Spark Speed Ties - How I made them actually work better

[chg]

Here's my thought process, since I had them installed last week. I love the concept - a retractable dock line! What a great idea, right? Well... Yes and no.

Pro's:
- Retractable
- Streamlined and unobtrusive
- 7ft line length is plenty for most situations

Con's:
- Expensive ($199/set)
- They don't exactly retract all the way very easily
- Why in the world would they put a square plastic stopper on the end?!

My overall opinion... They work, but needed some help. So I went on Amazon and bought 4x 3" stainless steel carabiners. Once they arrived, I cut off the square ties and tied a marine knot to secure the carabiner to the existing speed tie line. Yes they hang out of the speed tie location, which in my opinion actually looks alright, but they will function much better to quickly secure the craft to a dock or another vessel.

[gb387]

do you have a photo?

[Q in Arizona]

do you have a photo?

Ditto!

[chg]

Keep in mind that I do plan on changing them to black anodized carabiners soon, this was just testing of version 1.

[Ramps]

I like the seat and the GPS mount (I assume).... What other mods you running?

[chg]

The mount is for the GoPro camera... Also have a mount on the left side below the storage compartment, and adding another mount to the nose as well.

Currently the white Spark has the seat cover, GoPro mount, straight pipe exhaust, and state 1 tune. After this weekend I will be adding the intake, stainless wear ring (already have it), and impeller. I am doing the mods in stages, a water trial after each stage and recording my results so I can compare what mods give the best gains.

My gray spark is a completely stock 3up. I'll be doing a tune on it, but that's probably about it.

[raceneked]

thats just a 'sticky' mount tab in those locations?

I've been wondering if it'd stick well enough - with the reg. # issues, I was curious ...

[chg]

They stick horribly. I lost my GoPro the first time to a large bump, luckily it has the floating pack. I actually bolted the mounts in, just use flush screws.

[gb387]

The SpeedTie looks good! Nice work

[Ski Hacks MG]

Nice but do they not clank around on your ski while riding? That would drive me batty!