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Ok 2 things here: 1. The L96 engine comes with a 1 1/8" shaft - we didn't know this until we got the Fi23 in with the L96. All Centurions with L96 engines will have a 1 1/8" shaft diameter where the 450/550 engines will have a 1 1/4" shaft. 2. The Fi23 surfed at 3200 RPM with a 16x13 prop (yes you can get it in a 1 1/8") with FULL ballast (transom locker, side lockers, bow tank, ram, etc.) at 5500 foot elevation. Also, it planed to wakeboard speed with full ballast as well and the wakeboard wake fully loaded is full on stupid - like blow out your knees from the 20 feet of air stupid and clean as low as 18 mph (video coming soon). The Fi23 is so good...

How do you set up your RI as for the rest of the bags, I did not have a bow bag so I could see where that would help, currently I set it up like Darkside recommended, I can say this much, the wave was amazing we were actually toning it back a bit for the riders just cause it was too intense to start with. And that is coming from a group who's always surfed A dialed in FS 44 with 800 pounds of tractor plates.

Take them off, skuff them and paint an accent color on the boat.

thanks for the replies! will try sealing even tough I am far from listing like nick213 - scary!

I went to a Chevron oil class and stayed at Holiday Inn so I'm like an oil pro...JK...anyway the class was put on by Chevron so I had to make sure I viewed it through that lens but the guy made a lot of sense so he didn't do the greatest job selling his product. He basically said if you run a certified oil with the proper viscosity for the machine you are putting it in and change it at the recommended intervals it makes little difference what you run and will not void your warranty (look up the Harley lawsuit they tried to spec only Harley oil not a rating, they lost the suit and now spec a rating) He also said viscosity and thermal breakdown that you see advertised is essentially a myth that would require a station wagon pulling a loaded semi trailer to mars and back uphill both ways to make happen(that said we are running these boats under some serious loads). The true culprit of oil break down was particulates and contamination, both of which can be taken care of by changing your oil within proper service intervals. All that said oil is so cheap and the gap between the price of dinosaur guts and synthetics is almost a non issue if you feel better about the engineered stability of synthetics go for it. The filters are mostly marketing unless you are talking about one rated down to really tight on microns like the Mercedes Fleece filters. Mercedes specs a 10000 mile oil change or annual and get extended service intervals by filtering to a smaller microns but keeping flow by using fleece instead of paper. other manufacturers have followed suit. I personally would just change oil often, it's cheap and we are pushing on these boats with a lot of weight and pushing a boat through water is essentially driving uphill all the time. I use that Mitivac, warm up the motor, couple pulls on the mitivac handle and walk away or work on something else, 5 minutes you hear it sucking air and you are done. Since I do all my own service there is no need for a filter wrench, spin it to snug and then throw a quarter turn I believe is spec, I probably over tighten filters a little but I can always get a filter I did off by hand. I mess around with synthetics on some of my stuff, I have noticed 2 things. If you put it in old stuff it will leak, if it has a small leak it will be a big one with synthetics. Second older motors (especially pushrod motors) the synthetics seem to make the motor noisier on the top end. On my 98,000 mile Harley I ran synthetics since about 10,000 miles, on a trip I had an issue and dumped my oil, had to refill with Rotella....top end was significantly quieter. I have torn the top end apart on that bike a few times to modify and everything in there always looks great, so even if it is noisy it is doing its job of protecting metal to metal interfaces.

That makes sense, it looks like the 1231 has .5 less pitch then my 525 and .5 more than the 911. I've run the 525 with around 1200lbs for wakesurfing before and it ran fine but definitely could have used a more aggressive prop. If you don't care about top end, and I'm talking minimal loss from what I've heard, the 911, or the 1231, is probably a great option.