Damn you realize what the price difference is between the two types of gauges (autometer nexus vs prosport premium)?

For 5 autometer nexus gauges and the control unit I would be looking at about 1500 dollars american.

Where as with the prosport premiums it would be more like 500 dollars. I agree with you that the nexus gauge deffinately is higher quality, I dunno I guess I just need to save up a little bit more and bite the bullet.

The gauges i'm looking at from prosport are the premium gauges not the same as the ones you were looking at for 30 dollars.

 

I was looking around at some gauges today I like the idea of the roll pods.

 

How are you going to know where to look? Maybe you need a computer to control which dial lights are on and off.

 

Expensive! But I found the Best Bang For The Buck is Nordskog Digi Gauges. They come with all the Hardware to include Fittings MM-vs-Inches.
I have over the Years tested these Gauges ie Analog verses Digital and there always Accurate.
Nice thing is that for the wood be thieves, unless your parked in a well lit up area or during the daytime-No one sees them unles you point them out.
I know cause I get asked (Whats in the Black Holes)???When the Car is not running.
Just another thought for your Project.
sgieldon
steve

 

Also, don't forget you can do one or two under dash gauges. My vacuum gauge is completely visible, and I don't knock it with my leg or anything.

 

What ecu are you running?

With my Microtech for instance, the hand controller displays boost/vacuum, water temp and voltage which IMO negates the need for seperate gauges. It also has a peak/minimum hold function which is alot better then trying to read the gauges while driving.

 

You're replacing practicaly everything on the stock gauge cluster, so why not just pull it out and put your guages there?

 

I think it's too confusing. Too many distractions. What you need is a computer display that will only show 'interesting' readouts, where 'interesting' is something like too high water temp, too low oil pressure, too low charging voltage, etc.,

 

nice guages just ordered some, had a question, is it hard to mount a guage where the clock is at do u have pics THANKS

 

Nice gages, gotta say though the whole idea behind getting gages is you want to monitor your engine status by just glancing at it , keep it simple and clean place them in the center where you can see them, so you don't have to look to five different locations to see what your car is doing. or having to ask your passenger what your temp is......lol.... on my layout i got 6 2in. gages in the center. And im making a mounting plate for my stereo where my glove box is. Good luck definitely let us know what you come up with.

 

Hey guys,
Heres an update to what I have decided to do. I have removed the heater motor, heater box, heater ducting from the car so I now have no use for the heater controls. So I mounted 6 autometer ultra-lite gauges (Oil pressure, boost, oil temp, voltage, water temp and fuel pressure) in the dash above my cd player. Then where the push button controls for the heater were, I am going to put my greddy Profec B spec-II and microtech turbo timer.

Then on the A-pillar I have my Innovate motorsports XD-16 and my pineapple racing dual EGT. I think this is alot better than the setup I was originally going to run, I at first was going to go with Cobalts, or Nexus gauges, but then I saw the price of them and decided against it. Maybe in the future I will upgrade, but for this point I see no point.

Heres a couple pictures of what the setup looks like.



This picture shows where I am planning on putting the boost controller, right in plain view and easy to access!

 

Only problem with the 'regular' Ultra-lights is that they are practically worthless at night. Almost completely unreadable.

 

Nice work, looks real good.......

 

Looks pretty good Dan_s_young, but IMO thats too many gauges too far away from eyesight, and some pretty important too, such as water temp and oil pressure. To each their own, but I would have kept the main gauges in plain sight on the original dash such as I did.

 

I still think that displaying 6 guages on the center through an LCd monitor and having a computer in there would be better as you can datalog them, and also they'll act like the nexus as in they would change colors when they reach max point

 

Remember I am also going to have a laptop in the car to tune the microtech. So I will basically have what you described.

85rotarypower - I don't know if you are talking about my inital idea for the setup or what I decided on going with. I think the center of the dash is pretty much as close as I'm going to get for such a large quantity of gauges.

 

I'm with Directfreak on the Ultralights. I upgraded to the better led bulb and it improved it alot, but still not a 100%. My Cyberdyne voltmeter gauge can light uo NY at night!

 

I was looking at the Prosport Premium gauges and I think they look pretty good.

Dan, I was wondering why you went with the Autometer Gauges instead of the Prosport ones and also where you got them and how much?

I live near you, Edmonton, and there's not too many places that have them, so I was thinking of ordering from the States.

Finally, any pictures of them in the car or lit up?

 

I ended up going with the autometers for a couple of reasons. I found a pretty sweet deal in the for sale section here and picked up 6 of them for under $250 bucks. Than just had to buy a fuel pressure gauge (which I ended up getting at mopac $$$).

The prosport comps would be an excellent selection for a budget build though they seem like an excellent product for the $.

I had some pictures of the gauges lite up but I am not having any luck finding them right now. They are a more difficult gauge to read at night time though. At the same time I figured I will upgrade in the future if need be. I basially want to finish the car at this point before I spend 2k for higher end autometer gauges.

 

I'm surprized you ditched the heater. I guess this is going to truly be a summer driven car only.

How long do you figure your driving season will be?
I assume you have all electrical gauges? That is what I am leaning towards unless anyone can convince me otherwise.

By the way, you have a nice car there, any word on an estimated completion date?

 

Lookin good.Although I can say from experience,once you establish that all your parameters stay in the green,youll tend to not look at most of the gauges very often.Although,when a problem does pop up,having all those clocks sure makes it easier to track the issue.
Ive been running the same gauges and almost the same selection of functions for quite a while now.Im surprised to not see an intake temp guage in there,pretty important for any boosted engine,especially a rotary.I know in the beginning,that was the one gauge I watched the most.Id drop the volt meter for an intake temp gauge,the stock unit tends to be pretty accurate,plus many boost controllers/turbo timers and things of that nature tend to have a voltage monitering function.Thats all my turbo timer does now,since I decided it was useless for anything else.Makes a nice digital volt meter,sitting next to my fan controller/aux. water temp gauge.

 

If you haven't installed them yet -
Return them and get the Ultra-Lites II! They are
literally night and day difference. They are actually backlit
like the Cobalts, so they are very readable at night.

They appear to go well with the factory lighting as well.
I would have gone this route if I had them as an option back then.



Click Here to see the differences
http://autometer.com/popup_UL2_on.htm

 

Steve, my microtech monitors the IAT. So I can refer to my laptop in the car for reading the sensor.

I would have gone with different gauges like I was saying but I just couldn't justify dropping over $1500 dollars more for other gauges at this point. All in good time, sick of having the car sitting and would like to get it running first.

 

If it is at all possible, why not get some angled cups and grind them down so that you can have angled gauges in your clusters? That way, a brief glance down will be easier on the eyes to read them. I thought up that idea when I stuck in my vacuum gauge. Thing sits so low that I can't read the top of it.

 

Did you guys change any gauges in the cluster for the 79, because it look like it will be hard to find drop in gauges or gauges that will take only some work to put in.