Family Marines 2013 Z3 Custom Tower and Audio Build

[WakerideN]

nice vid. well covered!

[dreamintige']

Thanks gcombe, Tom does videos for nearly every model of boat we have for sale. I'm usually the camera man. Kinda shaky, but I do my best! Tom has about 35 years in the marine industry so he's super knowledgeable and has just about seen it all. I get free boating industry history lessons quite often.

[dreamintige']

Why did you go with the HT amps instead of the Syn's? I would think one would want the higher end amp with this setup.

I have decided to replace the HT-4 currently powering the cabin speakers with an HT-6 to give 110 x 6 @ 4 ohms. I was unhappy with the HT-4 set up in this boat. This configurations will give us MUCH better performance.

The audio components used in this build give us the best bang for the buck high quality audio. While also meeting the requirements to keep this particular Z3 priced extremely competitively.

[dreamintige']

We had some backing plates fabricated and installed the ws-420 in the dash. Mic will be located nearby for driver convenience.


www.familymarineboats.com
www.facebook.com/familymarine

[dreamintige']

Because of the limited space behind the sub and on Wet Sounds advice, we also drilled some holes and ported the sub to the storage space in the bow of the boat. The limited amount of space does not allow for enough air flow behind the sub in the Z3.

[chadsanchez]

This boat is SICK! I think the steering wheel should be upgraded to the chromed out one!

[houstonshark]

We had some backing plates fabricated and installed the ws-420 in the dash. Mic will be located nearby for driver convenience.


www.familymarineboats.com
www.facebook.com/familymarine

Very nice job on the 420! This should be a factory option in terms of location.

Can you explain what was done in order to mount it there?

[dreamintige']

Very nice job on the 420! This should be a factory option in terms of location.

Can you explain what was done in order to mount it there?

1. Mark a template in the vinyl.
2. Cut the vinyl
3. Trim the foam back slightly around the edges of the hole.
4. Add some fabricated tabs to the sides of the ws-420 so it doesn't slide forward.
5. Slide ws-420 into backing plate then into dash.
6. Screw backing plate into place
7. Attach tabs to side of ws-420
8. Attach a bracket to the rear of the ws-420 and attach to helm so its supported and sturdy at the back of the ws-420. It's full of RCA's so we don't want it bouncing around.
9. Screw into place.

If anyone is interested I had extra plates fabricated. They're $55 + shipping. Spendy, but worth it. The holes for mounting with screws are recessed and it was done on a CNC so it's nice and straight. What's another 50 bucks when you have 4K - 5k into a new system alread? It just makes it look so much cleaner. I've spent $40.00 on plastic mounting kits for my car.

[dreamintige']

If anyone else has mounted a ws-420 in the helm differently I'd love to see it. I looked for ideas, didn't come up with anything. According to Wet Sounds many places put em in the glove compartment. They didn't agree with that placement, and neither did I. The point is to have easy access to the driver.

[jrj701]

Can you send a couple pictures of the plates? What material are they made of. I considered the same area for install although I was going to move the ignition switch to the other side of the steering wheel and mount the 420 on the right side. Only thing that kept me from doing it was I couldn't find anything other than a plastic trim plate, which I ended up using to mount below the dash. I may get one from you and go ahead with my original thought.

[dreamintige']

Sure, I'll take some photos tomorrow. It's CNC'd out of diamond plate and painted flat black.

[chpthril]

I bet you could cut it out of .25 black HDPE also.

[Wakeman22]

Very nice installs. Looks awesome and a lt of attention to detail. Bet it sounds as good as it looks. Have a pic of the ws420 mounting plate?

[dreamintige']

Backing Plate ws-420

We may do stainless or brshed aluminum also