Background
We wanted a ski boat to do all the usual ski things including wake surfing. We for sure wanted a V-drive, but we did fall in love with the XTi when we went to look at it. It was also a time that a v-drive boat was a significant price hike.
We started with the basics, the boat came with a couple of fat sacs, 2 ~450lbs and one 150lbs sac. We also found a wake shaper in one of the storage compartments. We did use the manual wedge witch supposedly adds a good bit of pull. We slowly experimented with these bags because we had them, we were able to create a surfable wave, which was cool, but we definitely wanted more. The boat came with a factory ballast system of which I have never found any diagrams or repair manuals or anything to work with. So I had a few tasks to take on, make a bigger wave, and make the factory ballast work again.
Ballast Bags
I didn’t want to spend a ton of money on ideas, so I got on eBay, and scoured Facebook marketplace and ended up finding some used fatsacs on eBay, I picked up 3 bags total ranging around 450-700lbs. So now its messing with placement.
The XTi has the seats that make great dividers for the ballast bags. so we do store them all under the drivers side rear seat. One 500 ish lbs bag can be filled under the seat, the fat brick under the spotters side seat, a bag right in the middle of the floor in the rear, and another bag in the pass through on the spotters side.
The last bag I placed in the factory ballast location in the ski locker. This was a giant pain to fill and empty without the use of the factory ballast system.
Electrical
The boat came with an external pump, one of the first things to do was create a switch and a dedicated connector to not use the cigarette lighter power outlet. Eventually we would upgrade this pump to a new and faster one, but the connection remained the same connector and style.
I also took this time to attempt the start of utilizing the factory ballast system to fill and drain the rear bags.
Restoring the Factory Ballast
Once I sorted out some better ways to handle filling the rear bags, I turned my attention to restoring the factory ballast system. I have yet to find any diagram of how the factory ballast was routed, how it worked, or anything other than the weight. I was able to utilize a longer skinny 450 lbs bag, which is heavier than the factory ballast, and the inlet pump in the through hull fitting. I connected up the inflow to the top of the bag and a drain to the bottom. I utilized a second live well pump to handle the drain work and wired it in to the factory MLS switch. This didn’t go as well as I had anticipated, the pump didn’t have enough oomph to send the water out the factory drain next to the bilge drain. I tried all sorts of tricks and it was all to no avail. I ended up getting a self priming pump and installing it for draining the ballast bag. This worked like a charm, it is way louder and a little slower but it shoves water out the side of the boat.
