New to forums, have some questions on Scarab 165 HO Impulse

[Luc Lafreniere]

That link to the Braille brings me to the B106 which only has a 10Ah battery. That's 4.5 times smaller capacity than the one I have right now. Maybe the link changed? Or is he suggesting to use this as the starting battery and use the stock battery as the radio battery? That would make more sense if it's only a 10Ah battery. You only need cranking amps in that case and little capacity.

Regardless, I'll definitely report back once I do the work. But I'm not supposed to get the boat until early May... *sigh* this snow has got to go.

 

[stevenk2]

Ugh - that's no good. Sounds like if I do go for a dual battery setup, I just need to duplicate the size & type that's already in the boat. From what I read in that thread, it sounds like he was suggesting running the stereo off of the Braille battery, but I may not be reading that correctly.

Also, just for grins, I sent a question off to Crutchfield to see what they recommended for upgrading the system in my 165, and this is what they replied:

Hey Steve,

We do not have any information on the Scarab in our system, but from I could find online, it looks like you have a 6.5 inch Kicker speaker in there, which still would be a very basic Kicker speakers. I found these Kicker 43KM654LCW<https://www.crutchfield.com/p_206KM654LC/Kicker-43KM654LCW.html?tp=61755> and Kicker 42PXA3004<https://www.crutchfield.com/p_206PXA3004/Kicker-42PXA3004.html> amp that would be an awesome upgrade for you. This Kicker CompR 43CWR84<https://www.crutchfield.com/p_206CWR84/Kicker-CompR-43CWR84.html> with the Kicker 42PXA5001<https://www.crutchfield.com/p_206PXA5001/Kicker-42PXA5001.html> amp. You can still use the factory wiring with this setup but you will see a big improvement in your audio quality. Looks like we currently have a special that you can get a free pair of Kicker headphones when you purchase $149.99 or more in Kicker products. With your purchase it looks like you would qualify for 2 free pair of headphones.

Here is all this in a CART<https://www.crutchfield.com/I-rXYEc111/cart/EmailCart.aspx?emKey=1915292> ready to go for you, if you have any questions please let me know. I hope you have a wonderful evening Steve.

https://www.crutchfield.com/I-rXYEc111/cart/EmailCart.aspx?emKey=1915292

I thought it was really cool that they not only went the extra mile to actually look into what I was asking to do with regards to my specific boat, even though it wasn't in their database. The info and items in the cart he built me seem to be accurate, the only question would be if it is truly a decent/worthwhile upgrade to the OEM system. And of course, there's still the concerns with whether the stock battery/charging system will handle the additional load with the upgrades.

No snow here, just cold rain. But I still can't wait for some warmer early spring weather............hopefully we get some of that soon. If I had to wait till May, I think I might go a little crazy.

 

[Luc Lafreniere]

So I don't know how much current those amps use, but they both need a 40A fuse. That tells me they both draw way more power. If they both use 25-30A under normal operation, that's 60A!!! lol You'll definitely need to check your current setup before doing this in my opinion.

 

[stevenk2]

I'll probably just end up adding a second battery - I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Do you happen to know where the OEM amps are mounted in the boat? I tried to take a quick peek last night before bed, but I wasn't able to find them. If I'm real lucky, they're back in the engine bay; if I'm not so lucky, they mounted them in the storage area in front of the helm (which would make them a real pain to get to).

 

[Luc Lafreniere]

Sorry, I don't. If the're in none of those locations, maybe inside the dash? It's easy to get to that if that's the case. 6 screws if I remember correctly.

 

[stevenk2]

I had time to do a little more research on the stereo/amp/speakers, then also did some minor disassembly on my helm today. First off, I got back online and asked the Crutchfield tech some pointed questions about all of the gear they'd recommended. The new speakers and amps will definitely be a quality upgrade to the OEM Kicker system - apparently the Kicker speakers and amps Scarab put in the boats (in 2015 anyways - not sure about the newer models) were basic models, and distort at higher volumes. I hopped in the boat tonight while I was out messing around with finding the location of the amps, and verified that at high volume it does in fact distort pretty badly. And it never really gets that loud anyways - when I crank it all the way, I doubt the volume would be loud enough to be heard at all by someone being towed behind the boat on skis or a tube. The tech said that shouldn't be the case with the new setup, and at max volume he said that it shouldn't distort. He also looked up the power draw with the new setup, and he said that the stock battery/charging system should be fine with it, though he said for peace of mind, a dual battery setup wouldn't be a bad idea.

With regards to the placement of the amps, you just open the hood of the helm, remove the 6 Philips' head screws from the top of the black storage tray on the top of the helm, and the tray lifts out (just be careful to remove the weatherstripping from the one side of the tray before lifting it completely out). The amps, head unit and all of the associated wiring/connectors are fairly easily accessible under the tray, with the amps being mounted to the forward area and the head unit towards the rear. The two issues I can see right now are that the replacement amps are physically slightly larger than the OEM ones (7.8" and 8.25" in length versus 5" and 7" in length on the OEM units), and the Rockford Fosgate head unit I'm considering has a square face with a round body versus the rectangular face and body of the OEM Infinity head unit. There is actually quite a bit of room on the forward bulkhead of the helm, so I think the new amps should still fit fine, even though they'll likely require new mounting holes to be drilled (and/or a backing plate). In regards to the head unit, the Rockford head unit does still fit in the space available on the face of the helm, but the cutout for the OEM Infinity is such that I'll likely need to fabricate some sort of backing plate for the Rockford that will fill about a 3/4" gap on either side of its' faceplate that will be left by the Infinity (the Rockford's face is a bit over 4" square, where the Infinity's is a 4"x6" rectangle).

The other really cool thing about the replacement Kicker speakers is that they have an optional remote & dongle that you can wire up that allow you to control the LEDs in the speakers (i.e. multiple color choices + lightshows) versus the single color that the OEM Kickers are wired for. Apparently, the OEM Kickers actually do have the wires for the multi-color LEDs, but Scarab only connects the wires for the blue LEDs. I would imagine that if you kept the OEM Kickers and wanted a different color LED for them, you could just connect the appropriate wires for whatever color you wanted. Not clear on if you could purchase the remote & dongle and get the multi-color lightshow feature to work with the OEM setup, though.

I'm pretty close to pulling the trigger on the new gear - I'll let you know if I do, as well as how the install goes. The Crutchfield tech said that all of the wiring should be plug-and-play replacement with the new gear, so I'm cautiously optimistic that the installation should go pretty smoothly.

 

[Luc Lafreniere]

Well at least you know more! I figured that's where the amps would be. I thought of installing it there myself.. haven't fully decided yet. I'm surprised they think the stock battery would do the trick. Based on what I know, it wouldn't. But I'm no expert You'll know after trying it out for a while. Just make sure you don't accidentally drain your battery and have no solution and you're stuck on the water.

Yeah, definitely report back. I'm sure others (and myself) would love to learn from your experience. I find a lot of threads about all kinds of work to be done and the original poster never reports back. It's frustrating.

Good luck!

 

[stevenk2]

Thanks!! I think after I get the new system installed, I'm going to do a dry run in my garage with it at moderate volume for about an hour or so without the engine running to see where it leaves the battery level at. I have a smart charger that tells me the battery level when I hook it up, so I should be able to get a somewhat accurate picture of the levels after an hour of runtime. I'll keep you updated as to results/progress..........

I'm thinking that if the new setup is sufficiently good, I may just bag trying to add any kind of tower speakers for now. I still would like to get some LED lights up there on the tower though. I started another thread about to see if anyone's done any kind of wiring like that on the OEM Scarab ski tower - do you have any knowledge/experience with that at all? The upper/folding part of the tower is tube construction, but the uprights on the sides are solid pieces of aluminum, so trying to run wires down to the hull from up top is going to be, um, problematic.

 

[Luc Lafreniere]

No, sorry... can't help you with that. I've done LED work for something else, but not in the boat. Just keep in mind that although LEDs are low power, if you do strips of them it can really add up quick. I'll keep an eye on the other thread.

 

[Reindeer]

Hi Luc,

How do you find the 165 maneuverability as a low cruising speed??
Are they ok??
Looking at the 165 as it looks like a ro ket on the water, but just wanted to find out if it still handles well at low speed.

Cheers

 

[Luc Lafreniere]

Yep! Just fine. The more speed, the more control you have but I've had no issues at all with that. I really do enjoy mine.

 

[Reindeer]

Thanks mate.

Much appreciated. Also how to you find the engine noise?? I have read that its terribly loud??

 

[Luc Lafreniere]

It's definitely loud. But what I discovered at higher speeds is that the wind noise is actually louder than the engine. So even if you installed insulation to reduce noise, you won't be stopping the wind. But at lower speeds, you will hear it. But I don't think it's terrible. Maybe a little louder than a typical inboard/outboard, but mostly because you are very close to the engine.

 

[Reindeer]

Legend.
You pulled boarders or ski's on it before??

 

[Luc Lafreniere]

Not yet surprisingly. Water skiing should be no problem. But not much of a wake for wake boarding.

 

[Reindeer]

Thank for the info mate,
I'm test driving a demo boat next weekend with30 hours on it. So will see how it drive's.
Looking for something compact, but still enough room to have a few guys on it. Looks reasonably spacious in the pictures.

 

[Luc Lafreniere]

That description is pretty accurate. I usually boat with my wife and 3 year old daughter. It's a really good sized boat for us. Sometimes I bring my brother-in-law and his son. It's not huge boat, but it does the trick for us especially on our smaller and very shallow waterways. It also has a decent amount of storage fyi.

 

[Reindeer]

Yeah nice,
How do the people up the front go when to boats up at speed. Or you just dont go there?? Just cruising..

 

[Luc Lafreniere]

I don't usually have enough people to have that situation actually. But I did a few times. There are grab handles so they can hold on. I wouldn't do any crazy maneuvers while you have people up there. It's just not as stable or comfortable for the passengers. I found it worked well with kids in the 6-13 year range, again, as long as you drive reasonably ok.

 

[Reindeer]

Thanks mate.
Will keep you posted on how it goes..