Adding ZO to an old Nautique.

[ellenm]

I have a 2002 Correct Craft Ski Nautique with a Carburetor engine. Is it possible to upgrade the ignition system to fuel injected and upgrade to ZO? The boat has only 500 hours and I am considering spending a few thousand dollars doing this vs. upgrading.

 

 

[RichardDoane]

somewhere out there is a good, used promo boat with ZO that you can trade your 2002 in on

[thager]

Your changeover to fuel injection, digital engine control plus ZO would cost more than upgrading to a newer CC ZO boat or dropping in a new engine. Inboardfix or Jody Seal could give you a more accurate estimate. I am guessing at least 8K if you have the right engine block for the upgrade.

[A_B]

The big thing in this upgrade process is Drive By Wire throttle control. Your boat probably doesn't have it, and that is not a cheap conversion. Jody Seal knows these inside and out and has told me it would be easier to replace my old GT40 without DBW with a new engine if ZO was the goal. I sold my '99 and went in on a 2007 with ZO with my lake partner. Even if I bought the 2007 on my own, it was a $6,500 difference. I found that key parts for the GT40, like ECM, are getting hard to find. Even though my boat had only 400 hours on it, the parts were 13 years old.

[Inboardfix]

There isn't anyway coverting your engine is economically feasible. Round numbers on repower + ZO are $9.5K for an EX343 w/new front mounts + $1630.00 for ZO, Canbus harness and Power harness + labor.

 

@richarddoane's comment is spot on. Rather than spend $10k + on your boat it may be best to sell yours, add the $10K you'd spend to repower to your sale proceeds and get a much newer boat w/ZO.

 

 

[Dirt]

Hard to believe it was carb boat in 02. 94 MC was throttle body I think. Why not just go to PP Zbox? Its not great but close enough for the money.

[ellenm]

What is PP Zbox?

 

[ForrestGump]

@Dirt If you go to the CC factory you'll see CC200's being built today for export that are carbed. Pretty common to send carb'd boats outside the US where they might be converted to LPG.

[6balls]

@ellenm w/out getting too technical, it is an add-on to perfect pass stargazer that when tweaked properly emulates the pull and settings of zero off.

[Dirt]

@ShaneH that makes sense. Thanks for the info.

 

@ellenm The zbox is a Perfect Pass product that was an ad on to Stargazer cruise control. It is supposed to emulate Zero Off on boats that cannot be upgraded to ZO at a reasonable price. The pull feels similar depending on the boat. The system is a little temperamental or can be a bit of work to get dialed in. Customer support at PP is really good and they can guide you through any problems.

 

For my boat (2000 MC Pro Star 190) it made a huge difference. I go to tournaments now without thinking about the different pull I am going to get behind ZO. Before we got it, I had a really hard time adjusting to ZO in tournaments. I may have gotten lucky. It was plug and play, really easy to install and set up.

 

It can be difficult to drive around islands pulling skiers at speeds below 30 mph but their may have been a software fix.

 

There are some previous threads on this subject and some real experts at setting up Stargazer and Zbox that will help you here at BOS should you choose to buy it.

 

http://www.perfectpass.com/?q=systems

[JC McCavit]

If the boat does not have Perfect Pass with Multiline Display, it will cost $1029.00 to upgrade to StarGazer Multiline Display with Z-Box. I did this upgrade to my 97 SN and I am unable to differentiate the pull compared to ZO. My ZO tournament scores matched my practice scores using Z-Box.