jpwhit

https://www.silvercovemarine.com

Caveat, I haven't actually tried this with a boat. But in the automotive world, for situations like track racing, you can remove the Cats and use an O2 sensor "simulator" box for the after Cat O2 sensors to keep the ECM happy. I would think the same would work fine on a boat.

There are 2 ski clubs, Panther Lake, and Lake Magnolia, in addition to Coble Ski School all within 30 minutes of you. As well as a very thriving community of slalom skiers at both Kerr Lake and Lake Gaston. Just for kicks, I started writing down a list of people I know in the area that are active slalom skiers. I came up with about 50, without much trouble. If you're judging by how many people you see at lakes like Harris, Jordan, or Fall's lake, then I understand your view. But all those lakes are way too crowded, so the slalom skiing community mostly ignores them. If you want to get connected with more slalom enthusiast in the area, send me a PM. I'll be contrarian in this thread. I think slalom skiing is a niche sport now because there are so many other recreational options for people, but I don't believe its on it's death bed. I do agree that tournament skiing faces a lot of challenges. But I think that recreational slalom course skiing will continue, and I know way more people doing in now than 10 years ago. I've introduced and taught at least 10 under 25 folks in the last couple of years that are now passionate about course skiing. I think there is a big enough market that'll it be a viable business for someone to continue making ski boats well into the future.

When I joined our ski club, we had a 07 196 with Zero off. After a couple of years, when my daughters were skiing for UNC, I bought a 200 so we and the team could ski at other lakes besides the ski club. At slower speeds, below 32, everyone thought the 200 had a noticeable smaller wake at 15 off than the 196. At 32 and higher, I really couldn't tell much difference. We had enough people that skied slower speeds at the ski club, that we sold the 196 and bought a 200 at the club. When I bought a lake house 4 years ago, we bought a 19 ProStar for there. The ProStar has an even better slow speed wake than the 200 according to my wife and her friends. I ski at 34 and am perfectly happy to ski behind the 200 at the club or the ProStar at the Lake House. My wife prefers driving the 200, but she does fine pulling me behind the ProStar as well. I prefer driving the ProStar because I like the livelier feel. In terms of the overall quality of the boats, I think the ProStar is significantly better than the Nautique. Just about every rubber gasket on the engine box and every storage compartment has fallen off on the 200. Screws have fallen out of the hydrogate a couple of times and I had to completely rebuild the hydrogate with new metal plates once. The Pedal Position Sensor has failed a few times and the last time I had to upgrade to the revised part and re-flash the ECM. Also had to replace the 40 series transmission with an 80 series on the Nautique. I haven't had to do a thing beyond normal maintenance on the ProStar. Granted the 200 now has 4x the hours than my ProStar, but even at the current hours that are on the ProStar, I had to do a lot more stuff to the 200. I certainly wouldn't call the 200 a lemon or a bad boat by any means. But the ProStar has just been noticeable better. And that's compared against my personal 200 and the ski club's 200.

Furniture upholstery shops have to do heavy duty zippers. I wonder if you could find one that would repair your ML case.

It's 80% unbolt and re-bolt. The kit includes a different much larger transmission cooler. So that has to be fitted and requires some reworking of the raw water plumbing and mounting brackets due to the significantly larger size. It's about twice the size of the typical cooler that came from the factory with most 40 series installs. I don't know that the larger cooler is absolutely required with the 80 series, but I'm sure it's a good idea and will extend the life of the new transmission. Unless you're doing the electronic shifting version, the routing of the shift cable is fairly different than the 40 series. We had to reroute the shift cable to go under the engine with the 80 series. The original routing with the 40 series was over the engine. The kit also includes a new damper plate. Which is always a good idea to change when you're changing the transmission. But it's a fairly differently designed damper. So mounts to the flywheel a little differently. Not really a big deal but did cause a bit of confusion. I honestly can't remember why now. And then of course you have to re-align the engine / trans / driveshaft

One of the other members of our ski club and myself did ours one evening after work. We're both pretty experienced with this kind of work.

I tend to think the issue with surf boats is a bit different than with other water sports that have caused contention with other boaters and dock owners. There is effectively an "arms race" going on with surf boat companies to create bigger and bigger wakes. It's just like the megapixel race with digital cameras. The way you get people to upgrade to the newest boat, is to have a bigger and better wave than the previous model and your competitors. Especially with people that live on lakes, they recognize this trend, and they have to think when will it stop. And because nobody see's an end to it, I think it prompts people to feel like they have to take action. I also think that's why the problem can't be fixed simply by educating the boat owners. On the lake where I have a house, which is in a fairly rural area, for the most part the majority of the boat owners actually are fairly competent. But even with operated well clear of other boats and docks, the waves on the latest boats are still causing issues. I have wondered if it would be practical to put a size restriction on generated wave size. It would have to be done at a certification level directly with the boat makers just like emission controls are done for cars. The certification test would have to be based on measuring wave energy at a set distance from the source (boat). I think this would drive a more sustainable approach by the boat makers. They would have to focus on the quality of the waves produced instead of the size.

For the sake of discussion, let's imagine that a worldwide ban on any wake enhancing device such as ballast, surf tabs, surf gates, etc. became the reality and could be fully enforced. In such a scenario, I do agree it would cause profound changes to the entire water sports industry. But I do not agree that it would result in the demise of the 3-event skiing. Would some of the existing boat and equipment companies go completely out of business because they couldn't adapt quickly enough? I think that's certainly possible. Could it result in fewer companies making ski boats as a result. Yes, I think that's possible as well. I do not think it would stop people wanting to be out on the water doing water-based sports. Therefore, there would still be a viable market with enough revenue potential to fuel the rise of new companies to fill the demand for products. Change always tend to be a little scary and unsettling, but sometimes change is good and results in a better outcome in the end.

I also wonder if there is potentially the beginning of legislation at the federal level and that's what prompted Mastercraft's email. And at the federal level, I can see proposed legislation easily being written very generically such that it applied to all towed water sports.

The way I would interpret that, is the way a majority of these rules are being drafted, that Mastercraft is correct. They will impact towed water sports in general. But I'm still a firm believer that the root cause driving the proposals is the fast growth of wake surfing. I'm seeing a lot of legislation being proposed in many states that is aimed at limiting wake surfing. But the way much of it is drafted, it'll apply to all towed water sports. If you accept the premise that wake surfing is what's driving the change. Then there are two ways to move forward on trying to fight against the change. Go along with all towed water sports are all essentially the same and attempt to resist any changes or limit them to something you think is workable. This seems to be the approach Mastercraft is adopting. And they think 200' is acceptable compromise. I can see why this would be the best approach for MasterCraft. But I'm not sure it's the best approach for tournament style slalom skiing since a 200 foot restriction would impact a lot of ski courses. Mastercraft may be betting that the rules are unlikely to be enforced in most slalom courses, and they may be right 90% of the time. But it will give the unhappy neighbor another way to get the slalom course they don't like removed on public water. The other way to try and protect slalom skiing, is to argue that it's very different than wake surfing. That's the approach that I'm advocating. I've seen some states write the rules to be specific to wake surfing. And that seems to be more often the case for states that have a lot of lakes and water sports. In states where that is not the case, the proposals tend to be a lot more general.

This does seem like news that is relevant to the waterski community. Thanks for posting it @Horton As someone that both wake surfs and slalom skies, I'm accepting of reasonable restrictions on wake surfing because so many people can't seem to be responsible on their own. And over the last few years, wake surfing is drawing enough negative attention that it's really only a matter of time before more and more restrictions get put into place. The reason this is very relevant to the 3-event skiing community, is because 98% of the population doesn't understand or even care about making any distinction between wake surfing and waterskiing. So waterskiing is likely to become a casualty in the process of trying to "fix" the wake surfing issue. So, the important point of action for the waterski community is to try and educate and ensure that waterskiing doesn't get included in future restrictions. And honestly, that's going to be really tough to accomplish. In general, I don't agree that you can create laws to very effectively limit people from being inconsiderate or stupid, but that's not really the practical consideration here. If our community's approach to protect waterskiing is to take the position that no restrictive rules should be put in place, then in my opinion we will fail, and waterskiing will likely be impacted as a result. Wake surfing is creating way too much ire in the overall lake communities to stop the trend towards restrictions being put in place. I think MasterCraft is taking the approach to try limiting the restrictions in general, because that would be best for their business, but personally I don't think that's the best approach for the waterski community. For all the folks here, that jump on the bandwagon about how 3-event boats are the step child of the big surf boats, here's your chance to shine!

You can remove the serpentine belt to test your setup.

The best place to monitor is the temperature of the rubber hose coming off the exhaust manifold(s). That's where you'll see the earliest rise in temp if there isn't much raw water flowing.

The best outdoor storage boxes I've used are Taylor Made Stow 'n Go Fiberglass Dock Boxes. They meet all your criteria with the possible exception of cost. But this may be one of these cases where you get what you pay for.

I doubt Ski Boats are the target market for this. I think they are likely focused on the fishing market. Since a lot of the fishing crowd go year round, and don't winterize or wrap their boats for the winter, this has more benefit for them. Many of them also drop ton's of money into their boats, a good bit of which is just to impress people at the launch. So this would fit right into that culture.

I thought you were getting the mini-tower?

@Andre who controls the lake? Who will have the authority to decide the outcome? How does that process work? I'm not sure you're going to find enough credible information to argue against their claim. I wonder if the better approach is to press them to prove their claim in a credible fashion. If they are basing their claims on research for a different kind of boat than ski boats, then it shouldn't be too hard to explain why that's invalid. But again a lot depends on the answers to my first question about what the process is for changing the rules for the lake.

You can calculate what the (+) curves will look like using the ratios in this table between the plus and non-plus. They are going to be wider and a little taller. The asymmetry of the A and C curves are little more pronounced.

196's are really the first generation of ZO boats starting in 2007. And boats before mid 2007 that have the PCM EX330 engines are also easy and cost effective to convert to ZO. You can certainly convert other older boats to ZO, but there will never be that many of those around and IMO it no longer makes economic sense to covert older boats to ZO. So, you're not going to see many more of those converted IMO. On top of that, the 196 have really great wakes that rival the wake characteristic of the most modern boats. I expect that ZO enabled and capable 196s will always retain a fairly healthy price, because they will always be the most cost-effective option for a ZO boat with very desirable wake characteristics. The price will likely slowly go down as the price and availability of older 200s drops down, but both will likely be very slow declines IMO because there will always be fairly good demand for these boats relative to the quantities available. The fact that the MasterCraft 197s in this same timeframe during the ZO transition were great trick boats, but weren't known as MasterCraft's best effort for slalom wakes, especially at slower speeds and longer line lengths, also makes the 196s and early 200 the go to boats in these year ranges.

You shouldn’t have a red wire connected to directly to the battery that is powering the dashboard. Somebody has modified the wiring incorrectly in the boat. Any dash power wire should be connected via the ignition switch. And the ignition switch power comes through the master switch.

I haven't been into a PP unit in quite a while so I don't remember what screen they use. The screen used in ZO units is a semi-custom part in terms of how it connects to the ZO main circuit board. I designed and had a PCB made to allow the connection of a standard LCD to the ZO circuit board. @motorxr glad your 7" ProStar screen is working well !

Lanyard cuts power to the ignition system, not the fuel pump.

Is the greatest skier for one person also the greatest ski for someone else? I would suspect not.

In the post above, I meant to say "even a 5.7L 200 for example, which is a high drag hull, Zero Off will always get near perfect times at sea level. Even when pulling large strong skiers."