Hello, I'm going to mount one A-pillar for 2 guages in my fd and I need to know what is the best gauges set up.

I'm sure of one them: Boost gauge but I need what is the best gauge for you and the car.

Thank you

 

Most important thing is...
Do you know what the values will mean??
Then you could think about what would be important.

When you just have two gauges.

I would suggest boost and water temp.

 

Get an SPA gauge. They are world class as far as accuracy and they come with two read outs per gauge face. Ideally I would have a dual temp gauge with oil and coolant and a dual pressure gauge with boost and fuel. You could even do their pressure/voltage gauge as a third gauge to cover all bases and use that for oil pressure and voltage.

I think, if you are tracking the car, the most important thing to have in an aftermarket gauge is an alarm feature where you can set in limits. The SPA gauges will flash a light at a certain limit, the whole face will flash and you can wire it to even output to an audible warning.

After that you just have to decide which values are important to you... Oil/coolant temp, and boost are first in my opinion... then a wideband O2 is a must...then fuel pressure (on a boosted car) and voltage and egt (if you are very performance oriented and know what the gauge is telling you).

Spa gauges are pricy but when you take into account that you get two gauges for one price and they don't require a control box, the price is pretty reasonable.

 

I'm thinking about that, but I see:

voltage: is not a important info for me

water temp: Is a option since the OEM gauge is not a precision gauge

Oil temp: Is important but we have 2 oil radiators in the car

Oil press: The oem is good for this

Fuel Press: is an option if I have one FPR installed.

Air/Fuel ratio and wideband: is good if I have one SAFC or piggyback installed with differents parameters of stock.

My mods will be very simply: FMIC, BOV, Downpipe, bigger water radiator, etc...
I know this car si different to rest and complicated, but with this mods what are the most important values I need to see?

 

If you think all of those values are unimportant, and that the FD oil pressure and coolant temp gauges are sufficient then why start the thread?

Even a stock FD would benefit from a wideband and an oil temp gauge... You can go with an aftermarket oil temp gauge, or an aftermarket coolant temp gauge. I had the power FC so the coolant temp was redundant to what the commander display showed...so I just went with oil temp, boost pressure and a wideband. That is great even for a stock to mildly modified car. A friend of mine has an FD with similar mods to what you are planning and that is his gauge setup too. Oil does a substantial amount of engine cooling in the FD so it is a very good gauge to have.

What is most important to you depends on you and your use for the car. With SPA you can buy just two gauges and have boost/fuel pressure and both the temp gauges in a very compact and clean setup. Just my opinion.

 

I haven't to say those values are unimportant for me, I think if you can to have a totally control of what happening in your engine when you are driving, you have a perfect set up.

But my idea in this thread is to know a good set up where I can controling my car but without mounting a lot of gauges for all my interior car. I want the more efficience for me and my car, I isn't searching stetic, only the most correctly.

You are suggesting me one oil temp gauge, I think is a good gauge, what is the correct value of this guage running? 120º celsius?

Thank you for your interest and help, very appreciate for me.

 

If your lookin' for the minimum amount of gauges, I'd suggest sticking with a boost gauge and a coolant temp. gauge. Those are the basis for a quality set-up.

 

I agree, coolant and boost... simple start to a good gauge setup and it will work well for you.

But definitely far from the IDEAL gauge setup.

 

Boost and Oil Pressure
If you have a mostly stock engine then I would stick with
Boost and water temp.

 

Being able to read the gauges quickly while you are driving is the most important thing. Some of the complicated and fancy gauges are hard to read and therefore not effective.

 

everybody think the OEM coolant temp and oil press are bad gauges, why? What is exactly the problem of this gauges?

Sorry if my question can be a stupid but I need to know what is happening in my car.

 

This is why you get advanced gauges with programable warnings...No one can pay attention to the values on 5 different gauges, but they can definitely notices a bright red flashing light.

 

If the stock coolant gauge moves past halfway you need to pull over, shut your car off, pop your hood and hope you didn't lose a coolant seal. It takes a LOT of heat in the coolant to move that gauge, it is heavily weighted to the center of the gauge readout, which pretty much makes it useless except for telling you when you car is sufficiently warm. Definitely not good enough to tell you anything after that.

The oil pressure gauge is also highly inaccurate. Most FDs don't have too much trouble with oil pressure though...so it isn't as big a deal. The stock gauge is basically accurate enough to tell you whether you have oil pressure or you don't. Which is why in the 99spec gauge cluster they got rid of it, and went to just an idiot light that lit when oil pressure dropped below a certain level....they probably should have just done this from the start.

Power FC with the commander is a good way to get a lot of gauges (it's read out is every sensor on the car) and a much better than stock ECU, I think it is an absolutely necessary mod. Maybe you should start there.

 

thanks for the info cozmo, ok, in a future i will mount one FC commander, I thought in that too.

Now I think the best is mount: boost, coolant temp and as I have found one A pillar for 3 gauges, I think to mount or oil temp or oil press, what is better of them?

 

I feel like I am post whoring here... but I put down one more post (I just had knee surgery, so I am stuck in the house, laid up with nothing to do, so I am bored ).

IF you get the commander for the Power FC, mount it in a location that you can see. I put mine right above the cigarette lighter (actually using the cigarette lighter to mount it since I never use the thing). Set this to read out, boost and coolant temp. It is accurate if you use the FC.

Then you can add an oil temp gauge and/or a wideband. I would put a boost gauge in center steering column mount and use the FC commander for the coolant temp for a near stock setup. To take it one step further I would mount a wide band and an oil temp gauge in the dual center speaker mount.

I think you can make due with the FD oil pressure gauge...and going farther than oil temp/wideband really isn't a big deal in a close to stock car. Some people will say fuel pressure is very important (but I think it is redundant if you have a wideband)...also, others will say EGT is very important, but only if you know what you are looking at and your car is more modified

All depends on your budget, your need for the car, what you want from a visual standpoint.