Finished my tsunami pump ugrade for my '08 SUPRA Sunsport 22V. I wanted to post pictures of the project along with directions on how I did it. This system will eliminate the sprinkler valves, filter and RULE pump. The only thing I used left over from the stock system was the ball valve and intake grate. You will need to completely remove the entire stock manifold/sprinkler valves, cut the wiring, remove filter and RULE pump.
First, I had to remove the intake grate from the boat and grind down the scupper. With this setup you will not be using sprinkler valves anymore and the tsunamis will not prevent water from entering into the bags while plaining the boat/driving. The vented loops are used to help alleviate the bags from filling.
After you have grinded the scupper off the intake grate, re-install onto the boat by sealing with 3M Marine Silicon 4200. Make sure and remove it from the boat! dont try and grind it on the boat, I can gaurantee you will do damage to the bottom of your boat/gel coat! and wear eye protection and long sleeves when grinding. Brass slivers will be flying all over the place. I also chose to put duck tape around the intake grate before removing it, this helps with scratching and also makes it nice when you apply the silicone after re-installing without making a mess of everything.
The manifold I used is 3/4" brass, I bought all the parts at Home Depot. I chose brass because it is strong for this applications, wont rust and a much better alternative than PVC. It is more expensive, but the last thing you want it have your manifold crack and start taking in water in the bilge area. You can see by the pictures it sits very low to the bottom of the boat. It was a tight fit, but my main concern was having it low to the bottom which I accomplished. You need to have the tsunami pumps close to the bottom of the boat because they are not self priming. They need to be below the water draft line on the outside of the boat to create pressure to force water into the pump. I had no priming issues at all, hit the fill switch and you are good to go. Unlike the stock RULE pump that will not prime at times unless you drive the boat, and even this method did not always work.
Once the manifold is put together and installed after the ball valve, you need to screw on the tsunami pumps. This is also a great time to extend the wiring on the pumps, it will make it much easier than waiting until they are mounted by the bottom of the boat. I would add about 1 ft of wire to each wire, this should be plenty to reach the wires from the sprinkler valves. Obviously everything that is threaded needs pipe dope or teflon tape wrapped around the threads to prevent leaking.
After this the wiring will easily match up, just reconnect the stock wires to the tsunami's. Does not matter which wire you connect. The wiring from the RULE pump can just be capped of, you will not need this anymore. Make sure and connect the proper wiring to the pump you want to fill a certain bag with. They had the wires marked right, left and center on the stock wiring harness.
Now you are ready to install your vented loops. I chose to mount them on the rear wall of the ski lockers as high up as possible. The higher up the better. I also mounted the center ballast vented loop right next to the drivers side vented loop. Wakemakers recommends mounting it under the front dash, I chose this route because it was easier and seems to work fine. I figured if it would not fill up the rear bags, why would it fill up the center bag??? my theory proved correct, no problems with center bag filling.
Now you are ready to connect your hoses to the vented loops and tsunami pumps. I used 1" hose clamps and 3/4" no-kink bilge line, the stuff is bullet proof and wont kink and is easy to work with. I used an additional 25 feet of hose to make all the new connections. You will also need (3) double male barbed 3/4" fitting to attach the new bilge line to the existing ballast line. This makes it a lot easier not having to re-route the entire fill line. I picked up 5 or 6 of them just to have a few extras on hand incase I needed them. You can always return the ones you dont use.
You will run the hose from the tsunami to the vented loop, back into the bag. Pretty simple, and the drains will not have to be touched seeing as each bag already has its own drain pump on it. I would recommend replacing the stock drain tube with the new 3/4" no-kink line, this will eliminate any headaches of pinching the line from a full bag. (had this happen to me once, it sucks). You will need a couple 3/4" double male barbed fittings to attach the no-kink bilge line to the existing stock drain lines. I would cut it just behind or near the sidewall and re-run the no-kink from this point. The 3/4" double male barbed fittings are available at Lowes, wakemakers did not sell them.
The last item you need to replace is the 3 amp fuses on the fuse panel under the dash. If you crawl on your back and look up to the right side of the dash area you will see a fuse bank with 6 fuses. They are clearly marked with 3. There is also three other fuses that already are using 5 amp fuses, dont do anything to these, they are for the drain pumps. The 3 amp fuses will need to be replaced with 5amp fuses or else you will start to blow fuses when filling. The sprinkler valves you replaced used very little amperage to operate, the Tsunamis run at about 2 amps, so 5 is a good choice. 3 amps is a little close to the max output and eventually you will blow a fuse. Its also not a bad idea to keep some of these handy on your boat just incase you end up needing one on the water. They can be purchased at any automotive store.
One other recommendation is to vent the bags, Supra did not do this. It will make a huge difference in filling them and not having air pockets and loosing ballast weight. Typically you loose about 20% from air pockets. All you need to do is run a line from the extra plugged fitting on the bag to the end of your drain line with a "Y" connector and one way check valve. The check valve is used to stop water from entering back into the bag when emptying. Try and get it as close to the end of the line near the exit hole out the side of the boat. This will also help the bag drain when it is completely full, letting you know it has reached capacity. And of course the biggest advantage to let all the air push out while filling. I have done this to all three of my bags. Tie each bag into the drain line it is using. Make sure you have the extra vent plug on your bag, some have them and some dont. If you dont have the extra one you will have to purchase an entire new bag.
After this you are finished and good to go. The tsunami's will pump 13.4 GPM per bag, much faster than the stock RULE system. The 3/4" intake is good for about 38-40 GPM. So it will accommodate the necessary flow for all the three pumps running at once. Tsunamis are reliable, easy to use pumps. The nice thing about aerator style pumps over impeller driven is aerator pumps will not burn up when ran dry. Impeller pumps when ran dry will burn up and need to be re-built.
I chose the tsunami's over the JABSCO pumps (they use in malibu and mastercraft) because the tsunami 800's put out 13.4 GPM compared to the JABSCO at 9 gpm, so you are getting a little more flow. In my opinion, the Tsunami's will probably outlast the JABSCO pump. And if you do need to ever replace one they are only about $30. JABSCO pumps are running about $235 each. The JABSCO pumps also use 9 amp per pump, and the Tsunami is less than 2 amps per pump. All 3 Tsunamis running at one time do not equal the amount of amp draw one JABSCO pump uses. I just could not see that much benefit using it in this application, especially since the Supra has seperate drain pumps already installed for each bag. Another problem with the JABSCO pumps is when the impeller goes bad, water will drain out of the sacs.
Hope this gives some useful information, I know its a great upgrade from the stock system. In my opinion, well worth the $300. Total install time for me was about 7 hours. I lake tested this system last week and hod no problems with it filling or having the bags fill up when the system is not being used and the boat is being driven. If you choose to also vent the bags, it will be an additional $150 worth of parts to do this.
Jason at wakemakers help me build this system, I ordered everything from them. Unfortunately the adaptors for the stock manifold they sent me did not fit, that is why I built my own out of brass. My stock manifold would not have worked because there was not enough space to fit the tsunami's down below near the bottom of the boat. Jason has been very helpful and I would highly recommend them to get your parts and any questions you might have for them.
Parts list:
3 Tsunami 800 ballast pumps
3/4" Male barbed fitting that will screw on exit port on Tsunami pump
20-25 ft of 3/4" no kink bilge line (I call it no-kink, its ribbed)
3 3/4" double male barbed fittings
A bunch of 3/4"-1" hose clamps
Solder gun/wire connectors to extend wiring on pumps
Extra wire (5 ft max) to exend wiring on pumps
3 Vented loops
Brass Manifold parts or Supra Manifold (my supra manifold would not fit the pumps correctly by the bottom of boat)
3m Marine 4200 silicone
Pipe dope or teflon tape
Tie straps to secure wiring
Electrical tape
Grinder to grind off intake scupper/vice to hold intake grate
Safety glasses/long sleeve shirt while grinding
5 amp fuses (3 of them)
If you are venting the bags:
3 "Y" or "T" connectors to tie into your drain line
3 one way check valves
3 male quick disconnect fittings (goes into extra port on bag)
3 female quick disconnect fittings (with red tab, goes on bilge line)
3 3/4" double barbed male fittings
Extra 3/4" no-kink bilge line
More hose clamps
Website is www.wakemakers.com
