stupid question I know, but I already have a boost and afr gauge, what third gauge should I get? I was trying to decide between oil temp and coolant temp since the stock one sucks, but what about egt?

 

also what afr should I shoot for? I've heard 11.5-12.0 is good at WOT, the only problem is, and I know I sound stupid for this, I don't know what WOT is, anyone help a noob?

 

WOT= Wide Open Throttle

I am relatively new to the rotary scene, but from what I've read a coolant/water temp gauge is a must, because, like you said, the stock gauge is unreliable at best. I believe having an EGT and AFR gauge would be redundant... but I am also noob, so take my word with a grain of salt.

Thread Jack: Is an AFR gauge even useful if not running a Wideband O2?

 

forget the WOT thing, but still what's a good afr?

 

water temp gauge


nope, useless just for looks if its not a wideband

 

11.5-12 is getting dangerous for WOT.

and +1 with the coolant temp gauge. im looking to get one myself.

 

yeah, money is critical right now, so instead of the afr gauge at the moment get oil and water temp and boost and wait till I can buy a wideband to install the afr gauge?
so at WOT the afr should be under 11.1, what should it be at idle or cruising?
also, is there a way to get my boost gauge to read boost and not vacuum?

 

vacuum=opposite of boost. There is no way because it means that there is an absence of pressure.

Cruising AFR should be around 14.7 and although it is unsafe to run lean, idle does not matter as much because there is no load under the car. Find someone that blew an engine at idle.

 

lol, yeah, not possible, so how do I hook up my boost gauge so it reads boost? everytime I attach it to the little nipple that is similar to the one that is attached to the vacuum hose controlling the abv it reads like negative on the boost gauge, it's an autometer gauge if that helps any.

 

well at idle, you're under vaccum. Once you step on it, your manifold pressure goes to zero (an NA car would stop here), but with and FI car, your turbo adds pressure which is boost.

So you gauge should be fine. If it's not reading over zero, you may have turbo problems.

 

Have you read the FAQ's yet??

Not to be that nagging ***, but you may want to cruise through that, and a lot of the archived/stickied threads.

I'd say get a PFC and a tune. The commander will give you water temp, air temp, Injector Duty Cycle, boost, voltage, you name it.. It can display just about anything you *need* to be able to monitor.

Before you go apeshit over getting a bunch of gauges you don't even know the use of you should spend some time learning the car, and performing ALL the reliability modifications.

And don't listen to your buddies who "tune" piston engines, it's a completely different beast. Get yourself to a local (by local I mean up to, say, four hours away), reputable, rotary specialist and listen to what they have to say, you will thank yourself in the long run.


My suggestion on what to do: (in order of importance)

Have a specialist give it a once-over, perform compression test
Boost gauge
Radiator
Downpipe
Aluminum AST
Vac hose/check valve replacement
PFC/commander (base map, or base mod map is fine. No need for a tune just yet)
Intake
Cat-back
SMIC (Stock Mount InterCooler)
re-wire stock fuel pump
New spark plugs (NGK BUR9EQP's all around)
Tune ECU for 12psi (and 10.8ish-11.1 afr) with a margin for error at top end (aka, fuel dump)

Get used to that first. You may need/want to port your wastegate, especially if you begin to experience boost creep.

 

There isn't an oil temp gauge in the stock instrument cluster, there is a stock oil pressure gauge which works fine (so long as your sender isn't hosed). The temp gauge is pretty center heavy though.

If you can't get an accurate water temp gauge (just get a PFC/Commander, it works fine) and you are ever worried about overheating (aka, you're stuck in traffic) just turn on your A/C a little bit. Just turning the **** to "1" will make one of the fans on your rad turn on (unless you've blown the fuse) and will help keep the water temp in check. Unfortunately that won't do anything for heat soaking an IC still in the stock location...

 

Yeah I would have to afree with you here. water temp gauge not nessecary when you have a PFC. I would also have to agree with your list of mods and the order that you have them.

 

yeah, i'm aware of what the pfc is good for, but in the absence the gauges will do just fine. I already had the compression test, I got the boost gauge, and new radiator as well as downpipe, the vac hoses were all replaced. got the intake and cat back, so I just need to the pfc and the last four, which I should have done by the end of the summer.

I meant the stock coolant temp gauge, I'm pretty sure mine is stuck where it's at, it doesn't move.

I know I don't have turbo problems, they're pretty much brand new, less than 4k miles on them.


And yes I checked the FAQ, and those were the instructions I followed, and I thought I did it right, but maybe not, I'll check it again. However, I didn't see this one and it looks like it explains it better so I'll check with this too.
http://home.ptd.net/~blouzbee/guides/boost.html

Thank god the worst traffic here in Lincoln is on game days, and I don't plan on driving on those.