I'm near the middle of my first rebuild and wanted to know what are the most important gauges one should have after a rebuild. I'm taking out the stereo and heat vents on the console so i'll have lots of room to put as many as i need. I have a few ideas on what i would gauges i would need. I just wanted to hear from some of you out there with a few rebuilds under your belts which parts of the engine i should be monitoring more closely and which gauges worked best.

 

get a wideband, a boost gauge (stock isnt that great), oil pressure ..maybe.

 

water temp/ oil press/ oil temp/ O2

 

^ almost.
Boost - stock is worthless
Water Temp - S4 is marginally useful, S5 is worthless
Oil pressure - Stock sensors just seemed to go out too often
Wideband/O2 - tuning is nice

Since oil is such an integral part of cooling in the rotary engine, an oil temp gauge won't tell you anything you can't find out from your coolant temp gauge. It might let you know a little be sooner, but for a street car its not essential.

 

sorry for not being more specific. I'm rebuilding an NA S4.

 

What is the intended use of the vehicle?

Honestly all the stock gauges are fine with the exception of the oil pressure gauge. It's nice to know the true oil pressure instead of the 30 or 60 the stock gauge indicates.

I find both an A/F gauge and vacuum gauge useful, but they are useless if you don't know how to read them.

 

intended use will be summer only. I have another rx7 which i'm going to build for drifting but this won't be going to the track. It's just going to be another daily driver for the summer with the odd smoking of the tires and driving somewhat fast.

 

Almost in the same boat as you. I'm going to rebuild my 87TII this weekend. I'm going with oil pressure and water. Concerned initially with these 2. I have a wideband and boost already. The car won't be on the road anytime soon so those aren't an issue yet.

 

Yea, I would definatly go with A/F, oil pressure, vaccume. Perfect safeguard and fuel economy indicators.

 

Basically what he said. Get a narrowband A/F, vacuum gauge and oil pressure. The narrowband and vacuum will allow you to drive for best economy and be a good indicator of the health of engine. Oil pressure because the stock gauge isn't accurate.

 

^Also my gauge pegged, I think I forgot to plug in the resistor (or is it a capacitor?). So Now I really need one