jpwhit

As @Kelvin said please post the specific code fault code numbers. But from the subject text, assuming it's exactly as stated on the boat screen, it sounds like an error with crank and/or cam position feedback. So yes, dealer is likely correct that it's either the crank or cam position sensors, or a wiring issue to one of those sensors. And it sounds like it's an intermittent error, which makes it a little more likely to be an intermittent wire harness issue.

I buy stuff pretty often from PerfSki, Nautique Parts (aka White Lake Marine), SkiDim, H2OProShop, and Miami Nautique. My experience with Miami Nautique is that if the item is in stock, which I haven't been able to figure out from their web site, and the order and shipping goes smoothly then it's fine. But if anything doesn't go smoothly then they are the hardest to get it sorted out. Frankly all the others I mentioned are all very easy to work with and like so many, I mainly work via email. I think in this day and age, if places are going to do well, the reality is they need to offer the same level of consistent customer service through all the communication channels. There are simply too many alternatives that do provide that.

If you're using the mechanical throttle servo version, which I think is all they sell now based on the patent dispute with zero off over drive by wire, then there is the simple reality that the mechanical servo takes time to respond and move. When I had stargazer on an older boat, I had to drive smoothly up to the set point until it beeps and stop advancing the throttle at that point. Then you must advance the throttle slowly and smoothly to prevent overshoot. Basically, you can't move it faster than the PP system and mechanical servo can let out extra throttle tension for the speed to not overshoot. It's not like Zero Off, or the older DBW version of PP, where you can just slam the throttle down and expect it to not overshoot. It takes some practice and skill. Once you learn how to drive to the setpoint w/o overshoot, it does a very good job of maintaining speed after that, unless something else is wrong. All speed controls will gun the boat in a turn. When you turn, the boat naturally slows down, and it'll add a lot of throttle to maintain the same speed. You need to take over throttle control in a turn and then after the turn drive smoothly back up to the set point, and again slowly advance the throttle to full. With a DBW system, it's more practical to just lower the speed setting some during the turn and turn it back up, but with PP it's really just better to take over manual speed control in a turn. For the folks that have Perfect Pass as a marriage saving strategy, and I know I've been there, there is really no comparison to Zero Off. With Zero Off or any DBW, you can pretty much slam the throttle down and the system handles everything else flawlessly. Makes for a very happy wife :wink: In some boats, if the mechanical servo isn't setup very well so there’s very little friction and/or the throttle return spring is weak, that'll certainly make the overshoot issues worse.

If it won't fire using starting fluid, then it's almost certainly an ignition system issue. Have you checked if you have spark? If not, start with replacing the distributor cap and rotor button. It's a pretty common issue on these 5.7L engine. It's also pretty common for the ears on the distributor where the screws that hold the distributor screw in to break off. So common that a simple repair solution exists so you don't have to replace the whole distributor. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BQAJNWO/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Another possible cause of the issue. You hold the bottom left button when the boat is powered on to bring up this boot loader screen. It's used to install new firmware. If that bottom left button sticks, you'll have the symptom you describe. Try pressing that bottom left button a few times and see if it feels normal. If this is what's causing your issue, pressing it a few times may break it free.

On the XT20, make sure all the ballast is completely empty. Use the manual override switches for the ballast with the engine off listen carefully for bubbling under the boat. Do each ballast system separately. Then play with center tab settings. 50% center tab is best on my X25. As you play with center tab settings, don't go by how the wake looks, go by how it feels to the skier to find the best setting. Also, the faster you go the better wake. I'd suggest at least 30, but 32 or 34 will be even better if you can ski well at those speeds. You should be able to get a reasonable wake for recreational skiing on the XT20. You're not going to get a good enough wake for the slalom course skiing.

The opinion of my grandfather, who owned a garage his whole life and personally specialized in carbs, was that the Rochester Quadrajet was a much better carb than the Holley. I've rebuilt both myself and I will say the Quadrajet is a much more complicated carb, so you better bring your A game if you're rebuilding one....

I truly hope folks are right that prices will come back down in the used market sooner rather than later, but I can see other ways this may play out. The premise for the quick drop in price is based on boats that don't get a lot of use coming back on the market quickly. Many of them will come back on the market over time, but it may be years and be a trickle instead of quick flood onto the market. (see below for my thoughts on why in order to keep the main flow of this post concise.) If you think about how used prices are set, it's primarily by compares with previous sales. Now that a new bar has been set, I think some forcing function may have to happen to cause a drop. Until there is forcing function, I could see prices hover at the newly established higher baseline. The likely forcing function would be a significant downturn in the economy that drives up unemployment and suppresses income. And it's anyone's guess when that'll happen. Why unused boats may not come back on the market quickly The premise for a quick price drop is that when people stop using the boats they bought, that a high percentage of them will go back on the used market quickly. And while on the surface that would seem logical, I see plenty of examples that suggest that may not be the case. At the lot where I store an RV, I've talked to the owner a few times. It's amazing how many boats and campers that are there that were used for the first year or so, and then just sit there untouched for years. You can tell by the grass growing under them... For folks that have high incomes, time is much more precious commodity than money. I think it’s those kind of people that jumped into the boat market during the pandemic. When I ask the storage lot owner about it, he tells me crazy stories of the people that just pay the storage bill year after year because they're simply too busy or lazy to sell the boat or camper. He even says folks have told him they just keep paying the loan payments for the same reason or they say they bought them for cash.

Another important consideration IMO is your weight. I think the difference in feel between PP and ZO becomes much broader as skier weight increases. I'm fairly light, and I still feel a lot of difference. The heavier guys I sky with seem to think the difference is much more significant.

100% agree with the early 2000's Sunsetter LXI with the diamond hull. But they are getting on the old side and are hard to find. Still a good choice if you're someone that likes working on, maintaining, and fixing up your boat. If you're not, then it may not be the best choice unless you find one that is already in very good condition. I owned a 1996 Four Winns 18' Horizon RS I/O with the 5.7L engine for a lot of year. I also installed Perfect Pass on that boat. That was a great boat and I learned to ski the course behind it. Someone told me that boat was actually tested and written up in waterski magazine as one of the few IO with a good ski wake at 30mph and above. We also had a fly high monkey bar on it, which is a sort of very lightweight tower. It ended up being an outstanding crossover boat too, because it had a good intermediate wakeboard wake at slower speeds. I sold that boat and bought a Ski Nautique 200 when my girls started skiing for UNC. The 200 certainly had a better wake, but interestingly neither me or my daughters buoy count went up immediately after getting the 200. My point is that some I/O can have a pretty good wake, but it varies widely and doubt you'll be able to find info for a specific model. The wakes do tend to be different; the I/O will have 2 separated wakes at slalom speed. The DD will almost feel like a very wide single wake to someone that is accustomed to an I/O. My recommendation is to make friends with someone with a descent model DD and get a little experience behind it yourself. My other advice, find a way to get on a course. I really wish I'd done that about 20 years sooner than I did......

It's because of the tunnel, the hydrogate directs the water coming down the tunnel downward and lifts the rear of the boat.

I ski behind ZO primarily, but behind PP now and then. I agree with @scoke. It's not about speed, it's about how the boat reacts to your pulls. People say zbox with PP makes it closer, but I haven't skied with a PP boat w/ zbox. For me, I ski much better behind ZO because that's what I'm really use to. When I ski behind PP, the boat feels like mush and it throws my timing off sometimes.

Multiple older PCM343 with our ski club. Never any issue with the manifolds.

I completely agree with @Horton's view that you must make it fun. I just don't agree that fun "has" to involve a tube. My issue with tubes is that it doesn't require skill or learning, it's not enjoyable for me as the boat driver and water sports "teacher", and I've seen too many kids that start with tubing not be willing to do anything else behind the boat. We made water activities fun by encouraging about anything else pulled behind the boat. knee boards, wake boards, trick skis, saucer-stool-juggling, how many people could we get up behind the boat at once (10 btw), show skiing tricks, etc.... I also never told any kids no to tubing. I always said I just didn't have one and suggested one of all the other choices. For my own kids, I didn't tell them no, I explained that I wanted to have fun too and these other activities are the things I enjoyed teaching and driving. I also said if you want to tube, go do it with one of the other dad's that liked pulling tubes. For my own kids, I just made sure they learned to do other activities first. I do acknowledge that it can be made to work and managed by a parent, just like anything such as TV or device screen time. Especially for kids that learned to ski first. But we did our summer boating/RVing with 6 other families. So, there were always tons of kids and their friends involved. It was just much more practical to not have a tube if I didn't want to do tubing.

My two daughters have thanked me numerous times, starting around college age, that I refused to ever own a tube.....

Not in Florida, but my wife and I bought a house on a lake in October of 2019. Pure luck that we happened to buy before the Pandemic..... It was a godsend to have the lake house to weather the Pandemic and it was before prices skyrocketed. Also bought a wake and ski boat at the same time, so again fortunate timing on those purchases as well. We ended up in an ideal situation. We considered a lot of lakes, but ended up buying on a lake I've gone to since I was 6 years old for the very reason that I knew the lake like the back of my hand. But the truth is there was still a good bit of luck involved in having it work out as well as it has. All our neighbors are simply fantastic. The ski community here is much more vibrant then even I knew after being on the lake nearly all my life. Turns out there are 3 different course on the lake, I only knew about 1. It a very large lake but also far enough from any big cities not to be crowded. I'm also still a member of ski club with a course on a private lake, and ironically the conditions at the big lake are as good or better than the private lake much of the time. And I don't ski at the crack of dawn or anything like that.... Net, what you're asking is a hard problem IMO. And I would say on one hand you can't do too much research, but on the other hand at some point I think you have no choice but to pull the trigger and hope for the best, otherwise you'll just never make the move.

I went from dual rubber binding to reflex front and RTP for this exact reason. Best change I've ever made for my skiing. Makes a huge difference to ski in complete comfort. Simply made me want to ski more passes. I had been skiing on double bindings for literally 40 years. I learned with RTP and skied that way for 7 years when I was a teenager. Not sure if that made the transition any easier. When I first switched to RTP 3 years ago, I felt like I was going to fall off the ski for about a month. Here how I managed the transition. At the start of a season, I switched my rear binding from an HO Animal to a Radar RTP. Took me about a month to adjust but then had a better season than the last few seasons. But I don't like a tight front binding and RTP for safety reasons. I also wanted a more comfortable front binding. The beginning of the next season, I swapped the HO Animal front binding for a reflex hard shell. That turned out to be a more difficult transition in terms of how different if felt at first, but the time to adapt was actually a little faster. I was back to skiing at the previous level in 2-3 weeks. And again, had more improvement that season than in any recent previous seasons.

To just take out the rear floor section, you don't have to remove the step box or the back seat panel. Just take out the Engine Box and then there are 2 metal L brackets at the front of the rear floor panel. Take out the screws through the L bracket and into the fiberglass, the lift the front of the rear floor section and pull slightly forward.

2019 ProStar. I looked under the dash and didn't see anything that appeared to be the head unit.

I'm very familiar with the original zero off systems where there was a dedicated Zero Off "Head Unit" that had it's own display. For that style system there is the Head Unit/Display, two or one GPS pucks depending on if you have the latest single puck version, and the eControls engine ECU that are all involved in the speed control. In the latest boats that have the Zero Off controls and display built into the boat's graphic screen, is there a black box zero off head unit that contains the zero specific electronics such as the accelerometer? If so, does anyone have a picture of what it looks like or know where it's typically mounted. Assuming this is right, then these newest version would have the boat display, the black box head unit, GPS puck, and the eControls ECU involved in the speed control system.

It happens with these screens occasionally. It often starts intermittently and then fails completely later. If you can get it replaced under warranty, that's probably a good thing. Otherwise, if it acts up later you'll be out the 4k these Murphy units cost.

It means the ECU is having trouble getting the fuel mixture where is wants it. So things like O2 sensor, fuel pressure, wiring issues, lots of possible causes.

After it beeps, you have to push the throttle further open. And you really should push it all the way to full throttle. The Zero Off only "takes over" in the sense that it can only control the throttle to be less than the position of the throttle handle. If it's working correctly, the speed should stay at the set speed as you push the throttle forward after the beep. If the boat continues to speed up, then it's not working correctly. I think you can check the versions of the ECU firmware using Rhinda DIACOM. But I can't remember for sure and my DIACOM stuff is at my lake house at the moment. So I can check this weekend.

Clearly it's a CANBUS issue. Besides what's already been mentioned it can also be an excess load or short on the CANBUS. Or an issue with the CANBUS termination resistors. If you have access to Rhinda Diacom, that can help you determine the issue to a certain extent. Since the diag connector is on the engine harness along with the ECU, if DIACOM can communicate with the ECU then you know the CANBUS is segmented between the engine harness and the boat harness. If it can't, then the bus more than likely has an excess load, short, or a termination problem. A short or excess load can be caused by a failed device on the bus. So, you can also debug by disconnecting stuff from the bus.

Yes, it can be updated but you'll likely have to send it somewhere to be done since it requires special software and equipment.