jpwhit

@Horton is right, the costs are very dependent on the specific situation. Our club leases a privately owned lake that is the perfect size for a course. The owner of the lake also allows fishing on the lake, but only with electric trolling motors when anyone from the ski club is on the lake. We try to have 10 families in the club, but we've been down to 6-7 for last couple of years. Club membership fee has ranged from $1300 - $1600 per year depending on the number of families. We share the cost of a club boat, but we don't upgrade often and when we do, we always buy a used boat that is a couple of years old. Our current boat is a 2012 200 with 2200 hours on it. It's still running great. We're fortunate that about half the members in the club have a lot of experience working on engines and boats. So we do all our own maintenance and repairs and we collectively take great care of the boat. I'm sure we'll end up rebuilding the engine in the next couple of years. We put in a new PCM 80 series transmission a few years ago. We all pay a $2 per set fee into a maintenance fund, and so far that has covered all our costs. I think it cost all the members about $2500 when we bought the 200 8 years ago and sold our 196.

This is interesting reading IMO. The way I look at it is I've never heard a compelling reason, that I accept, not to store it full. Plastic tanks certainly reduce condensation, but do not completely eliminate it. I run ethanol fuel during the season because it does a better job of keeping the system dry assuming you use the boat a lot. I store the boat with as much ethanol free in the tank as I can, but since I use ethanol gas during the season, there is always some left in the tank. https://boatus.com/expert-advice/expert-advice-archive/2014/january/three-ethanol-myths-clarified

The accelerometers are on the PCB in the ZO head unit, not in the GPS puck(s). That's why the orientation of the ZO head unit matters and is why MasterCraft and Nautique head units are often different. In the earlier Nautique 200 for example, the head units are mounted in the side console at an angle. So the ZO head unit is built to account for that.

I store filled. The change in volume of gasoline as temperature changes is tiny. The change in volume of air is significant. Over the winter if there is a lot of air in the tank it constantly expands and contracts as the temperature changes. That brings in moisture through the fuel tank vent lines. Full tank, very little air in tank to bring in moisture.

To me, the main difference between PP and ZO, is that ZO is much more user friendly from a driving perspective. ZO is largely self-tuning and there are no turning settings that must be set and adjusted. Such as the KDW, NN, CS parameters for PP. And with ZO you don't need to drive the boat carefully up to set speed and let it take over gently, so it settles in nicely on a short setup course. Net Net, the price premium for ZO is something I'll always pay because it's way cheaper than a divorce. I know someone is going to say A1, B2, etc settings on ZO are tuning, but they are really preference settings.

I'm pretty sure the settlement between Perfect Pass and ZO does not allow eControls to compete with Perfect Pass in the non-DBW market. The history is that both companies have patents on different aspect of boat speed controls and there was a patent litigation between the two companies. A settlement was ultimately reached between the two that divided the market between DBW and Non-DBW boats.

@Mastercrafter once they expire the intellectual property (IP) become open to the market. The purpose of patents is to make it worthwhile for the market to invest in R&D by giving them a period of exclusivity to have a return on their R&D investment. But to also not let companies corner the market indefinitely. That's why there is a period of time of protection and then it opens to the rest of the market.

Be careful what you wish for. The Nautiques where the DBW pedal position sensor is in the handle assembly are notorious for that Throttle Base Assembly to fail often. And at $750 a pop it's way more expensive than having to replace a PPS on the top of the engine. Personally, I prefer the feel of the older Nautique setup with the PPS on the top of the engine and a throttle cable.

IMO nobody really tries to make a true crossover boat anymore where the slalom wake is course friendly since the advent of wake surfing. To me, the more interesting question is if someone tried is there enough of a market for such a boat to make it worthwhile? I do think its technically possible, but it would likely add cost to the boat because you'd have to keep the base weight of the boat pretty low to give the ability to have a wide range of boat weight with lots of ballast.

As the old saying goes, you can't make everyone happy. You have some folks complaining they cost too much, and then others that they can't get a build slot soon enough. I hear the can't get a build slot soon enough more from folks in person, people don't seem to post that comment online as much.

As the old saying goes, you can't make everyone happy. You have some folks complaining they cost too much, and then others that they can't get a build slot soon enough. I hear the can't get a build slot soon enough more from folks in person, people don't seem to post that comment online as much.

I would get the Senate Allow. It's a great ski to learn on. I use one to teach to new people to ski.

You should also have 12V on main engine harness G wire which is purple. If you don't have power there, it could be a bad ignition switch, failed 20A ignition breaker or failed kill switch.

Do you 12V on terminal B on the main engine harness plug? It should be a red wire and that powers the ignition system. Not to be confused with the red wire on terminal A that powers the ECU.

The voltage reading is most likely either coming from the PDM or from the Engine ECM. Both provide a CANbus commands to read the system voltage, but I don't know which one the Murphy screen is actually using. There isn't a wire somewhere specifically for the battery voltage. But as @skimtb points out, you aren't getting your engine hours. And that I know for certainty is read from the engine ECM. So, the CANbus communications from the Murphy screen to the engine ECM is not working. Given the other symptoms you describe, it sounds like you most likely aren't getting power to the Engine wiring harness and therefore the ECM isn't powered up. The first place I'd be checking is the main power ground on the engine. That's a common place to have the kind of intermittent issue you describe if it's not tight. I happen to be at the lake house today, so I'll go take a few pictures of the places to check on my ProStar. Do you have a handheld volt meter?

I use 4lb Cod Weights attached to the end of the PVC pipes right below the turn balls to have the balls sit correctly in the water. I prefer this to filing the balls with water because it just makes it easier for anyone to replace buoys. Folks can keep deflated buoys in their boat with a simple ball pump and some zip ties. Ebay is the best place to buy large size Cod weights. I've also found that maintaining the course is much easier if you invest in some tools and good hardware. Here are some of the things I use a lot. I use the Carabiners for ball hooks along with double zip ties at each buoy. Doubled up zip ties still break if something really snags a ball, but I've found we lose too many buoys because a single zip tie breaks too easily. We do have a few jet skis that go through the course and we don't lose buoys from them with the carabiners and double zip ties. We have made friends with the jet skiers and encourage them to use the course, and they are good about staying away when we're skiing. Then everyone's happy. Crimper Carabiners D-Rings

I maintain a course along with another guy on a very large public lake. The course is tucked way back in huge cove that has a lot of twists and turns. It's also fairly shallow so a lot of boaters don't come back this far into the cove. I'd say we lose about 4 buoys a season and maybe one mainline cut a season. I think we've had one PVC pipe damaged in the last 3 years. The nice thing about having all the twists and turns, is we never get rollers on the course. We try to meet and get to know all the fishermen and other boaters that hang out on this part of the lake. I'd say on average we know more than half of the others boaters we see in this area of the lake. A lot of them will come down and raft up with us on the weekends and just hangout while we ski.

One of the guys in my ski club is in that weight range and regularly skies into 35 off at 34 mph.

Does that Indmar ecoboost 2.3 engine have an eControls ECU? Can it run Zero Off? I think eControls would have had to develop a new ECU for a 4 cylinder engine and turbo boost pressure control. I bet it running the stock ford ECU.

To add a little more detail. When I say to open up the ZO head unit and check for water. That could range from there being actual wetness inside the unit, to being signs of water marks or corrosion on the circuit board. Check both sides of the circuit board. If the circuit boat looks fine, then it still could be an issue with the head unit, but moisture is the most common cause of issues with the head unit. Since this may be a communications error between the two units, it also couldn't hurt to unplug and re-seat the connectors on both the Murphy display and ZO head unit. It's actually the same 23pin connector on both. The Display has 2 of them, a black one and a gray one. The connections for the CANBUS are in the black connector on the display. No need to do anything with the gray connector. The ZO head unit has a single 23 pin connector that you'll have to disconnect anyway to take that out and open it up to check for signs of moisture or corrosion. Another thing that would be interesting to try, when it's acting up and displaying 50 or 70mph. What happens if you drive through the course w/o a skier. Does it lock into a speed? If so, was it the last speed that was set? The speed control system is completely controlled by the ZO head unit. The boat display is only a "remote terminal" that can read and send settings to the ZO head unit. I've never actually tried this, but if you had the front panel from the original style ZO gauge that has a small LCD and four buttons, I'm pretty sure you could plug it into the ZO head unit PCB. Then that would also be a another "terminal" to see and change the ZO settings. If the PCB looks fine, and un-plugging and re-plugging the connectors doesn't help. Then this is going to be tricky to diagnose. If the boat is still in warranty, I would get it in quick to get it on the record that something is wrong and needs to be fixed.

I've taken apart and experimented with both display and the ZO display-less head unit. When you power up the display w/o the ZO head unit connected, you get behavior a little like you're seeing. So I can't say with certainty what is wrong, but I think it's most likely an issue with the ZO head unit mounted in the firewall under the dash. It's a black round 5" unit. It looks like a ZO gauge w/o a display, because that's actually what it is. Either that or an issue with the CANBUS wiring between the two. The display units are extremely well sealed from water penetration. But the ZO display-less head units are not that well sealed. And I've heard of them failing on the ProStar due to water intrusion. I would take yours out and look inside for water. The 7" displays have some problems with the LCD and touchscreen, but otherwise are very reliable. And this isn't an issue with the LCD or touchscreen on the display unit.

In my experience, if you have an inline filter between the tank and FCC, that always get blocked up before the filter in the FCC. I'd start by changing that. Have you put a pressure gauge on it to see what the fuel pressure is doing? There should be a Schrader valve on the fuel rail on the top of the engine to attach a manual fuel pressure gauge.

I don't know the older Perfect Pass systems well enough if this is what you need or not... https://ebay.com/itm/165462260918?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=165462260918&targetid=1645685073528&device=c&mktype=&googleloc=9009669&poi=&campaignid=16730423415&mkgroupid=135815925780&rlsatarget=pla-1645685073528&abcId=9300841&merchantid=6296724&gclid=CjwKCAjwpqCZBhAbEiwAa7pXeQpPlvrO44Q0H3G8EMr3nYLQ1S_mfVJMQQtaqc8wVOffW8h6hR4E_hoCg4IQAvD_BwE

I should have asked if the prop and ever been damaged or had any repair done. It's almost alway the case on a repaired prop. Because the process of reworking one blade more then the rest changes the strength of the metal slightly. But it can also happen on a virgin prop that never been reworked.

@dan1166 it's not that unusual. Typically caused by uneven flexing of the prop blade under heavy load. The more powerful the engine, the more likely it is to happen. It's not that surprising on a 6.2L. It can very from one prop to another. Another 668 prop may behave differently. You may want to call ACME and discuss the situation.