Hi guys. First build thread... Been lurking for some time. But caught myself in ADHD rage attacking my new ski and thought this was good a time as ever. Interacted with so many folks through Facebook... and I hate facebook no idea why I waited so long
Some background. I picked up the hobby 3 years or so ago and caught the itch forever.. now neglecting a past life of drift cars, dirt bikes and other hobbies. I started with a Seadoo HX & a SP and the rest is history. I've made/had a few neat skis. 1100 X4 & 951 X4, Kawi 1100 B1 (after a failed Yam1200, and bored with 701), 750 x2, 951hx and tons of random couch flips. This year picked up my first standup, a SN SJ from brapperdoodle and reused my B1's healthy old 61x to open up a can of worms that's rapidly getting out of control.
Last weekend me and a handful of buddies got the pleasant opportunity to all buy a lot of Kawi Standups & X2's
Which brings us to Ski #32 (no poop)
My ski from the haul
1990 JS440 converted to 650
Plan was every ski hits the water next day. So that evening gave this and 2 other skis a solid once over, cleaned out the tank, added a ton of zip ties, fuel filters I trust, a prok cause I didn't like the K&N pancake thingy it had.
Ride came along and it did great! My first time on one of these hulls and I adored it. What a silly feeling watching it ride away into a big circle and boomerang back to you, the stock pump is worthless and or the impeller pitch is far too short, but none the less I didn't want to stop riding it!
It's got either a dying solenoid or starter... Easy fix just keep pressing the button and pray. Left the bilge off for sometime and had some water build up catch me off guard. Hopefully just the old hood seal and my negligence. It's a vibratey mess so assuming pump job is in the cards. Started oddly cutting in and out end of the ride, I figured it was water ingestion into something. Worked fine again strapped to the trailer on the ramp dyno. Overall massive success. All the other skis were solid with minor issues, except the other 440 that basically had a clogged cooling line, despite prior to Sat/Sun was pulled off the floor and looked like it hadn't run in 20 years, it made it across a cove... surreal.
So here we are today prepping for next ride and the "build"
Fixing the starting woes, and starting the cosmetic overhaul.
Found some dodgy wiring. I guess this is 550 ebox converted.. I need to research more. But few mismatched wire colors soldered together covered in tape, not the best. Also ordered all new battery & starting cables from BatteryCablesUSA.com. I CANNOT stress how much I love those guys and how much better every ski I have turns over since defaulting to throwing all the old crusty 6ga wire in the trash. Also bypassed the fuel selector, replaced all the OG fuel line.
Ordered up so far a Jettrim mat, feline unfortunately got its claws at this old school HT mat, new pole pads, removed the stickers I was told was to "man" the ski up for the rider. Unfortunately the same masculinity effort that netted orange all over the ski (loved the stickers, not the color) and painted the pole pads green robbed us of the pink side graphics.
I'm a sucker for keeping it stock appearance but I haven't decided whether to stick with the stock 90 440 graphics or go for the lightning 550sx scheme, exploring those options. I'd LOVE to do a pink chin pad but haven't found that option yet either.. need to fire off some emails.
So what else is in the cards to come??
First will be controls, id like to do some better bars, clean up some slop there definitely some new bushings in order, and a tether switch
First big mod. 750 pump, seems like a necessity for this ski to party like I want to party.
Off season.... Now that's the question.
I was pretty quick to want to do the obvious, bigger pipe & 750... But I just made a gigantic effort to offload years of piled up Seadoo spare parts and purposely brought myself down to 2 platforms, 701 & Kawi 1100. I'm not sure I wanna add a 3rd.
So I'm thinking mod 61x + bpipe. I'm very happy with my SJ setup, lots of data there I've got written down and trust..... But we'll see. Goal #1 is to get more tray time on this cause it's a RIOT and enjoy it for the remainder of the season
Updates to come
Some background. I picked up the hobby 3 years or so ago and caught the itch forever.. now neglecting a past life of drift cars, dirt bikes and other hobbies. I started with a Seadoo HX & a SP and the rest is history. I've made/had a few neat skis. 1100 X4 & 951 X4, Kawi 1100 B1 (after a failed Yam1200, and bored with 701), 750 x2, 951hx and tons of random couch flips. This year picked up my first standup, a SN SJ from brapperdoodle and reused my B1's healthy old 61x to open up a can of worms that's rapidly getting out of control.
Last weekend me and a handful of buddies got the pleasant opportunity to all buy a lot of Kawi Standups & X2's
Which brings us to Ski #32 (no poop)
My ski from the haul
1990 JS440 converted to 650
Plan was every ski hits the water next day. So that evening gave this and 2 other skis a solid once over, cleaned out the tank, added a ton of zip ties, fuel filters I trust, a prok cause I didn't like the K&N pancake thingy it had.
Ride came along and it did great! My first time on one of these hulls and I adored it. What a silly feeling watching it ride away into a big circle and boomerang back to you, the stock pump is worthless and or the impeller pitch is far too short, but none the less I didn't want to stop riding it!
It's got either a dying solenoid or starter... Easy fix just keep pressing the button and pray. Left the bilge off for sometime and had some water build up catch me off guard. Hopefully just the old hood seal and my negligence. It's a vibratey mess so assuming pump job is in the cards. Started oddly cutting in and out end of the ride, I figured it was water ingestion into something. Worked fine again strapped to the trailer on the ramp dyno. Overall massive success. All the other skis were solid with minor issues, except the other 440 that basically had a clogged cooling line, despite prior to Sat/Sun was pulled off the floor and looked like it hadn't run in 20 years, it made it across a cove... surreal.
So here we are today prepping for next ride and the "build"
Fixing the starting woes, and starting the cosmetic overhaul.
Found some dodgy wiring. I guess this is 550 ebox converted.. I need to research more. But few mismatched wire colors soldered together covered in tape, not the best. Also ordered all new battery & starting cables from BatteryCablesUSA.com. I CANNOT stress how much I love those guys and how much better every ski I have turns over since defaulting to throwing all the old crusty 6ga wire in the trash. Also bypassed the fuel selector, replaced all the OG fuel line.
Ordered up so far a Jettrim mat, feline unfortunately got its claws at this old school HT mat, new pole pads, removed the stickers I was told was to "man" the ski up for the rider. Unfortunately the same masculinity effort that netted orange all over the ski (loved the stickers, not the color) and painted the pole pads green robbed us of the pink side graphics.
I'm a sucker for keeping it stock appearance but I haven't decided whether to stick with the stock 90 440 graphics or go for the lightning 550sx scheme, exploring those options. I'd LOVE to do a pink chin pad but haven't found that option yet either.. need to fire off some emails.
So what else is in the cards to come??
First will be controls, id like to do some better bars, clean up some slop there definitely some new bushings in order, and a tether switch
First big mod. 750 pump, seems like a necessity for this ski to party like I want to party.
Off season.... Now that's the question.
I was pretty quick to want to do the obvious, bigger pipe & 750... But I just made a gigantic effort to offload years of piled up Seadoo spare parts and purposely brought myself down to 2 platforms, 701 & Kawi 1100. I'm not sure I wanna add a 3rd.
So I'm thinking mod 61x + bpipe. I'm very happy with my SJ setup, lots of data there I've got written down and trust..... But we'll see. Goal #1 is to get more tray time on this cause it's a RIOT and enjoy it for the remainder of the season
Updates to come
