Gauge advice

[Atik]

Been having a look around the forums regarding gauges but the results seem to point to stuff that people have had done or talk about getting gauges in.

What I'm after is a basically a list of what gauges would be useful to keep an eye on monitoring the vital statistics of the car. The temp gauge on the dials apparently has a weakness in that if the rad is not full of water, it will under-read, which probably didnt help me with my head gasket going this week. Would a coolant pressure gauge be better off than a coolant temp? Or would both combined be best? In real world driving, how useful is coolant pressure information?

What about oil pressure and or oil temp gauges? I understand that oil temp would be useful to know so that you can keep off the loud pedal until sufficient temperatures have been reached. Is oil pressure any good? I would assume that it would indicate any issues like oil leak which would be handy to know, but again, in real world driving on a day to day basis, I guess it would not be that useful?

Boost gauge is obvious enough, and I have the E-01 which displays that for me. I will be looking for a wideband soon enough to get the E-01 to show me AFRs.

Is there anything else that could be useful to keep monitoring on the car to ensure it stays healthy? Exhaust temps? Is there any way of monitoring certain fluid levels?

[Nutter_John]

No Atik you miss understood what I said , when the water level is low in the thermostat housing due to a head gasket type event it will under read the temp as all it will be measuring is the temp of the air within the housing ( air does not conduct heat as well as water does ) , so by the time the temp has gone up it is normaly too late

[Atik]

Ahh, ok. My question still stands though, would a combined temp and pressure be better than relying solely on temps, for the coolant and oil?

[Nutter_John]

I would say water temp , oil temp and presure is enough as I'm not convinced that messuring the water pressure would give you any more notice than the water temp does

[White Lightning]

I agree with John, you have already got a boost gauge so I would go with water temp, oil temp and oil pressure. I always keep my off boost and below 2500 rpm until the oil is up to operating temperature. And the oil pressure gauge is a good indication of the general health of the engine.

[Turbo_Steve]

I'm going to beg to differ a little here:

Water temp is (as has been proven) utterly pointless.

If you're going to add one gauge, add an oil pressure gauge :

It tells you when your engine is warmed up, when your engine over heating, when your engine has an oil leak, and (perhaps even more usefully) can also help to identify if you're achieving oil starvation.

Oil Temp would be my second bet - it warns you immediately when your oil is too hot, which is either a symptom of a problem, or simply means it's time to back off for a bit. If you're using a really (really) good synthetic, set the temp to around 160degrees in the knowledge that your oil is just starting to struggle to protect you at this point. Chances are this is also the point when the heads start to try an peel away from the block, as the oil will heat up a LOT quicker without the water jacket.

Then it's down to whether you're going to be mapping or not -
An in car wideband AFR can be of some use for problem diagnosis, but generally if everything is setup right you're going to ignore it - it simply changes too often and is probably better being something that you "log" rather than something you want to see immediately - if you're mapping then AFRs should really be being monitored seperately for the front and rear banks anyway - in an ideal world you'd monitor it per cylinder - but that would mean you were rich!

EGTs however, can extremely useful - again ideally you will have one for each bank. You should see them settle at a pretty constant temp under hard usage (around 850deg C) with some creep on hotter days. As soon as it hits 900degrees it's time to lift off if you're in a road car: something is simply running too hot, either due to leanness or lack of airflow or whatever.

I found EGTs on both banks of the 300ZX invaluable, as if you spent any time drifting one bank would heat up quicker than the other, due to the airflow profile through the intercoolers being different. The first thing the ECU knew about it would have been a knock event, at which point it pulled timing.


Again, it depends how far you're tuning the car and how anal you want to be.


From your point of view, I'd just go for Oil Pressure and Temp.

If you were Nev, I'd be telling you to fit an in-cabin fuel pressure gauge complete with differential boost alerting - i.e. if the pressures don't rise at the same rate "bee bee bee bee!"

[Atik]

From your point of view, I'd just go for Oil Pressure and Temp.

Thats what I'm looking at for the time being. I know I'm now probably being over cautious, but better safe than sorry and have to fork out for another engine!

I know that the E-01 can display AFRs on the unit itself, and will be looking to get that hooked up soon so at least I can keep an eye on it. I just want to make sure that I keep this car as healthy as possible and every bit of info will help (without going overboard and turning the dash into an aeroplane dash).

[Turbo_Steve]

Alternatively, you could draw a line in the sand and decide how much you're eventually going to spend on gauges, boost control, logging etc and simply fit a better ECU that does it all in one package, AND lets the engine protect itself. And (if coupled with an in car PC) will let you display just about any parameter you like on the screen.

Just a thought - Personally I'd go for the two gauges as I'm a tightwad, but something like a ViPec is always an alternative.

[Atik]

I'm not looking to up the power mods in any way any further than I am currently at. My intention is solely to serve as an additional monitoring device so that I can keep a check on the vitals so I dont get a repeat performance from the radiator/engine.

I already have a remapped ECU (albeit in safe mode) with an EBC. At most I wanna spend as little as possible! I dont require the goodies like a PLX or anything so a budget set of gauges will be sufficient. Been looking around and looks like I've found a set of two gauges oil temp and pressure with a sandwich plate for £64 delivered. I will keep looking around and work out what I want though.

[Nutter_John]

get the rspec ones , the peak series are good about 170 all in

[Atik]

Thats taking me about £100 over budget. I'll keep looking and researching.

[VR457]

Thats taking me about £100 over budget. I'll keep looking and researching.

Then you'll probably cry to see the sale end on this: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ANY-3-SMOKED-GAUGE-79-99-MITSUBISHI-EVO-3-4-5-6-7-8-9_W0QQitemZ350343046483QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_CarsP arts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM?hash=item519212a553

Oil pressure: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/52MM-SMOKED-OIL-PRESSURE-GAUGE-UNIVERSAL-BAR-W-SENDER-/180500851957?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item2a06b06cf5

Oil temp: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/52MM-SMOKED-FACE-OIL-TEMP-TEMPERATURE-GAUGE-C-W-SENSOR-/120562643499?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item1c1217f22b

[Gowf]

I'm going to beg to differ a little here:

Water temp is (as has been proven) utterly pointless.

If you're going to add one gauge, add an oil pressure gauge :

It tells you when your engine is warmed up, when your engine over heating, when your engine has an oil leak, and (perhaps even more usefully) can also help to identify if you're achieving oil starvation.

Oil Temp would be my second bet - it warns you immediately when your oil is too hot, which is either a symptom of a problem, or simply means it's time to back off for a bit. If you're using a really (really) good synthetic, set the temp to around 160degrees in the knowledge that your oil is just starting to struggle to protect you at this point. Chances are this is also the point when the heads start to try an peel away from the block, as the oil will heat up a LOT quicker without the water jacket.

Then it's down to whether you're going to be mapping or not -
An in car wideband AFR can be of some use for problem diagnosis, but generally if everything is setup right you're going to ignore it - it simply changes too often and is probably better being something that you "log" rather than something you want to see immediately - if you're mapping then AFRs should really be being monitored seperately for the front and rear banks anyway - in an ideal world you'd monitor it per cylinder - but that would mean you were rich!

EGTs however, can extremely useful - again ideally you will have one for each bank. You should see them settle at a pretty constant temp under hard usage (around 850deg C) with some creep on hotter days. As soon as it hits 900degrees it's time to lift off if you're in a road car: something is simply running too hot, either due to leanness or lack of airflow or whatever.

I found EGTs on both banks of the 300ZX invaluable, as if you spent any time drifting one bank would heat up quicker than the other, due to the airflow profile through the intercoolers being different. The first thing the ECU knew about it would have been a knock event, at which point it pulled timing.


Again, it depends how far you're tuning the car and how anal you want to be.


From your point of view, I'd just go for Oil Pressure and Temp.

If you were Nev, I'd be telling you to fit an in-cabin fuel pressure gauge complete with differential boost alerting - i.e. if the pressures don't rise at the same rate "bee bee bee bee!"


Do agree with you there steve i must admit, But 850C? thats utterly wild! your standard stainless starts to melt not that much more than that. V6's produce lower EGTs due to there design, (which is why a lot use a precat) I never saw much more than about 450 on full chat at wild boost (once the proper manifolds were on of course).

But yeah, oil temp and pressure will do everything you need them to and more.

One thing to be remembered is this, you get what you pay for. All well and good buying gauges but if you cant rely on their accuracy what is the point? I used SPA, yes they are expensive, but they keep on working. I had a duel oil temp/pressure gauge that was £180ish i think. It allows to you control when the warnings come on, has an adjustable battery warning and lots of other goodness.

But unless your mapping/fitting a proper ecu, then dont worry about an AFR gauge, same goes for EGT's, because before you know it youl have spent £1k

[VR457]

Cheap (ish) dual gauge: https://www.burtonpower.com/product_main.aspx?dets_product.aspx?PGrp=15009&PSet=98

Also Mocal do very similar one, same site.

[TAR]

As stated, don't just buy cheap gauges because they are cheap. They may look pretty but could be wildly inaccurate and not help in monitoring anything properly.

Good luck with whatever you purchase.
:happy:

[Spirit]

get the rspec ones , the peak series are good about 170 all in

...........and there's a members discount too /secret http://www.clubvr4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41888

[Atik]

I know its probably being cheap, but I'm after a medium term solution (maybe up to 6 months) while myself and Jason work our little project. I'm aiming to get simple cheap gauges in a temporary fix just enough to know when pressure/temps are going up/down. Being totally accurate is not paramount for the time being, as long as I can see that the oil pressure has gone from 40psi to 80psi or whatever, I can then take measures to prevent any further damage etc.

So, after a gearbox fail, I went manual, after a clutch fail, I went Evo clutch, after an engine fail I went new engine... what next? /lol

[Spirit]

So, after a gearbox fail, I went manual, after a clutch fail, I went Evo clutch, after an engine fail I went new engine... what next? /lol

After a complete fail, he went Evo /haz

Soz mate, just kidding

[Atik]

Haha, thats interesting, but if, and thats a big IF, it happens, I will go GTST. Evo is just not for me :p

[Turbo_Steve]

But 850C? thats utterly wild! your standard stainless starts to melt not that much more than that

You are, of course, quite correct - I never ran the Zed anywhere near that hot (standard internals for a start!).

I was basing that reading on a fully forged EJ25 - after 2 dyno runs with EGTs at 900degC the exhaust headers did indeed warp and start blowing, though only at the gaskets. Interestingly, I didn't realise that you could see the red-glow through the exhuast wrap. During the day.

After this a larger turbo was fitted, and the ECU programmed with closed loop EGT monitoring (we only monitored Cyl 3 as it was always the hottest). This resulted in stable temps at 850degC - and it did lap after lap at several track days without issue - so it can be done :) This car ran as a daily driver for another two years like this, doing several trackdays throughout that time.

Eventually it was the cost of replacing gearboxes every few months that finished it off :(