jpwhit

I use to pull my Nautique 200 with a Jeep Wrangle TJ some. From a power point of view it's fine. But you really really need the trailer to have brakes because of the short wheelbase. The brakes on my trailer ended up with air in the lines at one point, and it was crazy scary pulling the boat like that even being super cautious. When the trailer brakes were working well, it pulled it fairly nicely.

Plugs can look great and still be bad. The internal connector through the ceramic insulator can break down over time. Unless the plugs, wires, rotor, and cap have low hours on them, I'd change them all.

Yes, did the swap from the 40i to 80i when our 40i failed. The trans itself matches up in terms of the mounting bolt pattern. You need a new flex plate to bolt to the flywheel. The splined input shaft on the 80i is different. Also the transmission cooler for the 80i is different and much larger. So all the hoses for that have to be rerouted. We had to be very careful on mounting the elbow fittings to the cooler so we could get the oil lines in just the right place to clear the engine mounts and side rails of the boat. The shift cable routing is quite different, and depending on how much routing flexibility and length you have with your existing cable, it's possible that you may need a new shift cable and/or have to change the direction of movement of the shift cable up at the shift lever. PCM sells the 80i in a kit that includes the new oil cooler and the flex plate. Just make sure you get that instead of just the trans. It would also have been very helpful if we knew precisely which direction was forward vs reverse on the new transmission shift lever. We had to take an educated guess knowing we may have to change the cable direction once we tried it. Luckily we were correct with our guess. I can look next time I'm in our boat and let you know.

I've been involved in competitive mountain biking for many years and think there are some useful parallels between the organizations in that space and in water skiing. In the early 1980s the National Mountain Bike Association (NORBA) was formed and was the governing body most closely associated with mtb competitions, licenses, and insurance for competitions. But NORBA really never expanded beyond that competition focus. In the late 1980s, the International Mountain Bike Association (IMBA) was formed with a focus on trail access issues for the MTB community. NORBA did well as long as mtb competition was growing endeavor, but as that aspect of mountain biking stop growing, and riders started to care more about other aspects of mountain biking, NORBA had trouble maintaining membership and was eventually absorbed into USA Cycling in lieu of just totally disappearing. IMBA is still going strong and is approaching 50,000 members now because access issues are a real and tangible benefit for all mountain bikers. I think water skiing is really suffering from the same kind of access issues as mountain biking, yet there doesn't seem to be an organization with access issues as a core part of it's charter. I would certainly be more inclined to keep up a USAWS membership if the organization showed real progress in this area. When I say access issues I'm referring to things like permitting issues for courses on public waters, access and availability of private ski sites, improvement to rules and regulations around the use of portable courses, better ways to deal with conflict between water skiing, wake boarding, jet skis, fishermen. I know some folks will say well that's just too hard. But solving hard issues is what creates value for its members. People said the same thing in the early days of IMBA as well. But IMBA has made great strides in difficult land access issues as well as user interactions issue between mountain bikers, hikers, and equestrians.

@AkBob we did not notice any transmission fluid in the bilge, which puzzled us when we did notice the level was low on the dipstick. Unfortunately, the level dropped quickly enough once the seal started leaking that we didn't catch it soon enough to prevent the damage. Once we realized we were losing fluid, we checked it often and kept it topped up until it finally failed. We discovered the reason for the lack of fluid in the bilge when we changed the transmission. When the rear seal goes, the fluid leaks out into the center of the coupler between the transmission and the shaft. The fluid then exits through the joint between the coupler halves...so around the perimeter of the coupler. The floor carpet on the removable rear deck wraps around with a fair amount of carpet on the backside. In our case, and I expect it's this way on many boats, that carpet had sagged just slightly enough that it was very lightly touching the perimeter of the coupler. The carpet on the backside of the rear deck soaked up and retained all the leaking fluid. It was quite saturated by the time we fixed the problem. I don't think, based on what I know, I'd be comfortable claiming the 40A is a poorly designed transmission. As you point out, I think it's been around a while. I think everyone is aware that the 200 hull needs more power, but I don't have enough data on failure rates of 40A in the 200 hull to be comfortable promoting the conclusion the 40A is inadequate in the 200 hull. Others on the forum, may have more insight. But I will say the 80A is clearly a much beefier design when you compare them side by side.

Earlier 200s have a PCM 40A transmission. I'm not sure of the exact date of switch over, I'm thinking 2012 or 2013, but the current transmission is the 80A. Also, nobody has mentioned a fairly common cause of transmission failure... Shaft Misalignment. If you don't check and keep your shaft alignment in spec, the side load on the rear transmission seal will cause it to leak. Then what typically happens is the fluid gets low, the transmission pump starts sucking air, and gets damaged. Once the pump is damaged, the fluid pressure is low and you start to get slippage. Once you get any slippage, it's all over for the transmission clutch pack. We lost a transmission on our club boat due to this at around 700 hours. When we changed it, it was very clear the shaft alignment was way off. What happened in our case is engine vibration loosened up the jam nuts on the front engine mounts. They dropped over time and cause the misalignment. Live and learn, we now do a shaft alignment as part of our yearly maintenance. And I'm pretty sure that's is a recommended yearly maintenance item from Nautique.

After a little digging, it looks likes Indmar did start implementing misfire detection at some point, because I see those fault codes in their service manuals. I assume that's likely true for other marinizers like PCM as well. But it looks like when it was added varies by marinizers, because I don't see fault codes for engine misfire detection in early version of the PCM EX-343 for example. I'm a little surprised since they all use eControls ECUs. But they must be slightly different by marinizer. Thinking about it a little more, this also makes sense given that marine engines now have catalytic converters, which can overheat and be damaged if the engine is run with a misfire. So I expect they all implemented it by the time they added catalytic converters. Keep in mind that the way ECU's typically implement misfire detection is by monitoring differences in angular velocity of the crank or camshaft for each firing of a cylinder. So any issue that results in a particular cylinder producing less power than it's neighbors can generate the fault. So typical things that can cause this code are not just ignition components such as plugs, wires, and coils, but it can also be caused by low compression in a cylinder or a sticking or partially plugged injector. You may not be able to "feel" the misfire like you would when a cylinder is completely not firing, it just has be a certain percentage different than the other cylinders. Common components like crank/cam sensor, coil in a single coil system, will more often than not generate codes for multiple cylinders. If the code is always a certain cylinder, it's usually a component that's specific to that cylinder. Like with a lot of engine issues, a compression test is a good place to start just to rule out that type of issue.

@oldjeep already said it was cylinder 3, which I would guess he knows by age old method of pulling plug wires. I think the info he's looking for is why..... @oldjeep, what engine do you have? Is it a single coil engine with a traditional distributor or a coil per cylinder engine?

Please let us know if it's useful in diagnosing your misfire. I've held off from buying it myself because the Linc electronic dash on the 200 will read and display the fault codes from the ECU. That's not all the data you can get from the Diacom, but it's the most critical data. But I suspect the live data from Diacom could be very helpful for some issues. In terms of misfires, it's my understanding that unlike car ECUs, the eControls marine ECU does not do ignition misfire detection. Which limits the usefulness of Diacom for diagnosing misfires since the ECU doesn't have much data about misfires. Car ECUs do misfire detection largely because the EPA requires it. I do wonder if the new direct injection engines have implemented misfire detection in that version of the marine ECU.

The zero in the upper left is the current speed. Make sure 30 mph is highlighted as in your picture and then just click somewhere else on the screen. You're good to go. You can touch the speedo icon again and make sure it comes up with 30 again to make sure it's set properly.

I have a few of the earlier model Garmin GPS-18x LVC pucks that I used for a past project. I'm pretty sure it's the right hardware version to work with ZO. I will have to change the connector, but what firmware needs to be loaded for it to work correctly with ZO. Is it just a specific version of Garmin Firmware? I think these have Garmin V3.50 firmware loaded at the moment.

I'll start by saying I have no first hand experience with the 200 and the effects of altitude other than understanding that there is a reduction in power. I do have experience with the 200 and 5.7L engine combo with some different prop configurations at lower altitudes. It's also a slightly unclear to me if the main concern is the high RPMs of the earlier 1868 5.7L setup or the power loss due to altitude. I guess in the end, it's pretty simple, you want to find what works best for your situation. My 2012 5.7 200 with the original 1868 prop in pristine shape would turn 4100rpm in the course with a skier at 34. This may or may not be relevant to your situation. I had to have my original 1868 rebuilt due to some damage. After the rebuild it turned 4200rpm in the course, the boat noticeably lack power, and generally never worked anywhere near as well as the pristine 1868. I think it's pretty difficult for a rebuilt prop to even achieve the same efficiency as a pristine CNCed prop. I mention this because your RPMs do seem a little high and could indicate you have a lemon 1868 prop. If that's the case, in the past it was pretty easy to pick up a pristine 1868 prop because of folks switching to the 654. At altitude I could see a really good sample of the 1868 prop being the best choice. When Nautique had the 200 5.7L re-certified with the 654 prop, and started shipping it with that prop, I switched mine to the 654. I don't remember exact RPM numbers but it dropped below 4000 RPMs in the course with a skier at 34. Personally, I greatly preferred that setup. Any drop in power was slight and certainly didn't impact my situation. The boat was much more pleasant to use in the lower RPM range, seemed to use a slightly less fuel, and some folks felt it skied a little better. What I can't really help with is answering if it'll give you the power you need at that altitude. I also played with a 422 briefly, which lowers the RPMs even further. And I know a few folks that like that setup, but the power loss is pretty noticeable and I didn't think the boat skied well with the 422. I've never played with any 3-blade props.

@bbirlew, On a business trip at the moment, but will start a new thread when I have some time rather than hijack this thread.

Among the members of our ski club, we have both wakeye and the original skidoc camera mounts. Nobody has the new skidoc orbit mount, but it's probably just a matter of time... Without going into a detailed review, I would say the Wakeye does a better job of tracking and keeping the skier in the frame. Especially if you're using a camera with zoom so you aren't using at a wide angle view like you get from a phone camera. Wakeye has a feature, that quite frankly they haven't promoted well enough, and I think I lot of folk are unaware and do not set it up. It's called Zoom Plus and helps compensate for the slack at the rope at the ball and helps keep the skier in frame. Wakeye Zoom Plus News Post Almost all cell phone cameras are sensitive to vibration. Apple cameras a little more than other phone manufacturers. The skidoc mount has a foam block between the part of the mount that slips over the pylon and the actual camera mount. This cut downs on vibration and results in better quality of video from cell phones. Summary: Wakeye tracks better, skidoc results in better phone video quality. As an aside, I have tried putting foam around the cell phone on the wakeye and it did result in a very noticeable improvement in video quality, especially for iphones, but I gave up using phones to record ski videos because the default zoom is much too wide, the wakeye app is pretty slick but missing features to make it really useful, and I got tired of dealing with the vibration issues and having to stick foam around my phone. So I went over the top geek, bought a used camcorder off ebay for $35, built my own GPS based control box that not only starts and stops the video automatically, but only records from the entry pre-gate to the exit skier gate, doesn't record video when someone falls in the course for the run back to the drop, and controls pre-set zooms on the camcorder for different rope lengths. I also fully automated the process of getting the videos off a wifi enable SD card in the camcorder to a shared google drive folder organized into folders by date. Not too bad for a couple weekends work. Now we just ski, and then watch the videos later off the google drive web page when we have a few minutes to be depressed about how we felt like we 100% fixed out stack, but the video tells the real story......

Besides wiggling the throttle in case the neutral switch was open, you should also always check the safety kill switch lanyard. Both will result in the exact behavior you've described.

Take the prop off the boat and lay it on a flat surface. Do it on both sides and rotate it 90 degrees just in case your flat surface isn't truly flat. If it rocks back and forth on the same 2 tips of the prop on either side, then it's not a good rebuild and will vibrate.

For those of us without swivel pylons, do folks put any kind lubricant on the pylon to cut down on friction and rope wear? If so, what do you use. The other reason I was thinking about this was to make the tracking smoother when using a Wakeye or other video recording setup. Sometimes the rope jumps in increments under heavy load due to friction between the rope and pylon.

@Jibbo any news on the app update to properly recognize the iPhone 6s

@Wish that is a good question and I wish I knew the answer. Is the problem really the 6s phone, and how the wakeye app determines which phone, or is it something related to the latest version of iOS. I just got the wakeye and our phones were already at the latest iOS version and I don't have access to an iPhone 6. I think one of the guys in our ski club has an iPhone 6 and I may be able to get him to try it this weekend. I have no idea if he's on the latest version of iOS. And iOS 9.3 is rolling out now as well.

I don't have the plus, it's the smaller 6s. I've already tried both restarting the phone and re-installing the app. I've even tried it on two completely different iPhone 6ses with same results. The app already has the option to turn off stabilization and lock both AE/AF. Those options help but my main issue is the slow frame rate and the option to increase beyond 30fps being disabled. This is on the latest version of the app and iOS. (Wakeye 1.7.15, iOS 9.2.1)

Just got a Wakeye and really like how it tracks and the speed based automatic record start/stop, but the video quality is so poor using my iPhone 6s that it's not really usable. I've seen the discussions about turning stabilization off and increasing FPS, but there seems to be a bug that prevents anything other than 30 FPS on the 6s. Either that, or I don't know how to use the setting. I assume you would click on 30fps to change the setting just like you click on the speedo to change the auto recording speed. When I click on 30fps, it goes grey like it's going to give you options, but no options appear. Sometimes I get a message saying your videos will be stored to the gallery when I click on 30fps. My guess is that the app is checking which version of iPhone hardware is in use, to decide which FPS settings are supported and that logic is not working correctly on the 6s.

I think my curiosity here is really around what people think are the boundaries of what should be allowed. As an engineer by trade, I'm personally fine with the application of technology to improve athletes ability to progress to higher levels in the sport. But it seems clear the current rules would forbid a steerable fin controlled by an actuator and microprocessor. But engineering the use of flex to indirectly control the fin isn't such a completely different thing in my opinion. But so far it seems the consensus is that as long as it's not controlled directly by the skier during the set, or completely removes talent or fun from the equation, that most folks would be fine with almost any system that indirectly controlled the behavior and characteristics of the ski. Potentially even if the ski were smart via embedded electronics. Cycling has had to wrestle with similar issues now that many high end road bikes utilize electronic shifting, power meters, and other new technology. I completely accept that we also need rules just as an agreement of what is allowed and not allowed as a practical matter. But also expect the rules will need to be updated in the near future to account for coming technology. A key one likely being whether skis or other equipment used by skiers must remain passive devices or can become active devices through the use of embedded electronics.

Nobody's arguing that ski's don't flex. And even further, the flex of ski's is part of the engineering that has a significant impact on how a ski performs and I don't see any issue with that whatsoever. But, I think it becomes grayer, when you engineer the flex to then change the angle of a control surface like the fin. And more importantly where do you draw the line? What if I engineer the center rib, in a design like the flextail, with an embedded microprocessor that changes the stiffness and therefore the effect on the fin angle based on the side to side tilt of the ski? The skier still wouldn't have the ability to change it themselves while skiing, but I could make a "smart ski" that changes it's own characteristics based on all kinds of different parameters.

Playing devil's advocate, the fin itself is a "device affixed to the ski intended to control or adjust the skiing characteristic". Just because clause 1 stipulates that a fixed fin may be used, it doesn't exclude the fin from clause 2 as being a device affixed to the ski. Furthermore, because of the flexing it does "change during actual skiing". It could also be argued that the rib in the center of the ski, that allows more flex than normal, is also a "device affixed to the ski". And to argue the other side, all skis flex some degree, so I guess the real question is does intentional engineering of the ski to let the flex and change the angle of the fin violate the spirit of the rules.

Out of pure curiosity, has the subject of tournament legality of the flextail been discussed. Given that Goode advertises that the ski flexes laterally at the tail and therefore changes the angle of the fin, it seems to come very close to violating the spirit of what's in the AWSA rulebook. C. Slalom and Jump skis: 1. Any type of fixed fins may be used. 2. Devices affixed to the skis intended to control or adjust the skiing characteristics of the ski, for example, wings on a fin, are allowed as long as they are fixed and do not move or change during actual skiing.