little slower than when in neutral.

It all works great. Hassle-free. Let me know if you have any other questions.

I put in the scoop when I did mine. I fill while driving out, and start to drain right after the last rider is done, then finish draining while waiting for the trailer. I don't drain while driving in, but I guess I could try. Anything that's left is drained in the parking lot. This allows us to get the fastest start to our day.

I thought about a non-scoop, but at speeds above 15mph or so, will it still work well?

trace- how many pumps and sacs will you be running?

Fl Surflover,
It is good to know that you are running the pumps off of the engine intake without any problems. Any particular reason that you didn't run the front sacs of the engine intake as well?

Here is another question that I have:
When the boat is running I assume that it is just like a car and the termostat regulates the engine temp. If this is the case does the water from the impeller just get stopped until the termostat opens or does it contstantly flow. I never really paid too much attention to how this works. If it is just stopped then I wouldn't think that the pumps could even starve the engine of water. Any thoughts on how the cooling system works.

John I am curious on the max speed with a non scoop as well. Once I leave my lift I usually go 25 or 30mph to the otherside of the lake where I ride so I would want to be able to fill on the fly.

Stan:

Before I put in my thru-hull scoop, I was tapping off the engine intake too. However, I found my motor was getting hot, and I didn't like that, so I immediately switched to the through hull scoop. I can fill with the scoop at 25 to 35 easily.

interesting. i've used the engine intake on my last 2 boats, and never noticed the temp rising. how many pumps are you running?

AFAIK, when the thermostat closes the cooling water just diverts out the exhaust manifolds.

right now i'm using two Simers in parallel to fill 4 sacks (2 600's rear, twin mattress in locker, 600 in walkthru). it takes about 20 min to fill or drain.

i'm going to change to independent 1200 gph fill & drain pumps for each sack except the walkthru. i'll keep the walkthru on a Simer because i'm always disconnecting it, moving it around, etc.

this will reduce my fill/drain times, amp draw, and noise, but the biggest advantage to me is the flexibility to fill & drain at the same time for surfing.

Not to sound like an idiot, but what is a Simer pump. If anyone has the time to maybe wxplain the design of this auto fill system a little better could you please help or point me to a website that has some plans. I have a 99 XSTAR which does not have any tanks or such. I have all the bags I jsut hate throwing the pum over the side a waiting for it to fill. I want to be able to just flip a switch and go.

http://www.wakeworld.com/Articles/2001/BallastSystem1.asp

I'm using 6 atwood 750's, 2 to each of 3 fat sacs. the fill pumps through the drain when filling and vice versa when draining. At $20 a piece, 6 A750's were cheaper and easier than any other setup I could think of. The stock ballast in my 2001 Air Nautique is identical in design. Fill/Drain through the same plumbing. It's like a reversible, just cheaper, and using 2 pumps. I haven't installed it all yet, but I'll have a single 1-1/4" scooped through-hull feeding the 3 3/4" lines. The through-hull may cause a little bit of loss, but not much.

You have to have a lot of valves, manual or otherwise with those pumps. Correct craft used Flo Rite manual baitwell valves last time I looked. Water will flow back out the inlet, and from sack to sack if you don't isolate each bag.

Attwood pumps fail all the time, usually when you have a bunch of full sacks and you are pressed for time. Rule pumps rule, but you need valves with them too.

Stan, the reason was fill/drain speed. I wanted to be able to fill and drain everything (4 sacks) at the same time. The intake hose on the Nautiques is only 1", which is asking a lot for 4 sacks. Plus, you want to keep all your hoses as short and straight as possible. The distance from the rear intake to the front sacks would be too long in my opinion. I put the scoop in the rear of the center locker compartment, and mounted the Simer in a battery box next to it. This takes up some locker space so you can't use as large a custom sack as you could otherwise, but most standard locker sacks still fit because our years of Super Sports have a huge center locker.

I'm not saying my system is the best, cheapest, or the fastest. But it made sense to me, works well, was fairly cheap, and is fast enough for my needs. You'll want to figure out what works best for your needs. I don't have to travel at 30mph to get to my boarding spot. I do sometimes fill at boarding speeds, but usually I'm done between the time I put the trailer in the water (flip the switches on) and finish getting people and gear loaded and situated. If you have to ride a while to your boarding area, you might not want to have full ballast for the ride over there.

Another concern for you is venting. I don't vent any of my sacks. If you do it this way, you have to watch your sacks like a hawk to make sure you turn the pumps off when the sacks are full or you WILL burst a seam on one of your sacks. This would be a problem for you if you have a long trip to your riding spot and want to fill on the way. To keep an eye on your v-drive sacks, you have to have your sunpad up, which may be difficult at 30mph. Plus, someone else would have to watch your sacks while you drove, or vice versa. I usually don't fill my sacks completely full, so I have a little room for tweaking the wake on the fly.

If you vent your sacks, and use reversible pumps, you have to put 1-way valves on the vent lines to allow the reversibles to suck your sacks completely dry, if that is something you want. And you have to make sure the amount of vent is equal to the amount of pressure the Simer is pushing. Another thing to consider is the placement of your vdrive vents. You don't want your sacks emptying themselves when the boat is getting on plane or on plane with the bow up.

Another consideration for you is what size sacks you'll be using. If you're using standard fat sacks in the vdrive lockers, you won't have enough weight to need a 4th sack under the bow cushions (in my opinion), just a good center locker sack. That would make the wake too rounded and rampy, for a Nautique. I'm using bigger custom vdrive sacks from boardersparadise (requires strengthening your engine walls) that need some extra bow weight to balance it (but you could also use lead or sand since I still only fill that bow sack a little.) But when I have more people or put another sack on the back seat or on the floor, I can fill up the bow sack a little more to balance it.

I used two Simers for the two rear sacks for fill/drain speed and so I could easily empty just one sack for wakesurfing. It also makes it very easy to balance the wake from the switches at the helm on the fly while a rider is up and riding. I definitely recommend that.

1 valve on the intake, 1 between each sack its pump. For me, that will mean a ball valve on each side between the rear seat and the 540 Lounge next to the engine, and 1 valve under the engine cover for the front locker sac. The intake valve will be by the drive shaft, accessible through the access panel if necessary. When it's full, shut off the valve. That's not enough of an inconvenience for me. BTW- they are the same pumps that CC put in my boat when they built it.

Fl Surflover,
Thank for the info. it was very informative. I didn't think about a check valve so the sacs would totally drain when the pump was reversed, I am planning on venting all 3 sacs with thru hull fittings.
I ordered the new pro-x series sacs from Fly high. the rear ones are going to be rectangular 20x20x50 which will basically fill the whole sides next to the engine. Then the have a sac that is 12x26x62 which will fill the locker perfectly. Those should be here this week. I will also probably run some lead in the nose to even out the weight a little. I was going to put some small sacs up there but I don't really want to lose the storage space. That is my only complaint on the boat so far is by the time that you get it all filled with sacs and stereo stuff there isn't room for anything else so I am trying to maximize the space that is left.

I think that I am going to try to pick up all of the water from the engine intake. I hope that I won't run into a heat problem. I figure if I do then I will pop a hole in the bottom and add a scooop.

I am planing on making a bracket that all three pumps will bolt to and then bolting that to the posts that support the deck right behind the back seat. This keeps them out of the way of everything. I think it will work pretty good. I got all of the fittings tonight to build a manifold to supply the water to the 3 pumps. This will be my first three pump system, but I think it should work pretty good. Thanks again for the advice.

Stan, the sacks sound great! That's big league weight, and all hidden. Definitely use the breaker/2-relays/switch circuit for each pump. I mounted my 3 switches on the plate next to the throttle. Good luck and keep us posted.

how are you switching polarity with only 2 relays? the least i've seen is 3.

Thanks for the info. I think what i am going to do is install two reversable pums ( one to each sac next to the engine. Question. I am going to drill a hole in the boat and instal a thru hull device to get the water. Now will i have to have two seperate thru hull devices or could i run each pump off one thru hull?

Trace like this:

Connect the common contact of the each relay contact to the + & - of the pump.
Connect both relaxed relay contacts to the - of the battery.
Connect both active relay contacts to the + of the battery.

When both relays are relaxed the pump see's - on both wires. Energise one relay & you get + -, energise the other and you get - +

I can do a drawing if you are lost.

ah-hah! that makes sense.

I ran two simers in my old boat, one T'd to the raw cooling water intake and the other in the 3/4 drain fitting (the boat didn't leak so I didn't need the drain). The impeller pumps don't need a scoop. They don't really flow that much and they are noisy, I won't use them again. Make sure you are not using them in the engine compartment, they are not spark proof.

Fl Surflover, I am using 3 dp/dt switches to reverse the pumps. I used them in my last setup with no problems. I got a nice mount block for them and mounted it next to the throttle as well. I took of the capacity plate and cut the hole for the switches there. I plan to move the capacity plate somewhere else.

This question refers both to perfect pass paddle wheel and ballast. I had perfect pass sinstalled and the dumb mechanic placed the paddle wheel in the wrong place wo he plagged the hole and I had a different shop install the wheel properly. Could that hole that is just a plug from the perfect pass could be used. What I mean is what is the diameter of the hole needed for perfect pass paddle wheel and is there a thru hull fitting that will correspond to the perfect pass hole?

preston, I would think that it could be used, they make different thru hull diameter fittings. I am not sure the diameter of the perfect pass hole. Did they just put a brass plug in or did they re fiberglass it?

They left the misplaced paddle wheel and just installed a new one

pg 36:

http://www.marinehardware.com/downloads/catalog_v4.pdf

the paddlewheel takes a 2" hole, so a 1-1/2" (1.900" pipe OD) scoop would probably work OK.

Thanks for the link and info. I was planning on using mushroom fittings becasue I am going to fill and empty through the same hole. Not to be bother some or sound like a complete idiot would I jsut get a 2" mushroom fitting?

thanks
preston

yes, the 1-1/2" mushroom fitting will have the same OD.

that's a good idea to use the hole that the shop effed up on, btw. can you explain that further? what kind of boat is this, where are the two paddlewheels, did the shop cover any cost, etc...

Well the boat is a 99 XSTAR, pre internal ballast, pre perfect passs standard. The dealer I baught the boat from sold me the perfect pass the next season. The MC dealer installed the first paddle wheel but he putit too close behind the scoop for the engine so air pockets would form and cause the reading to be effed up. Well the season was over with anyway so we winterized the boat and dealt with it later. In the off season a MC dealer had sprung up in New Braunfels known as the Texas Ski Ranch. Great guy by the way. I took the boat to them and just said fit it!! They called me and told me they needed another paddle wheel so I called the original MC dealer told him he screwed up and to give me another wheel. He did and I paid the other dealer to install it. I have not been back to the original dealer since. the Texas Ski Ranch has handled all my maintenance need for the past 3 years and they have been excellent.

that sucks. i've seen too many toothless idiots mess stuff up like that, and thus do pretty much all work myself. i think i fretted over where to put the paddlewheel in my boat for like a week. i wonder if the scoop upstream will cause air bubbles to get into your ballast too?

btw, i actually live in Austin & go down to TSR a few times a year to play on the cable lake & MX track.

Well I don't know if I will have air bubble problems. The lake I ski on is real small and the boat is actuall on the water. The main reason I want to do this ballast sytem is so while idleing and getting ready I can be filling the ballast. Then while driving I can empty. I am not too concerned about running at full speed and filling the ballast. If that hole does not work I will think of something else but it is worth a try. You know one less hole in the boat. On another note, I try yo do as much maint myself but with the computerized systems and stuff if something really bad happens I like to se the dealer. With that perfect pass system I like the dealer now becasue they know my system better than I do and if I have problems I can usually take the boat over there and they can fix with in 20 min or so. That shop is top notch and treat their customers well alot better than Boat Town.