And the questions arise.

[bartels903]

My buddy and I recently purchased a 1978 four winns boat. I has a 115hp outboard motor. Now that we got the motor running well and the interior done, I had some questions. I have been wakeboarding when possible on friends boats for the last couple years. I am decent, but not nearly good. I wanted to know if the boat will make a nice wake and if the motor is powerful enough? Also we work at a metal fab shop so we will be building our own tower.

 

[tommays]

Re: And the questions arise.

In a very general way outboards tend to be on the light side to put up a BIG wake

With only 115 Hp you would have to do some trail and error with how much water weight you could safely place in the stern and NOT sink the boat when you stop

As well as being able to get on plane in a fair amount of time with the extra weight



Tommays

 

[bartels903]

Re: And the questions arise.

I understand it is not going to be a big wake, but enough to accel on. Where should the tower (weight for test) be placed?

 

[tommays]

Re: And the questions arise.

The tower is pretty far froward 2/3 of the boat ,look at some others and see how there mounted


You could use some 5 gallon water jugs to fool around with water ballast to help the wake

Like i said you need to carefull if your transome is LOW it is real easy to get a BIG backwash into the baot when stop if it is to heavy



Tommays

 

[JuanRiosBR190]

Re: And the questions arise.

for an outboard you could try a few things:
lower your prop pitch & increast the number of blades, 4 or 5 blades & a low pitch would improve your hole-shot & your ability to hold speed with any ballast on board.
Start placing ballast in front to middle of the boat, then use your trim to optimize the wake size (once you're up to speed)
Place the tower so the pull point is generally over the center of gravity of the boat. Check out this link to see where others have put a tower on a 4-Winns.
http://www.monstertower.com/customerphotos/index.htm
You may have to click on "fourWinns" on the index on the left side of the page.
Generally the front legs sit at or forward of the leading edge of the windshield