TimbrSS

I just finished up my install of a custom made FAE. Larry is just an awesome person to work with. I'd say the best customer service I've ever experienced. I contacted Larry in the spring about a custom FAE for my application. He got right back to me and said he could do it no problem. He had it out quickly to me. I waited a month or two before I had time to install. When I began the install, I had a big problem that I hadn't expected. The Angled exhaust tips on the big block boats had an oval opening thru the hull. The straight 3.5'' tips I got to replace them, to mate up to the FAE, did not have a big enough flange to cover the hole. I would have to have some custom flanges made up. I worked with Larry to get the new flanges made up. Unfortunately, the new tips didn't quite mount up to the stock exhaust hose enough to make a secure connection. It looked pretty iffy as it was from the factory actually. I tried to have the new tips made at an angle on the inboard side (like the stock tips), but it just didn't mate with the hoses well enough for a secure connection. Not Larry's fault at all, as he just made what I asked him to. I reconfigured the new tips to be straight through, and purchased new exhaust hoses from bakes. Got everything together and tested it this week. Only had enough time to drop it in the water and make sure it didn't have any leaks. So far, very quiet, which is the feature I cared most about. Sucks that it took way longer than I planned on, but finally done. FAE is awesome. So quiet. Exactly what I wanted. Never smelled any exhaust while the boat was moving. Still got some at Idle, (maybe even more?) but that was expected. Can't say I noticed any power loss. I tried to take a before and after video to show the sound difference, but can't really tell from my phone video. But trust me, it's a world of difference. Can't hear it idling from 10' away, and hear mostly just the water rushing while surfing. very easy to talk to the driver while surfing. It may be affecting the wave some, but doubtful... jury is still out on that. Not that it was spraying bad or anything, but I had to run the wedge all the way down rather than 2 clicks up as usual, or wave would wash out. Updated 9/3/17: I'll just add all the pics here because photobucket. FAE is still great, no problems ever.

Here's a stereo build that I did. I decided to top mount the rev 10's above the tower to get them out of the way. I didn't want to bump my head on them and didn't want them right in the passenger's ears. No regrets with this, it all works as planned. Hasn't interfered with the wake rope yet. Goal was for a decent somewhat budget sound system primarily for surfing. I relocated and upgraded the HU, added EQ and Boost box, and replaced the RF amps and sub, sub box, made amp rack, and added Rev 10 speakers. I went with a Clarion Head unit, and mounted it under the dash, instead of the factory location in the driver's armpit area. I then mounted a clarion EQ and the boost box auto volume control, which I consider a must have feature. Some sort of EQ is needed for sure, to fade between the in-boats and the tower speakers. This works great, and is a cheaper alternative to the Wet Sounds and Exile unit. Not quite as nice as those, but way better bang for the buck. I ditched the RF Amps that came with the boat, and went with ARC Audio amps. KS 300.4 for the Rev 10's, KS 300.4 for the 8 RF 6.5" in-boats, and KS 300.2 for the Wet Sounds 12" sub. When I was done, I tuned it all with the SMD DD1 and CC1. (distortion and crossover setting tools) Just for reference. My Samsung galaxy tab A, connected through blue tooth, had distortion on full Volume, I ran it 1 click down. My Clarion head unit had distortion at 36/45 on the volume, so I tuned to 35 volume on head unit. I got no distortion from the Clarion EQ, except the sub channel when I went past 1:00. I set the gains on the amp after that, then set crossovers. High pass 80Hz for Rev 10's, 100Hz for the RF inboats and low pass at 80Hz for the sub. The result is a great sound system that didn't break the bank, and didn't leave me wanting any more. It's almost embarrassing to turn it up all the way, I don't want to be "that guy." Lot's of comments from random passengers about how great it sounds. I trimmed my kick panel for my A-trend box. The box seems to be decent for a pefab, and the coating is should last a while. Just need to screw it in place. http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_33549_Atrend-TL-12SV.html I have a heater. Box is 1.5" off the ground, on hdpe blocks. The box sticks out 6" further into the boat than the kick panel at the bottom. Still plenty of room for my feet's. Made my stands/mounts for sub box. Used a sheet of .5" HDPE and cut into 1" and 1.5" strips. Made a tongue and groove connection at the rear, and the front piece gets through bolted to hold it all together. The stands connected to the box are secured by lock washer, and used some 3M 4000 fast dry to make sure it was all sealed up. The boat side mounts will be screwed through the floor. I did it this way so that I can quickly pull the box to work under the dash (just pull the 2 bolts in the front) and didn't want to have to pull the sub out of the box in order to do that. Didn't have time to get it fully mounted, but hooked the box up to the RF 500w RMS amp for a couple minutes. It should meet my needs when I put the ARC 300.2 to it. Got my sub fully installed. My mounting system worked out perfectly. I bought a pair of new RF Punch MB262 speakers to match the rest of the in boats. Installed them in the dash. (removed windshield, took 10 minutes.) Replaced a set of kicker speackers. I had to take a hole saw to the glove box area to get enough room for the port side speaker to fit. I may have to paint the grilles black, we'll see how much of an issue the reflection in the windshield is. Everything is sounding so much better than when I started. Can't wait to get some power to my system. Next up is the amp rack. Made some more progress. Actually all finished except for modifying the bimini for the speakers on top of tower. I re-did all the battery wiring. Previous was a perko switch to the alternator, (Off, 1,2 or both), and each battery had a separate on, off switch to ground. So if I was working on a project, and had a helper, I couldn't simply say turn the batteries on or off. Also the wiring used was all 4 gauge from each battery and figured I'd yank it all and get the automatic setup. Nothing #gamechanging here. Standard blue sea add a battery kit, with ACR. I used the Shawdoggy approved wiring method. Stereo is completely isolated to it's own battery, and start and house loads are from the start battery. I used an acc. switch on the dash to switch h/u on independently of the key. I have a relay to control the amps remote turn on, and another relay to ground the ACR when ign is on. This allows the pro sport charger to change the two batteries independently. I used Knu Konceptz wiring. I generally would never go with a company that spells their name stupid like that, but broke my rule, and it was good service and a great product to work with. All 1/0 from batteries to ground, switches, amp rack etc. Then splits to 4 gauge for each amp. I used the Blue sea ground bus as well. I also have the blue sea 6 ckt fuse panel, which I put in to power the H/U and any other accessories I want to run of the stereo battery in the future. Everything worked first try, and sounds good so far. I'll update with tower speaker info later. After I had the speakers situated where I wanted, I removed the speakers and installed the Bimini. I traced around the speaker brackets with a pencil where they were contacting the bimini, so that we'd know where to put the holes. I then took the bimini to a local canvas shop and had the holes cut and hemmed. $70 and a day later I had my holes. It turned out just how I wanted it to. speakers can be removed or adjusted easily by going around the side of the bimini. Update 9/3/17. For whatever reason, Photobucket is working again today. I'm sure that won't last forever. I'll just load all the pics to this site. I swapped out my Clarion EQ for a Wetsounds 420. The clarion lost the right channel and had some issues with illumination not always working. The 420 added the microphone, which is a big plus, and also eliminated a subwoofer thump I'd get every time I'd shut the system off.

Edit: Trying to clean up Photobucket mess.... Original post had nice captions describing each picture... Just PM me if you need any help or have questions on anything. I installed a bunch of reversible Johnson pumps on my Malibu 247. I got tired of the inconvenience and long 15-20 minute fill times on my 2,000 lb dong sack (Port side) with my two Tsunami pumps over the side. These pumps will fill both side ballast locations, and drain out the side. I have 1100 and 370 sacks on starboard side. I figured I'd post some pics to help anyone out that may may be looking to do the same thing. I got all my parts from Wakemakers. Sure, you can get some (lower quality) ball valves, hose and what-not cheaper at Home stores, but I didn't buy a boat to save money. Wakemakers has good stuff and great support. Onto the install. Part 1. I decided to go with 4 1" thru hull intakes. (This may be excessive, but so is 6 freaking Johnson pumps.) Two are by the V-drive, and 1 on each side of the engine. This should be enough to supply my pumps, and any future ones I may install later. I used a street elbow on starboard side by engine, all the rest were straight fittings. I'm trying to eliminate as many 90* fitting as possible. I made a special tool to tighten the mushroom fittings. I had the wife under the boat tightening the mushrooms, while I held the ball valve, street elbow assemblies from turning. After that was secure, she put on the 3M 5200 on the mushroom, and I tightened down the nut on the mushroom fitting. Part 2 will install pumps. Fabbed up bracket to hold 6 Johnson pumps. ( a good project to try out my new welder) Mounted on back wall yesterday, should look good with all the pumps in place. Got the pumps mounted. And I got my new thru hull drains and vents in: I spaced it so I can replace the stock 3/4" with matching 1" thru hulls if it bothers me longterm. I'll probably not worry about it after a week. Some mods needed to go with it. Engine divider bracing (this was done last year), and relocated fuel vent to starboard side, farther forward so I wouldn't have to worry about getting water in fuel. I finally made use of my fly high switch and plumbed in an extra sack for when I'm lacking crew. The hose tucks away above the cup holders when not in use.The switch is just to the left of the driver, and switches between feeding the dong sack and this new seat sack. I still need to get around to finishing the goofy side cooler location, and will have a switch on that side to fill a seat sack as well. Update: All this stuff has worked flawlessly for a few years. I added GSA to my boat, so got rid of the large dong sack port side and went with Wakemakers 910# sacs in lockers evenly weighted, and a 1000# in the bow. I have 2 pumps feeding each locker bag, and 1 pump feeding the bow... I suppose I'll eventually run the final 6th pump (which I actually never have used yet) to the bow bag to make filling that quicker. Pro tip: if I was trying to save money/simplify, I'd just have the pumps drain out the bottom of the boat. Way easier, and I usually open the lockers and watch the bags, since it's hard to tell when water stops draining out the side anyway.