- Location
- Buffalo, NY
Last Summer, I bought a beautiful FX1 from the second owner, who owned it for 25 years. He took such great care of it and I promised him that I'd do the same. It was pretty much stock, except for turf, a Skat Trak prop and Jet Dynamics ride plate and intake grate. I love the lightweight feel of it, and the way that the small hull carves, but the power of the stock 701 left a lot to be desired, especially compared to the ported & piped 718's in my Blaster and fixed steer Superjet. After doing tons of research I figured out exactly what I'd like to do to improve the few shortcomings of a stock FX1. These include; building the 701, shortening the pole, adding foot holds, upgrading the exhaust piping from 2" to 2-3/8", widening the tray, and adding a 140mm Kawasaki 650 pump.
I plan on keeping the FX1 as stock looking as possible, especially since I'm starting with such a nice ski. I pulled the stock 701 out, removed the turf, removed the pole, and stock pump. In this thread I'll outline what I'm doing, along with lots of details of the process, and part numbers for parts that I'm using.
First I shortened the pole by 2-3/4". The previous owner gave me an extra pole (he replaced this pole with another OEM pole years ago after the rivets came loose). He had already cut 1.5" out of the bottom of the pole, but never put it back together. I cut 1.25" from the top of the pole. I cut some of the styrofoam out from around where the holes for the rivets will go and JB Marine Welded stainless washers on the back side of the pole on the top, because when you put the top back together, you can't access the back side of the pole. I then spread JB Marine Weld on the top steering plate and the pole after I scuffed both surfaces with some 80 grit sandpaper. I then used stainless steel 3/16" rivets to hold it together. One the bottom of the pole I also cut some of the styrofoam out from around the holes and used stainless pan head screws, washers on the back, and stainless lock nuts (from other skis that I parted out) to hold the pole into the aluminum pole mounting base, along with JB Marine Weld. On the bottom you can reach in there to tighten nuts down, unlike the top where you can't. I'm very happy with how it turned out. I've heard people shorten their FX1 pole 2", 2.5", 3", and 4" so I decided to go somewhere in the middle.
Next, I scraped the turf and padding off and marked the lines for my cuts. I spaced them 16-1/2" apart. That's currently where I am now. For some reason, at all points it measures 16-1/2" across, but the camera made it look like it was farther apart toward the back. This is where I currently am with the project.
To all of the guys that widened their tray before, does everything look good now with where I marked the rails?
I plan on keeping the FX1 as stock looking as possible, especially since I'm starting with such a nice ski. I pulled the stock 701 out, removed the turf, removed the pole, and stock pump. In this thread I'll outline what I'm doing, along with lots of details of the process, and part numbers for parts that I'm using.
First I shortened the pole by 2-3/4". The previous owner gave me an extra pole (he replaced this pole with another OEM pole years ago after the rivets came loose). He had already cut 1.5" out of the bottom of the pole, but never put it back together. I cut 1.25" from the top of the pole. I cut some of the styrofoam out from around where the holes for the rivets will go and JB Marine Welded stainless washers on the back side of the pole on the top, because when you put the top back together, you can't access the back side of the pole. I then spread JB Marine Weld on the top steering plate and the pole after I scuffed both surfaces with some 80 grit sandpaper. I then used stainless steel 3/16" rivets to hold it together. One the bottom of the pole I also cut some of the styrofoam out from around the holes and used stainless pan head screws, washers on the back, and stainless lock nuts (from other skis that I parted out) to hold the pole into the aluminum pole mounting base, along with JB Marine Weld. On the bottom you can reach in there to tighten nuts down, unlike the top where you can't. I'm very happy with how it turned out. I've heard people shorten their FX1 pole 2", 2.5", 3", and 4" so I decided to go somewhere in the middle.
Next, I scraped the turf and padding off and marked the lines for my cuts. I spaced them 16-1/2" apart. That's currently where I am now. For some reason, at all points it measures 16-1/2" across, but the camera made it look like it was farther apart toward the back. This is where I currently am with the project.
To all of the guys that widened their tray before, does everything look good now with where I marked the rails?
