SoCal Epics

[krejciman]

I am new to this board and pretty happy to see that there are other Epic owners out there enjoying their boats as much as me.  I live in SoCal and frequent the Col river, Elsinore, Havasu, and Mojave.  

I took a 8-day trip to Lake Powell and was really surprised to see 3 other Epics!  I found out the there are a bunch of them in the Salt Lake area.  I RARELY see any Epics out at the river and was wondering who else on this borad lives in So Cal and goes to the same places as me?

[toyotafreak]

So cool, welcome! I've yet to see an Epic west of Dallas. we live in Corona and do Havasu/Parker a few timeas a year, Buenavista at least once and of course Smellsomewhore and Perris.

POST YER PICS!!!!!

[krejciman]

I live in Corona also... off Temescal.  Anyway, I will try and get some pics up ASAP....

I've never been to Buena Vista.....  is it any good?

[toyotafreak]

CORONA IN THE HOUSE !!!

Yep, Buena Vista is such a cool place. The camping is as good as it gets, with grass, big shady trees, showers/crappers, and water/electric right at the sites. Put your boat in and leave it. Chevron station at the lake.

As with all new members, I'd love to hear your Epic story (how and why you got it, how you rate it's hits and misses, what kind of bugs have you run into, etc., etc.)

[phenom_1819]

My Epic is a So-Cal native...but she's now up in Seattle.  She used to be a regular at Havasu and Elsinore, and was an occasional at Shasta.  Now she's a regular on Lake Washington and an occasional on the Columbia River, Mason Lake and Lake Sammamish.  She had a little trouble acclimating to the cold weather, but now she's completely content with an air temp of 70 degrees, and water temps from 55-70. Now, if only that shower would work correctly...!

[krejciman]

I bought my X22 in July of 2001.  It's a blue/white with a few options like the Wakeboarding pkg, jump seat(s), depth, etc.  I immediately put a 1200w Eclipse, MB Quart sound system in it.  It came from Northbay Marine up in Santa Rosa, with a DHM trailer.

I bought it after owning a couple other boats.  My last boat was a Baja, which is your typical run-about.  I have spent alot of time on my friends Wakesetter and knew I wanted a tourney ski boat.  Since I work for Toyota(corp) I was able to get a pretty decent deal on the boat.

I have been very happy with it since.  I've had minor issues like:  Fat Sack pump going out.  JD tells me this is because the single pump setup was not the best design since the pump does not like to go both ways(who would?) ; fuel pump went out(bottom one) ; screw broke for windshield support bracket ; dead battery.... mostly minor stuff.  Recently I had an issue with my gauges not spooling up, but that somehow disappeared.(?)

Regarding the power:  I am not a pro rider.  Actually, I'm just happy going wake-to-wake.  So I may not be the best judge on the power.  I fill up my factory Fat Sack and along with 600 pounds of people in the boat I am pretty content.  I do get a vibration with the extra weight on take-off.  I have the 4-bladed prop and I can pull a 220 pound brother-in-law up very quickly.  To keep it at about 20MPH, I usually run at about 3300 RPM.  Funny story:  When the boat was new we took it out to the river and met up with my (not-so-great-wakeboarder)bro.  After a few tries to get up he says "just floor it".  I actually launched him OUT OF THE WATER on take off.

The boat is comfortable, quiet, and performs beyond my riding abilities.  Any issues I have had have been corrected by JD fairly quickly.  He is never cheap...  meaning that if I complain about something, he just replaces it.  No hassle.

[toyotafreak]

'derek wipes the tears from his face....' just kidding.

That's a great story! And a real life Toyota dude on the board, HOW COOL IS THAT? Someday when I grow up and get rich and famous, I'm gonna get a job at TRD developing their intercooled blower kit for the LS400's. Yeah right.

Blue and white sounds great. Mine's blue and grey and white, but Cal's got us beat with straight up black and white.

Did you by chance get your Baja at Newport Boats? What model was it? I worked there in service in 96-97. My two favs were the 208 Islander (simple open bow with a 7.4 and Bravo 1) and the 252 (the sweetest, cleanest use of $50K at the time).

Interesting about the fuel pump. Don't think I've heard of a failure there yet. Wonder if that's a marine-specific part?

[cyclone]

I saw a set of fuel pumps for a Toyota Marine race engine go for 30$ on ebay a while back. They look very similar if not identical to the ones on our engines, Driver side under exhaust manifold down low. (D Drive) I need to document this stuff. Those crazy dudes down in Oz prolly can help us out there. I might buy me summa those killer aluminum Lexus exhaust manifolds. Get em polished.