I'm trying to decide on a suitable CAN bus gauge to select for my FD build, which is managed by a Link G4+ ECU, and compiled a bit of market research on what is available these days. Was hoping some of you who may have purchased and used any of these gauges would comment on them - pros/cons, etc.

For those unfamiliar with CAN bus gauges, the gist of it is they connect to your aftermarket ECU via its CAN bus, and can read/display whatever data your ECU broadcasts on the CAN bus. These gauges typically come in the standard 52mm or 2-1/8" single gauge format, and some come as flat rectangular panels of various sizes that you would have to get creative to mount somewhere. I decided to go the simple route and buy just a single 52mm gauge. With that settled, here's my selection criteria:

(1) Looks aesthetically good mounted in my FD, and has a display that is easy to read under all lighting conditions
(2) Allows lots of user programmability in terms of what parameters & how many parameters are displayed on each screen (most give you multiple screens to toggle thru)
(3) Allows the user to program some custom alerts/alarms, e.g., if water temp gets too high, or if lambda falls lean of lambda target while under boost, flash an alert.

Last time I purchased a CAN bus gauge was in 2017, when I was wrapping up my FC build. At that time, I bought a BTI gauge for the AEM Infinity - BTI main page - BT Innovations LLC Although it's a great gauge, I won't be getting one for the FD because it falls short on my user programmability requirement - the 12 screens it provides are hard-coded in the firmware, so a user can't change parameters displayed in any one screen. Let's say I want to setup a screen for general off-boost cruising, and display water & oil temps, oil pressure & voltage - can't do that BTI gauge. Instead, you would have to toggle thru 3 screens to see all that data; 1 screen with water/oil/intake air temps; 1 screen w/oil pressure; 1 screen w/voltage.

So with BTI out of the running, here's the products I'm looking at. If anyone knows of any other products I should be looking at, please advise. I've downloaded whatever online documentation they provide but haven't fully digested it all yet:

GaugeArt: https://gaugeart.com/product/gaugeart-can-gauge/ This one looks promising; nice display, and it appears to have lots of user programmability options. However it appears that it's firmware is built specific to the ECU, and in my case (Link G4+) it seems somewhat limited in the data it can receive/display. Not a deal breaker, as it covers all the "must have" parameters I need, but it would be better if it could display everything my Link puts on the CAN bus.

Banks iDash Supergauge: https://www.bankspower.com/i-2695-ba...hout-obd.html#! This one also looks promising, as it appears to meet all 3 of my criteria above. Also, from a quick read of the user manual, it appears these gauges are NOT firmware specific to any one aftermarket ECU. So the pro there is it should be able to read everything my Link G4+ broadcasts on its CAN bus, but the con is I may have to do a bit more "user programming" to make it work to my whims - devil's in the details.

Perfect Tuning CAB bus gauge: https://store.perfecttuning.net/prod...linkecu-g4-g4/ This one was recommended on the Link ECU support forum, and it comes from a shop in Canada. I'm not too keen on the visual aesthetics of this gauge, but it does appear to meet all of my criteria at 1st glance. Like the GaugeArt, this one has firmware specific to my Link G4+ ECU. Though the documentation I downloaded for it is a bit sketchy (shop is in Quebec, so French-to-English translation issues perhaps?), and is probably out-of-date (dated 2017/2018). If I can't get good documentation on it, I won't be buying.

 

I was looking into the same thing you but decided to try something different. I'm using Real Dash to create my own gauge interface and then using AAwireless to screen mirror Real Dash to my headunit. (I dont know if the AAwireless will actually work yet, but in theory it should. I wont have my unit until June). Maybe just something else to consider.

 

Actually my 1st thought was to consider the GaugeArt CAN to VGA adapter so I could display the gauges on my double DIN headhunit - https://gaugeart.com/product/gaugear...gauge-adapter/

Besides it being a few hundred $ more expensive, when I looked into the details, I found that the data it is set up to display from my Link G4+ is much more limited than what the regular GaugeArt gauge can display for me. Plus I would need to also buy the extra VGA to composite video or HDMI adapters they sell to use it with my headunit.

Played around with the free version of the RealDash app on my android phone, and got it to communicate with my ECU, but so far found it to be very difficult to set it up to display the gauges/parameters I wanted. But I haven't spent much time there - are you using the paid for version and does it do anything else that the free one doesn't do, besides delete the ads? My headhunit supports android auto, but unfortunately not via wireless - need to plug the phone into the headunit's USB jack for that, so I don't think the AAwireless thing would help.

 

Help me understand something - it looks like the ECU and these gauge products do NOT have the flexibility to broadcast and read generic CAN messages in .dbc format? That is the standard CAN message format. It's basically an XML style file, readable in plain text, that explains the nuts and bolts of what's being broadcast.

So if your ECU can dump a .dbc file, any product that can read a .dbc can display what you're broadcasting. This is how it is done on the commercial/business side. At my day job we have lab equipment that broadcasts parameters (speed, temperature, pressure, etc) over CAN. The equipment generates a DBC file based on the signals being broadcasted (number of decimal places, min/max values, etc). That DBC file can be plugged into anything. That's the kind of flexibility it sounds like you want; it's just not as plug and play as most people are looking for. Hence there are hardware compatibility lists and front ends.

 

I believe you're correct about that - from what I can gather, each ECU maker and gauge maker out there has their own proprietary spin on how to implement CAN bus, so it's probably a safe guess that none of them are 100% compliant with the CAN message standards.

That would be ideal, and out of the products I listed, the only one that appears closest to doing that and not care what ECU it's connected to is the Banks iDash supergauge. But if the ECU isn't broadcasting 100% per standard, what the Banks gauge can ultimately display for you may be limited.

 

I'm surprised SpeedHut isn't here. So long as you can spit J1979 (and GMs oil pressure hack) out of your ECU they're pretty great, however, you and I may have different goals for instrumentation. I'm not a fan of jack of all trades gauges as I rig idiot lights, limp mode tables, and data logs for mission critical things, saving gauges for every day uses and things I can immediately control/need to.

 

I hadn't thought to check out SpeedHut yet - thought they were the guys that produced replacement gauges for the FD's OEM instrument cluster, didn't know they did stand alone CAN gauges? I also plan to use the gauge for day-to-day general monitoring, and use the ECU's built-in logging & engine protection functions for all the mission critical stuff, but I've found that having a gauge capable of monitoring just about anything in real time comes in handy for a quick diagnoses when on the road and I don't have my laptop handy.

Case in point - on my FC, I had my MAP sensor start failing intermittently on a road trip. Didn't have my laptop with me, but since I could use the BTI gauge to monitor my MAP, TPS and RPMs simultaneously, it was easy to see my MAP sensor failed the next time it acted up - MAP was holding a constant value when RPM & TP were varying. Of course the FC ran like crap this way, so I picked up a new 3bar GM MAP sensor at the nearest auto parts store and I was back in business.

 

J1979 PIDS don't broadcast very fast when you view them on a normal car with a normal generic scan tool. Also, they are limited to what is in J1979 (can't put some custom parameter in there). It's an imperfect solution for sure.

 

I am in a very similar boat to you, and have been looking at the canchecked mfd15. Spoke to the guy behind it and whilst it doesn't do user definable canstreams yet, it is in the pipeline. Might be something to keep an eye on

 

Correct, but as I said, the things that I'm looking for in active instrumentation are the every days. Mission critical things I design a response in to my tunes augmented by idiot lights/other dash unit.

 

I would highly recommend to download the app on you computer and mess with the layout there. It' still a bit of a pain there, but you get use to it. On your phone sounds like a nightmare. You can always send the file to your phone and upload it that way.
Below is what I set up for my first go around with the free version. Some parameters aren't able to be displayed like AFR, even though I have Links CAN Lambda sensor. But you are able to set warning 1 and 2's, which I made yellow and red, with green being a normal operating window.

That's exactly what the AAwireless is for. You run the cable from your Link to your android, then bluetooth your phone to the AAwireless and plug the AA unit into the USB port for the headunit. Again that how it shooooould work, but I cant confirm yet.

 

I run the haltech version of the gauge art gauge, for the simple fact that once you put the laptop away and everything is dialed in, it's all you need and you can adjust the monitors/pages with your phone instead of a laptop. If somethings acting up or not working right, the laptop comes out with the datalogs. I can have four monitors per page if I choose. I just added EGT's and EMAP so I will likely run a default page of AFR + EGT1/2? Not sure yet.

 

How does the GaugeArt display do in bright sunshine with the smallest text fonts (assume that's with 4 parameters/page) - still easy to read? So far I'm liking the GaugeArt unit for all the reasons you mentioned - it will display pretty much anything I'd want to from my Link G4+, and my use case is very similar. With all all the engine protections I can program into the Link G4+, I really don't need to watch routine things like coolant temps or oil pressures - it will step in and shut down the fun if anything gets out of hand.

 

I can see everything just fine here in the bright Florida sun. It's white text on a black background which is what I prefer both day and night for good contrast.

 

Hey Pete. Hope all is well. I am using the Haltech gauge as well:



Curiously, I went with the Haltech after speaking with you a while ago.

Serves the job fine. You can program it thru your smartphone. I have the 4-parameter screen displayed and two pages - 8 parameters - set up to monitor. Frankly, I very rarely go to the second page as my 4 most priority measurements are on the first screen - coolant temp, oil temp, fuel pressure, and oil pressure.

As for the look and feel, it's okay. Not the most modern looking of screen displays. PLX was way better - see my AFR gauge - but they stopped selling and supporting their stand alone line of gauges so I had to swap to something else.

I do also use the Speedhut gauges which include coolant temps and oil pressure so I guess I could take those two metrics off of the Haltech screen but I kind of like seeing the important 4 parameters on one screen.

Also, Speedhut generally is not for CAN readings. They are stand alone. They do have a CAN line of gauges but I doubt they would work with standalone ECUs and as far as I know, they don't display critical things like AFR. But you could always call them and ask as it would be pretty cool if you didn't need any column mounted gauges.

 

The Freedom line will work with any ECU that will output standard J1979 (as well as GMs odd oil pressure hack) PIDs, and unfortunately no, no dice on AFR. If I'm worried that a config isn't dialed enough for a consistent AFR then I'm still in the tuning phase anyway. Check engine PIDs are also supported, though that is the one thing that most ECUs would need massaging to actually spit out properly.

 

^Thanks for your input! All these gauges look great on the websites, but it's more important to know how readable they are in actual use from a real owner.

Hi David, hope all is well, I do recall that conversation. Your Haltech gauge is actually their re-branded version of the GaugeArt gauge with the firmware version that supports Haltech ECUs. So the Haltech gauge won't work for my Link G4+ ECU, but GaugeArt makes a version of the gauge that supports the Link. With the standard + extended channels, the GaugeArt gauge supports the following parameters from a Link G4+, more than enough for my needs:

Vi-PEC / Link (compatible with G4+ ECUs):

Standard channels:

• Battery Volts (V)
• Coolant Temp (ºC / ºF)
• Fuel Pressure (PSIg / KPA)
• Injector Duty (%)
• Inlet Air Temp (ºC / ºF)
• Knock Level 1
• Lambda 1 (Lambda / AFR)
• Lambda 2 (Lambda / AFR)
• MAP (PSIg / KPA)
• Oil Pressure (PSIg / KPA)
• Oil Temp (ºC / ºF)
• RPM
• TPS (%)
• Wheel Speed (KPH / MPH)

Extended channels:

• Ethanol Content (%)
• Fuel Temperature (ºC / ºF)
• Boost Target (kPa / PSIg)
• Knock Level Global
• Knock Count Global
• Lambda Target
• Lambda Correction 1
• Lambda Correction 2
• Traction Slip

Agree there's not much use for AFR/Lambda once the car is tuned properly, but I'm still in the early tuning phase, and even when I'm done with that, I'd still like to have the ability to display AFR & target AFR (or lambda/target lambda) on demand without dragging a laptop with me. It comes in handy when you need to do a quick check-up of the tune's health.

 

Does the gauge need to be round?

Can Checked make the MFD28 & 32. They are fully configurable and support can switching if you're running an ECU that supports it.

They have a round unit as well but not nearly as configurable.