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Questions about '93 Echelon


bradstphen24

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Have a few questions about a '93 Echelon. I believe that '93 is the first year for all composite construction in Malibu's, is this correct? Second how is the skiing behind these boats? What are the buttons on the stirring wheel for? Are there any known common problems with these boats that I should be aware of and specifically look for? I seem to remember reading fairly good things about these but wanting to find out from more knowledgable people.

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Welcome and yes that is the first year for all fiberglass construction. The biggest common issue is the Computron system in the 93-95 Echelon. I owned a 94 and the computron worked great however there is no where to get replacements and most Echelon owners replace the computron with a custom dash and regular guages. The buttons on the wheel are controls for the computron which is basically just a remote control. You remove that panel on the steering wheel to replace the batteries. I can;t comment on the ski wake although I know its pretty good. We used ours to wakeboard mainly...

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What is the computron system for? Would this system interfere with a perfect pass system?

No it wont interfere with Perfect Pass.. The computron has alot of features on it including the hour meter... However the echelon still has most of the analog guages as well so if it is not operatiing you still have the guages to go off of...

http://www.themalibucrew.com/forums/index.php?/topic/21087-computron-speedo/

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MALIBU-UNIFORCE-92-98-COMPUTRON-II-BOAT-EFI-DISPLAY-MODULE-/190905935064

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The ski wake is world class. It is essentially the same hull still being produced today in the Response/Response LX....and the same concepts actually for the Response LXI and now TXI. Sure the running surface has been tweaked over the years, but I can't say I prefer the TXI over my Echelon from the skiing perspective. In fact I prefer the Echelon for tricking and footin' while slalom is a wash.

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The Echelon came out in '93 as the launch for the SV23 hull and is the boat that put Malibu on the map and vaulted them to one of the big three. The wakes were world class and are still excellent, just a bit harder than the latest offerings. As noted the slalom wake is great and the barefoot wake is extremely good, the SV23 hull is probably the best inboard combination footing and slalom boat. The SV23 hull eliminated the dreaded 22 off rooster tail and put itself as a match to the Prostar 190 and the Nautique. The Echelon is the high end boat with lots of amenities (circa mid '90's) and rides on a variant of the current hulls which are all descendants of the SV23.

The SV23 hull was the first of the all glass construction Malibu's and the boat won numerous boat of the year awards for the next decade riding on that hull. The Echelon ran from '93 to '98 but the latter years were kind of special order. The Response came out as the replacement, basically to bring the price point down a bit. It rides on the same hull.

As noted, the Computron unit is not a winner as they were not very reliable and the company is out of business. If it works there are some very cool features with it (LED lights to visually keep speed constant, a stopwatch, engine temp/pressure monitors). The buttons on the wheel are simply redundant controls for it. The other buttons are on the lower left panel on the dash.

There are no real issues with the Echelon (except the Computron), it is a very reliable pulling machine. If there is one weakness, that would be the power level, not that it was any different from the competition, just that post 1996 with the introduction of the Vortec heads power levels jumped from 265 hp to 300+. It has plenty of power to do the job, just not the excess grunt of current options. The boat will top out at 44-46 mph.

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