Perfect Pass not working properly-2001LSV Malibu

Has anyone had this problem? I've got the extended paddle wheel for my boat. Did the install myself. Everything look good, but regardless of which nn and kdw settings try PP can't hold the speed. As soon as the rider starts pulling against the boat, the speed fluctuates 1mph above and below the desired speed. Even the guys at perfect pass are stuck on this one.

I went thru a similar problem on my PS 190…but my fluctuations were a little bigger. My problem ended up being the paddlewheel placement. Have you gone thru the battery of tests from PP? they can send you them in a word documents. I have them somewhere on this computer…you can email me adam.curtis@rht.com if you need them……will it hold speed in RPM mode?

Holds speed fine in rpm mode. It even holds speed in Wakeboard speed mode when there is not rider. The paddle wheel is accurate. PP just over compensates when it falls off of the speed.

Look into how the boat is weighted. If you have too much in back it can have issue holding speed in general.

Do you pull back too much on the throttle when the rider gets up and the boat plains out, everyone usually pulls back on the throttle a little bit so you do not overshoot by much. If you pull it back too much you can have issues with not enough throttle left for Perfect Pass to work with.

How fast is the rider being pulled? Too slow with too much wieght in the boat and the boat engine can not keep up with speed adjustments very well. Along those lines the type of prop you are running may have something to do with it.

That is my brain storm. Hope I hit something.

For what it's worth, I had that problem on my 25LSV and worked with Gary at PP. I ended up taking a 2X4 and drilling a 2" hole in it. Stuck the extended paddle wheel on there and traced around it. Then I cut it out with a little taper to make a spacer to put the paddle wheel 1 1/2" further into the water. This took my boat from terrible to perfect. There is more to the story but that is the nutshell version. The wood spacer worked so good I put some water sealer on it and there it is today, 2 seasons later. I know I'm comparing apples to oranges but it's still fruit. You have nothing to loose but a couple hours and 6" of 2X4. It worked for me. Now that mine works good I don't know what I would do without it, and I was ready to rip it out and sell it on ebay before. Same speed fluctuations you describe only worse. Good luck.

I have a similar problem, but my PP is on an I/O. I have been playing with the settings and have them pretty extreme... high kdw, low NN. I am interested in what you find out! I have replaced the paddle wheel and the control module, and no luck.

3D-
Do you have pics of your spacer installed? You would think that PP would just manufacturer a spacer like this for these type of incidents. even though it was a fix, seems an awful lot to expect a customer to do this to make their product work properly, no knock on PP they are great to work with!

Actually the paddle wheel described by Jrod is a extended design. PP came up with it for this reason. It just wasn't extended enough to correct the situation on my boat, and this was one case where if a little bit is good, a lot is better. If the bottom of the boat does not see "clean" water flow, the signal is bad. I just kept going down away from the boat till I found the clean water flow and wala, it's perfect. Again, the water flow was good in a straight line, but not when a rider cut hard or under even slight turning. Those 2 conditions must creat a little wash under there. I'm sure every boat is differant, but this worked for me.

I actually think you may be onto something. I was driving J-Rods boat last weekend without the PP engaged and when watching the boat speedo and the PP speedo I was seeing big fluctuations.

I'm kinda wondering if it would make a difference if we set it so it took less samples. We've gone all different directions, but havn't really recorded any data one way or the other. All I know is that right now it is really anoying being the rider.

I do have the extended paddle wheel which places the paddle wheel approx 1 " deeper.

The problem with suggesting that disturbed water is the reason for the speed fluctuation wouldn't make sense only because the PP speedo is reading accurately I believe. If the speed appeared to be dead on according to the gauge while you watched the speed fluctuate on the original speedo, I would agree that the paddle wheel is not reading accurately because of disturbed water. However, the problem is that I watch the speed drop on the PP gauge, then rise, then drop, etc, and the computer doesn't correct the problem. It allows the speed to drop right before my eyes. Once it gets about 1 mph below the riders target speed, it accelerates to recover but overshoots the speed by a full mph or more, then it backs way off and drops again. So again, my point is that the speedo/paddle wheel appears to be reading accurately, but PP is not accelerating early enough to stay on target. When it does, it overeacts.

For NN and KDW: I started with the recommened settings. I have taken both settings high, low, and everything in between. I think the last settings I tried was kdw 80 and nn 200, then kdw 80 and nn 80. I have tried a dozen combinations but as Evan pointed out, all undocumented.

Make sense?

Really anoying is a polite way of saying it. All I could do with the settings is affect how quickly it reacted and how strongly it reacted to the speed fluctuations. Mine was worse than the worst driver I have ever ridden behind. All you had to do was listen to the engine correcting to know something wasn't right. Once I got the paddle wheel fixed up the setting on the PP are not a big issue and are very forgiving, works great. I think they are back to how it came set up stock, or not far off.

Have you run perfect pass with the boat unloaded? Start there and see what happens. Then add weight if it is working with the weight out of the boat.

J-rod have you rechecked all the cables and conections and make sure when you close the cover it dosn't bind anything yours is acting just like a friends and thats what was wrong. The cable was rubbing on something and it would speed up just lie yours did.

From what I've read if it's working in RPM mode, then it's very likely a paddle wheel problem.

There's a troubleshooting guide on the PP website. Here's a taste of something that sounds very similar to your issue:

Problem – An 03” Wakesetter works great in rpm mode, but surges 5 mph in speed mode. It worked fine for the first year.

Check: Inspect the Malibu installed paddle wheel:
A. Is the paddle wheel properly seated in housing, has the housing shifted . (I.e. is it pointing straight ahead?)
B. Is there any obvious damage to the paddle wheel, does it spin freely? (See Appendix, Page 18 for general paddlewheel troubleshooting).

Comments: The paddle signal coming from the paddle wheel through the Malibu dash has obviously changed. It is possible that the signal coming to PerfectPass has lost its strength so PerfectPass can not control properly. You may wish to change out the paddle wheel, or even try a PerfectPass paddle wheel plugged direct to our Master Module as a test.

Anybody want to ride behind my boat with no weight? I should try it. PP actually told me that heavily weighted boats should perform better.

Squid. I will check out the cables and the linkage to make sure nothing is obstructing the movement.