motto

Has any one encounter any problem using these guages? I'm planing to install an oil pressure, air/fuel meter. fuel pressure, and water temp guages.

sunshine

iTrader: (3)

I have the ultra-lite series and they work well.
If you buy the lower line gauge, they will be of poorer quality.
-a

KNONFS

iTrader: (14)

I am using the Phantom line, boost (mechanical), water temp (elec), oil psi (electric); I haven't had an issue, and their accuracy have been verified (at least the water temp, and boost ones)

BTW - DON'T spend $$$ on the air fuel one, it doesn't really tells you anything.

Evil Aviator

I had an Auto Meter Ultra-Lite boost gauge in my TII. It worked just fine, and I was very happy with the pillar mount.

Keep in mind that there are different qualities of Auto Meter gauges. I know that the Pro-Comp and Ultra-Lite (including Carbon Fiber) are at the high end, and Sport-Comp is at the low end. I am not sure about the other series. You may want to check with your Auto Meter dealer to make sure you get the better gauges if quality is a concern.

The Auto Meter AFR gauge works just fine, and I know of at least one leading RX-7 race team that uses it in their cars. It has 20 LED's, which offers a more graduated display than other gauges with less LED's. However, some people don't like the circular display.

Don't listen to the wideband internet hype. A narrowband sensor is great as a monitor, and I know many people who have tuned their engines with it.

KNONFS

iTrader: (14)

They must be DAMN good, if they tune their car with the autometer AFR Took it off, nothing more than a fancy circular christmas tree

Evil Aviator

Yes, I guess it doesn't do much good if you don't know very much about cars. That's a good point.

KNONFS

iTrader: (14)

You can say that, I am no expert by any means

Did you tuned you car by an autometer AFR?

usmcjsy

iTrader: (1)

If anyone cars I just bought a AEM wideband O2 sensor/gauge I will soon be selling my AutoMeter A/F gauge LOL.

Evil Aviator

No, my 1Gen RX-7 was street tuned by my local tuning guru, who did not use an AFR gauge of any type. My 2Gen RX-7 has not been tuned yet, but it will be base tuned with a narrowband O2 sensor and EGT, fine tuned with a wideband O2 sensor and EGT on a dyno, and will retain a narrowband AFR gauge and EGT gauge in the dash for monitoring purposes. I am also trying to obtain a turbine tachometer, but I have had trouble finding anything other than ultra-expensive aviation gauges. Many auto enthusiasts do not realize the huge advantage in knowing where the compressor is operating, but this is standard fare in the aviation community.

If you are looking for Auto Meter AFR gauge success stories, I know that at least one of these winning cars had an Auto Meter AFR gauge, and I suspect others also used one:
http://iscracing.net/index.htm

As for narrowband AFR gauges in general, I have several friends who use them as monitors and as tuning aids on their RX-7's. However, most of them just use the standalone EMS hand controller and/or datalogging rather than a dash gauge.

Yes, the AEM gauge seems pretty good.

KNONFS

iTrader: (14)

The autometer AFR has so many LED's (I know that is a good thing), but they are so close to each other, that it is very hard to know where you are at. I guess with tme, you can read it within tenth of a second, or guesstimate where you are at.

Evil Aviator

All AFR gauges are difficult to read under dynamic conditions. If you need more accurate readings, some type of datalogging is required. A dash-mounted AFR gauge displays a good general condition of the engine, and that's about it. However, this is all you really need when monitoring the engine, or getting a little help tuning your engine.

I think part of the confusion about AFR gauges comes from the fact that the really good tuners do not hunt for a magic AFR number, but rather use the AFR gauge as a general guide. The internet always makes it sound like you just tune the engine until the AFR gauge shows your target number. While this may work well for a novice with no tuning skills, it is not the process used by the really good tuners.

Maxthe7man

The autometer a/f will read full rich at 13.5:1....Don't tune your car with a autometer a/f in the power regions of the carb circuit/fuel maps, its narrow band, outside of 13.5-15:1 it wont show any change, you could inadvertantly change from 11:1 to 13.3:1 on boost and never know the difference with the autometer a/f, it will still sit there on full green. YOu can get a little more range and direction out of a narrow band 02 by using a graphing voltmeter, over a the autometer guage.. The autometer a/f however is very good for tuning closed loop, as that is within its range, and tends to show an unbuffered, response, where as the wideband depending on the brand of controller will show a average over time output in a greater span..
I have both in my car, wideband and autometer, the wb tells me where the mixture is at, the autometer shows me the cycling and hang rate of closed loop.Max

Killer Bee Fan

I have Oil press, water temp, volts, tach all autometer and they work well... They are sport comp and they are as reliable as the ultra lite, cobalt ones... Love them...

Evil Aviator

1) If it is doing that on pump gas, your O2 sensor is too cold.
2) Like most other AFR meters, it simply operates off a voltage reading from the O2 sensor. The O2 sensor is a lambda sensor, not an AFR sensor. Therefore, your gauge reading is actually in lambda, not AFR.
3) Regardless, the bottom line is that you should not use anything to tune your engine if you don't understand how it works. A wideband O2 meter is more accurate, so in your case I agree that you are much better off just using the narrowband sensor as an indicator for the closed loop changeover point.

Maxthe7man

I would think a heated 3 wire bathed in a 750 deg c egts' is about as optimal as its gonna get. Thats another reason not to use one of those meters for tuning, with no acutal heater control, the readings vary far to much, depending on conditions outside of just fueling. The wideband a/fs produce far more accurate readings, by having a controlled heater circuit. Once the narrowband is out of 14.7:1 its output increment change is to small for any relevant information to be used for power tuning on a lighted display.
Its very interesting to watch narrowband o2 ouput compared to the wideband readout, basically south of 13.5:1 there is little to no change in narrowband output, and its worse on the lean side, after 14.8, the changes are far smaller than the average a/f guages resolution will allow shown, its only a 50 mv change at that point.If an autometer shows lean, you can't tell if its 14.8 or 18:1...In a nutshell all it will tell you is you are at 14:7 , or either side of it, but not by how much, where as the wideband will...max