Have you got a volt meter? Measure battery voltage at rest, on starting, on the solenoid out. Solenoid trigger too. You got beeps?
Yeah, I haven't gotten out yet because it's behavior points to a very specific issue when you add in the VTS. I might grab one outta my bag tonight to put some actual readings to what I'm getting though. But being a career electrical engineer, and enjoying my marriage in the garage on whatever rolling nightmare is currently my obsession, one night at a time, lol. Marine is a bit different as a whole though. Just enough to feel uncertain or to cause a disaster you would never predict because land stuff doesn't do that. Like waiting for the other shoe to drop after I spent all last summer carrying cables and jumping my wife's ski every start. Nothing bad happened so I never put any thought into it until I started on forums. In this case, I pulled the batteries for winter and replaced them this year. When parked there GSX was running, GS was dead. After new batteries, the GS started perfect first try. The GSX doesn't turn over with the button, and if you jump the starter it cranks without spark. It was bought with the VTS not working, and I honestly never looked at it. Checking fuses I found a 7.5 blown in the front that turns out to be for the VTS, which is cool, maybe that's the issue, but it's still not functioning. I vaguely remember there was 2 ground wires at a battery last year, but I can't remember if it was on both or just the GS. But if you search around the forum you find out that 97 had changes from 96 and that there aren't very many posts about that specific year, model, engine. By reading what a search does give you, there's a lot of crossover in the GTX and GS, the LTD model isn't much easier to get info on, and this fun bit- 96 models have a 2nd small gauge wire at the battery terminal to ground the solenoid, ignition, and VTS system. It's supposed to run to the electrical box or ground plate of said box, along that line. I can't find pictures or an actual wire in my ski though. It seems like it's a change, but damn. The 3 main systems in it, coincidentally 2 stop working only after hooking up the battery with only the main ground, the 3rd never worked but a blown fuse could account for it? I mean, that's just too spot on. Oh, yeah the buzzer doesn't do anything this year. I'm not positive it did last year either, but I think it did and I never thought about it much as I never took the time to learn it's functions then. I can get into a. diagnostics or flip through modes, all that without issue though. I'd been meaning to look it up anyways so I could program things like it's clock, maybe learn what some of the accessory blanks are and add things if I can, figure out why every picture also has mirrors, etc, while mine has less useful features than a Kardashian video streaming service, but that's just an aside. If y'all like this though, just wait until I start trying to figure out why I have cavitation that comes and goes often happening on start and persisting until I rev it a few times and then it's gone. I promise you it really does make you wanna pull your hair out. It's also on both skis. My last ride before winter it happened every time I put a passenger on until they got off and I ran it a few minutes. Once it cleared I'd try to pick them up and it returned immediately. That pattern repeated at least 4-5x I'd bet. It's also the only time it had a pattern, the other never presents evenly at all. Yeah a imp and ring are on the list over the next week, but that doesn't solve the why in either one, and it's made picking parts a challenge as S.S. parts aren't going to take damage stock parts do, so whatever is causing issues or damage leading to it might then decide the next weakest part is what should be destroyed and that whole "this impeller will outlive the ski" becomes very true and not at all like my dream of retiring it to the late yard ornaments home at the old age of 250+ hours....
