Alright, so I'm trying to nail down my gauge setup. I've got Autometer fuel, water temp, and oil pressure in the factory cluster, and autometer AFR and Boost in a center speaker pod. I also have an Autometer EGT and a dual gauge A pillar pod. The problem I have with the A pillar pod is I see it interfering with my left hand during cornering, and it really detracts from the smoothness of the interior. Should I

a) Add an Oil Temp or other gauge (suggestion) to fill out the A-pillar pod along with the EGT?
b) Ditch the EGT and the A pillar pod and keep the center speaker and stock cluster gauges only for the low-profile look?

I'm leaning towards option B...

 

Or option "C"

c) Ditch the autometer AFR guage in the center speaker pod(it's useless) and put the EGT guage in there. Problem solved.

 

 

Alright, that was a quick solution. So, I've got a brand new AFR and Gauge pod for sale. Anyone?

 

I'm glad we helped

 

hahahahaha~~~ that was super quick... by the way how do you like the center guage pod??? do you think it flows well with the interior or does it look awkward???? I'm trying to decide if I should get the a-pillar or center speaker pods...

 

I don't think the a/f gauge is as worthless as people make it out to be. If you know what to expect from it, it's quite useful, IMO. If you are using it to make sure you're running rich/safe, it is worthless.

Sonny

 

then what is it good for? i was under the impression that, that's what its purpose was, and that without a wide band they are very much useless.

as far as the gauges are concerned im trying to decide on pods as well. id like to have 1)water temp 2) Boost 3) egt 4) fuel pressure . i think that's it.... 4 gauges... so i am also trying to decide how to mount them.... maybe a 3 gauge center speaker pod, and a steering colum pod? anyway, im wondering why people use the additional oil pressure gauge? i understand that the FD's water gauge is next to useless, but the oil press. gauge seems to be accurate (although small)

 

A/F gauges aren't totally useless..

I use mine as like a fuel injector gauge.
And it gives you an Idea of what your car is doing running.

although i do have a pfc that tells me my injector duties..

 

In my experience with AFR's, they are useful at determining (within a large margin of error) about where you sit in the AFR realm, provided you have a reliable O2 sensor that can handle the heat. The downside of my using the EGT is while I get a fairly good indicator of an abnormal lean condition, I get it a few seconds late. I had considered getting an AEM UEGO instead of the AFR - anyone have any experience with it?

The oil pressure gauge isn't additional - I modified the cluster to accept autometer 2-1/16" gauges. I replaced the factory oil pressure and water temp with autometer sport-comp oil pressure and water temp - looks damn near stock, actually

I would highly recommend the two-gauge center pod - it looks like it belongs there. That was an argument against using the additional gauges - something about the a-pillar pod screams "modified".

 

You can't tune your car at WOT with a narrowband sensor. This much is common knowledge because when you do that, you are using the sensor for something that it was not designed for. It was designed to be very accurate around stoich 14.7:1 AFR to maximize fuel economy and emissions control. It can be used with really good accuracy to tune around 14.7:1 when you're trying to a tune a car with larger injectors for good emissions or fuel economy.

The other thing that i find it useful for is monitoring when the ECU switches out of "closed loop". When it is running in "closed loop", you see the O2 readings sweep back and forth...an indication that ECU is doing its best to maintain max fuel economy. When it switches into "open loop", the O2 sensor input is essentially ignored and that is when you see the gauge peg over to the rich side and stay there. Fuel values are now being read out of a table...these are the tables that get modified when you buy a chipped ECU like the M2, Pettit, G-Force, etc. Open loop is also when you start burning a lot more gas. It runs the car rich to safely make power.

If you dig a little deeper, you will also see that the ECU treats each gear differently. If you rev it up in 3rd gear, the ECU will switch into open loop regardless of load because Mazda must have figured that generally, you do not cruise in 3rd gear. 3rd gear is a gear where you are very likely to mash the gas pedal and accelerate hard. However, it will not do the same in 5th gear. It will stay in closed loop as long as possible to maximize fuel efficiency. These are things you can learn from that factory O2 sensor that are great to know when programming a standalone. It's knowledge that I certainly hope to apply when I convert to a PFC.

Sonny

 

I'll take it for 10 bucks

 

15!

 

<-- king of the lowballers

 

A/F don't really do much on the 7's. GZ91Rx7 has one and it doesn't monitor ****.

 

love to see some pics of it. how does the backlighting match up? im probably going with defi d-gauges for backlighting purposes (despite not having the buzzer/record feature that the other defi gauges offer)... why cant i have my cake and eat it too... come on defi

 

I had to order a 150 psi oil pressure gauge - as soon as that comes in, I'll get it all put together.

 

Unfortunatly The Autometer Sport Comp guages are not Backlit, though their lighting, with the red boot installed, is close to stock - the only backlit Autometer guages are the Lunar and Cobalt series that use Green and Blue lighting respectivly - the 1 1/6" SportComps do fit nice in the dash though, Here are mine:

 

How about getting a 3-gauge center speaker pod? Or a steering column pod, that's what I'm using for my boost gauge.

Do you have a write-up/how-to and installing the gauges in the stock cluster? What did you do with the low oil/coolant/gas lights and buzzer?

 

I've considered putting in LED's for the low coolant/gas stuff.

There are some write-ups already on the autometer stuff. I basically had the center black plastic surround bored to my specifications so that AM gauges slip right in, just like in a pod.

I'm still working on the wiring and dealing with the flexi-pcb in the back.

 

I have a thread in the interior section with more info on my install

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/showth...hreadid=199139

The Low Oil light will be an LED mounted next to the Oil Press gauge on the A pillar and I am working on a display for the top of the steering column that will house warning lights for low coolant and low fuel - they will have backlit icons just like the stock warning lights.

 

It's a work in progress, but it's coming along....

 

nm