Hello all.  Its been a few years.  Dirt bike accident, multiple broken bones and a few years off the lake.  

2003 Response, 600ish hours

So today is the fist time in 2 yrs the boat has been on water.  Old fuel was  87 octane non ethanol with fuel stabilizer, minimal amount.  New fuel was 90 octane non ethanol. That is the highest I can get in SW colorado.  Battery was dead, replaced that.  Placed impellar which I pull out for winterization, not new but only 30 hrs of prior use.  Ran hose tap water in driveway, boat started right up, ran like a champ.  Got to the lake, they did their stupid hot water test which I usually manage to avoid but they've really clamped down on that these last few years on colorado.  Something like 140 F for a few minutes, Ran fine.  Put the boat on the lake, let it warm up, ran for a few minutes to warm up and gave it a soft start.  My boat usually coughs on the first hard start.  Ran for 10 minutes to get to preferred ski lane, turned off boat while skier got ready.  Start boat up, idle out, stretch line, skier yells he is ready, I punch it and bog. . .

I thought it was still cold.  So I turn back to give another go and same thing.  If feels like an intentional electrical block.  Its early and cold, I've had vapor lock issues and have additional fuel pump on the machine which has managed that problems for me on even the hottest days.  But its not hot, this is early morning, cold water.  I notice heat gauge is two bars above 160 mark.  That seems high to me but I'm 2 years off the lake so not sure but I think she mostly hangs around 160 mark.   I pop dog house open and idle around for a while trying to get a breeze onto the motor.  Boat starts and runs fine, just wont go WTO.   I kept doing this throughout the day and became convinced it did not help, the air that is.  But, drive around at idle for a few minutes and the temp gauge would suddenly come down to 160.  I'd throw a skier in the water and it would run fine, maintaining that temp under load at speed.  The second skier dropped I would have less than a minute of idle time to get around, line up and pull skier up again.  Temp gauge starts climbing.  If skier would fail pull out and I had to circle around for another go I would have to do the whole cycle again, idle around until temp drops and then ski again.  It felt as if computer was inhibiting full throttle because of high temp, like a governor was on motor?  I raised my kids in this boat, it has a few mechanical struggles but this is new.  Any ideas?  

I feel like it has something to do with the  invasive species heat flush but maybe that's just me hating on that process.  Or Temp sensor gone bad?  I have minimal marine mechanical help around here so I have to go to auto mechanic with good ideas to even get him to look at my boat.

New to me 2015 23 LSV.

Some sort of socket on the transom. There are wires attached to the backside so it's some sort of electrical port??? Dealer says GoPro mount but doesn't make sense. Curious.

Test drove the Supra SL yesterday.  Great boat really like the fit and finish feels a class above the current lsv/mxz.  Motor pulls very differently seems slower out of the whole and faster up top not sure if that's a prop thing or not though.  Throttle response is quite different overall.  Storage is much better and the extra space is great.  

Surf wave was easy to get good probably not as good as the MXZ I surfd last week but I did very little to play with all the settings (no auto wake used) I've heard can be better but needs time to dial in either is enough for my skill and better than my 22.  Also surf Demos in 30mph winds and white caps yesterday not ideal.

Best driving boat of the bunch was the LSV the traditional bow and setup just cuts chop better than the mxz or sl did.  That said the M5 is not enough motor for me nope nope nope would not buy.  

15 hours ago, SRB said:

Just curious why you didnt consider a 23 M220 as there are lots left over from last year at a good deal. Regardless what you pick Id get an M6 minimum and if you find an LT4 I'd go bigger. Ive never heard anyone every complain and say they wish they would have gotten a smaller engine.

Oddly enough my local sent me an M220 and the price is intriguing.  I hadn't considered it originally given the sky high list prices and the lack of any additional space.  I will probably go test drive it soon.

Hey everyone, I’ve been looking at this forum for a long time but this is my first post! Just finally made it out this season today and the boat did a few things it’s never done to me before. I will say I did wash this morning and did run on a fake lake. Right after getting it into the water the boat felt like it was vibrating a bit. I have a slightly chipped prop on my 92 pro star and the vibration was similar but it wasnt the same feeling. Got out of everyone’s way to put the Bimini up and was waiting for my friend to walk down the ramp after parking the truck and had an engine temp threshold alarm. I shut everything down waited about 30 seconds and restarted the boat. Revved it a little and watched the temp drop. After this I eased the boat up to around 30-35mph. Rode like that a ways with a few no wake zones in between. Gauges checked good the whole time. Got to a place we normally swim and all and shut it down for a bit. Well I was easing around about 6-7 mph talking to a friend about going to pick her up from a different ramp when a surf boat wave came over the front end of my boat. Not an extreme amount but enough to get the floor wet. Traveling this same speed I was holding at the boat felt like it started vibrating slightly so I stopped. Auto bilge kicked on when the boat leveled out. Got all the water out and went towards the ramp with no issues Except the vibration which seemed like did change at the same rpm from time to time but couldn’t be felt in higher rpm’s. Pulled through a no wake zone and the boat just slam dies on the other side. I crank it back up and try to give it some gas it kicks in and out of gear 2 or 3 times and dies. I crank it in neutral and give it a few good revs knock in gear and I’m rolling get up to about 40 and it falls flat on its face then it caught up back to rpm. Did this a few more times headed back to the trailer and as I got closer it got better in higher rpm’s. Putting it on the trailer was an experience to say the least. It would either die or almost die and over rev kicking me to 4.5/5mph so I broke out the ol paddle 😭 if anyone has any insight into things I can try please let me know. I’m planning to do the ignition system this week and will check the fuel for water.