Is this ski worth it? (2024)

Unless you know exactly how your ski is tuned (Motor and Carbs) nobody can tell you about how long you can hold WOT. Even racing, you only hold WOT for short periods where you are letting off and then pulling full again.. That ski looks good, but wed can only see what the pics show. Its and older hull, but honestly those years seem to be a bit stronger and the newer ones. Price is not bad.

Here's what I can tell you. If the molded in sponsons and paint were done correctly it was 3k at minimum! There will be 150 or more hours just in labor. Cut that in half for........well, half-a$$ work. So yes, should be worth that amount. Not being able to go WOT is a bull$h!t answer from somebody who doesn't know how to tune the setup in. Get somebody to dial those carbs in for you.

Running race fuel means that ski is really built up, things could go sideways if you don't know how to maintain the engine. I'd walk and look for a simpler built ski. Lots of nice RN SJs available in the $5-6k range.

Can he provide any pictures of the ski before he made it pretty?? It could have been damaged and poorly repaired. Saying the engine was overhauled means nothing unless you can see it has a perfect new OEM crank. Those heavy Riva pipes work well but aren't desirable. There are a lot of poorly done restorations out there, you want to be sure not to own one.

A little pricey for the current market. Need to see the inside.

Wow guys, thank you so much for your responses! I will definitely keep looking and see if he has before and after pictures. I was eager to buy because this ski is only about 20 minutes from me but your wisdom has helped temper those feelings. If i get more pictures I will post them.

Another little known thing to keep in mind is that the throttle shafts on those Novis are probably getting old and worn out. My experience was that Novi stopped responding to purchase order requests a few years ago so those shafts are definitely going to be worn unless the ski has hardly ever been run and the carbs were new on that engine. When looking at the engine, where the throttle cable connects to the carbs , try to push and pull the throttle shaft toward the cylinders and back toward the hull. If you get a sloppy amount of play, the throttle shafts and butterflies are toast. They're going to need to be replaced and tuning will be out the window until they are replaced...I tried to get a set of new butterflies from Novi a few years ago, emailed multiple times over a span of 4 or 5 months, never got a response. I'm not sure Novi is even in business anymore. Since then I have avoided anything to do with Novi and recommend avoiding them to anyone that comes to me to get ski work done. A carb is no good if you can't tune it or get repair parts for it. In the end it'll just cost you more to replace them with something more mainstream like a new set of genuine Mikuni SBN46 carbs or if you really want to burn the cash, a new set of Full Spectrums. Aftermarket carbs can be a great thing until you need to get the proper replacement parts and they're either out of business or that model is NLA.