Should I have one? I know that the JDM Rx7 has a boost gauge in that spot and was wondering if the oil pressure gauge was really needed?

 

of course it is, that shows whether your engine is about to croak or not..

 

i drove around for a whole year without mine working properly. i would say its important, but not really. theres not many or if not any oil pressure related blown engines that i know of.

 

Not to sound like the oh so knowledgeable one, but whatever gauge you have is only as important as your use and understanding of it. If you use it to really monitor your car's conditions, many can be very useful.

I personally would want to (and do) have an oil pressure & temp gauge if I was auto-xing or hitting road courses (which I'm doing more often now)

 

oil pressure gauge is important. it ofcourse lets you know that there is oil circulating in your engime but most importantly it will tell you if your oil pump stopped working. It would be impossible to know the omp stopped working while driving otherwise. Well, i guess when your engine stops running could be another indication that the omp stopped.

now the question is do you need an expensive aftermarket gauge to see this. i dont think so. the stock one is fine for everyday use, the only time i would get an aftermarket, is if the stock one broke and it would be cheaper to put in an aftermarket, or maybe for auto-x. also maybe i would get one if i had no where else to spend my cash and i had to waste my money somewhere

 

so how come they didnt come on the japanese ones?

I have heard that the stock one is not accurate anyway.

Also what are other gauges needed. Boost is obvious as is water temp, and egt so what about fuel pressure and any others that might be needed.

 

They aren't. That's why I have mine. I can tell the diff when lookin at both the stock and the defi I have.

The stocker works on a "general" sense...it tells you if pressure is low or high. That's about it lol

 

thats a good question... why didnt they come on jap. rx-7s... i dont know. i know that on some, there was a boost gauge instead, but i was not aware that all FD's over there did not have oil pressure gauges. maybe someone else can answer this question. sry.

and perhaps the stock one is not completely accurate but that would not be the point for every day driving. like i said it will let you know your omp is working and that should be good enough. other than that just check to oil level with the dip stick on a normal basis. now an oil temp gauge is important. especially if your in lots of stop and go traffic, do a lot of racing, or go on long drives. that would be a good gauge to invest in.

the only gauges i see a real point in to buying is

boost
water temp
oil temp
exauhst temp (egt)

boost and water temp should be on the car right away and the other two can follow when needed or when extra $$$ is available.

 

I'd ask you the same question, just switching places between "boost" and oil pressure." No US FD came w/ a boost gauge stock. Does that mean it's not important? Hell no.

Then all of a sudden, in J-land, a few years later, they put a much needed boost gauge in. Well, to retain the same instrument cluster, and not put the gauge on the A-pillar and what not (keep the stock look), they simply removed the least important gauge. That's not to say that it's NOT important, but what other gauge can you get rid of? Speedo? Tach? Fuel? Engine temp? None.

Wait...scratch that. You could get rid of the engine temp gauge, since the stock one is utterly useless...unless they improved it in later years??

 

If your driving around and your pump stops, unless you happen to be looking at the guage at that very moment and shut down, isn't gonna be too late?
One use I personally have is to watch the the guage closely during the warm up period. When cold, the pressure is significantly higher. As it starts to drop at any given RPM, I figure my engines warm enough to get into boost. I just feel this is a more accurate indicator than water temp for this purpose. After that, I do glance at it periodically.

 

so i need
oil pressure
oil temp
water temp
boost
egt

fuel pressure??
anything else?
volts important?

The car is a t78 and its fully built. Im gonna drag it and would like to know all the gauges I will need. Its going to mainly be street drivin but with track visits occasionally.

I have boost and a/f now but Im ditching the a/f and the boost (because its whiteface) also and I will pick up all the gauges I need in black face to match stock.

 

fuel pressure gauge is over oil pressure gauge as far as importance. unless you oil pressure gauge is not working. and as far as NEED, you only NEED two;

boost
water temp

the others are not extremly necessary as those

 

Drop the A/F period.

Here's my layout...From top to bottom on the A-pillar: EGT, Water temp, boost. In the center pod, from left to right: oil pressure, oil temp, fuel pressure. But I gotta admit, I haven't installed the sensor for the fuel pressure yet...

Enconsiderate, can you tell I had a lot of money to waste?

 

nice setup dude, and they all match. How much did you spend on all of those?

Amel

 

jesus crizbah thats alot of guages

 

lol, now thats a lot of gauges. didn't mean to insult with that waste of money, but to me there are a few things i would like to have before i set up that many gauges. nice set up!

btw with that many gauges can you still see out of the windshield or do you now have to sick your head out the window while driving. lol j/k

 

I love how they match the stockers. What brand are they?

 

they look like the defi and are like 200 bux each.

 

LOL Believe it or not, I have NO problems w/ vision at all. I've heard ppl say the gauges on the A-pillar get in your line of sight...umm..not mine. I'm 6 foot, and I can see around everything just fine. It might have something to do w/ how far back I have the seat and the seatback lol

If anything, the thing that presents the biggest problem to my visual field is the stupid rear view mirror. To me, it's like it takes up half the windshield...

They're the Defi D-gauges, w/ amber backlight, just like stock. The bezels on them don't look like the stock bezels, but I think the writing on the gauges is much nicer (as compared to the defi BF series, whose bezel looks exactly like stock, but the writing looks kinda wimpy IMO). That, and I love the slight touches of red, which is going w/ my overall interior theme (can't see much of it from this pic's angle)

Amel, rotarynemesis is right. They're just under $200 a pop. I bought them all together, so I got a discount. That, and the water temp is the only one I got like 3 months after my order. The rest (all 5) I received after waiting for ELEVEN months. That's right, 11, like 10 + 1 lol. They were so backordered, NO ONE had them, in or out of the US. So I had PLENTY of time to earn the money to pay for them hehe

Enconsiderate, I know you didn't mean to disrespect, and hey, I don't disagree w/ you. I don't think I absolutely NEED every one of those gauges. Some I need, others are helpful. And I won't lie, some of it has to do w/ the visual effect...I think they're very VERY pretty hehe. Now you just gotta make sure you put your money to good use...

 

Enconsiderate,
Nice set up, so do you look out the windshield? With that set up you need a co-pilot, seriously it's great.

 

No offense, but the oil metering pump is for oil injection only and has nothing to do with engine oil pressure. The oil pump is behind the front cover.

No, that's why there's a warning light and buzzer. Shutting down your engine immediately should prevent damage from running with little or no oil pressure.

Where's the 6" tachometer for the center console?

(AARotary had a second tachometer mounted on his center console for no logical reason)

 

What should the range be for each gauge?

Is it hard to make a face for the gauge so I can have a black face for my now white face boost gauge?

 

Umm...if you're referring to the pic of the gauges...that's mine. And believe it or not, I have no prob keeping my eyes on the road. The most important gauges (IMO) are closest to the instrument panel: boost, water temp, oil pressure. Besides, I've gotten used to it.

Jimlab, I tried to do it functionally yet tastefully...ya know? No huge tach that tops out at 14K rpm lol. Yet I was contemplating twisting the stock tack some (ever looked inside a Porsche? I dunno if it's stock, or just a very common mod, but the redline is to the top of the gauge...so 0rpm is practically where our 9 is). Much easier to read, since your real concern is redline...

I just don't know how easy/feasible doing that is...

 

LMFAO....Guess I'm not the only one with all 7 of the defi gauges.

 

This is very common in race cars with analog gauges, going back to the 60's and earlier I believe. I've never seen it done stock in any roadgoing cars though. If you do end up doing this I'd be interested to see some pics and hear how difficult (or not) it was to do.