If you could only have 3 gauges to mount in your car, what would they be?

 

Boost, EGT or AFR, Coolant

 

My setup:

 

Oil press, Coolant temp, AFR

 

Just as a footnote :

The stock oil pressure gauge works perfectly with a new sending unit.

Most of the FD guys run Power FCs, which gives coolant temp on the commander.

 

You can view wtr temp, boost and I forget what else on the commander but it's in metric. I had a hard time remember the conversions. Which gauges would you actually benefit from? Look at the guages and ask yourself if you need that information. Which are critical? Fuel pressure would be nice for tuning and diagnosing but not critical in my opinion. Oil pressure? I'd rather know the oil temp. EGT? Well maybe if I had two but not critical. AFR, nice for tuning but i'd probably stare at it more and more getting paranoid of detonation.

My three would be:
1. boost.
2. Oil Temp
3. Water Temp

 

boost, water temp, fuel pressure.

this is after you verify your AFR and/or EGT's of course...

 

boost, AFR, water temp

 

boost, afr, fuel pressure. as goodfella said the stock oil pressure guage is good, and coolent can be read on the pfc.

 

Primary:
boost
oil pressure
coolant

Secondary:
afr
egt
fuel pressure
oil temp

I have all the above gauges, they are very helpful for tuning.

 

BOOST: I converted the stock oil pressure gauge to read boost. It is accurate, responsive and scaleable to whatever I want it to be. And it's already in the right place. (My engineering firm makes a module to do this, if anyone is interested.)

IMO, Oil pressure [esp on a rotary] isn't a major issue. So I use a pressure switch hooked up to the low oil warning light to double for loss of pressure.

Coolant
Oil temp -- useful for a rotary

EGT's and/or AFR
Fuel pressure (a low pressure warning lamp is a good alternative)

 

Radar detector

 

AFR isn't going to help at all unless you're talking a complete WBO2 setup.

Coolant Temp
Oil Pressure (whether properly working stock or aftermarket)
Oil Temp

If you're single:
EGT

 

same

 

afr and fuel pressure. microtech dash displays the rest..

 

afr, boost, and oil temp...

 

I have boost, fuel press, oil temp...power fc tells me the rest

 

EGT, boost, oil temperature

 

AFR, Boost, Fuel Pressure, but I also have Oil temp, Oil pressure, EGT, and Intake Air Temp.

 

Bring this thread back up as I am wondering if stock oil and coolant temp gauges are linear or if they are set to read in stages?

If linear I would imagine the 4 gauges to add would be boost, fuel pressure, AFR and dual EGT

 

coolant is not linear. There are some old threads on linearization of the stock gauge if you want to search for it.
oil pressure is accurate / linearized

 

IMO fuel pressure gauge is mainly for diagnostic purposes rather than prevention. Unlike boost, water, AFR, and EGT.

 

Tachometer
Oil temp

 

I got rid of the analogue gauges/binned them. You wont be able to react fast enough to prevent any kind of failure. Invest in a modern ecu, which can control all parameters seamlessly in the background and engage engine protection strategies within 0.5s/faster if required.

Plus the tablet is portable and can be removed to give a cleaner oem look, while you enjoy the driving experience without having to worry about monitoring gauges manually, while driving at speed and not crashing!