VEI Gauge weirdness
 

<p>I love my VEI guages, except when they don't work. I have an email into VEI but I was wondering if anybody could give me some things to try and troubleshoot this weirdness.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>

Can you borrow different gauges from someone else to see if it's your gauges or the signals they're getting?

<p>They are customish gauges. So I don't know anyone else running the same gauge. It would also require cutting up wiring.</p>

I've seen the same thing on my oil temp. After re-doing the ground and cleaning the sender pickup point it went away for a while. Now, for the past few months, it has read completely wrong and tops out at 140-150f regardless if I'm cruising down the highway or abusing it on the track. Lights on dimming never worked right either, they constantly alternate from dim to full bright every few seconds. I'm thinking they are just junk.

My AFR/boost works reliably though. So maybe it's just the temp sensors?

<p>Damn, thats not what I wanted to hear. I love these gauges....if they would work. I will try re-doing the ground. The support from VEI said I had a bad engine ground and gave me some stuff to test but it didn't fix it. I sent them the videos and have not heard back.</p>

I do too. I've got AFR & boost on one and oil temp & pressure on the other. I have yet to find anything else that can do that. Eventually I'll run oil temp/pressure to the MS and add a bright ass LED for high temp and low pressure.

All 3 of your videos look like mine when I had a bad ground and dirty sensor connection. Where are your gauges grounded?

<p>Don't remember. I'll try running a new ground wire.</p>

Mine was (still is?) run to the front engine ground. You can also ground to the MS, at least on the Reverant ones. Make sure you don't have anything else on the wire, especially something big like a heater ground from your O2 sensor.

<p>This is the gauge ground. Not the sensor. Because the sensors ground to whatever they are screwed in to.</p><p>I'll try grounding to something like that and see what happens. Maybe the ECU ground wire or something. Or just for testing purposes run a wire to the battery.</p>

I would ground to the engine, either via dedicated wire or a ground pin on the MS. Don't tap into any ground wires themselves. If you don't have the pinout on our MS showing which DB37 pins can be used for grounds, run a wire to the intake manifold ground block. Your sensors ground to the engine, your gauge should too.

<p>I have all my DB37 ground pins combined into the engine ground. I will run a dedicated wire for testing. If it works I'll come up with a finished solution.</p>

I've got their dual oil temp and pressure gauge and I've had some intermittent problems with it over the last few years. At one point I confirmed it was actually a bad sender unit (which they did replace for free). Also, just to be sure, I added a ground wire to the case of the sending units and tied it to engine ground, along with the ground lead for the gauge itself, but it still gets froggy on a rare occasion. :dunno: I agree though, I still love the gauge for it's compactness, just wish it was more rock solid.

You definitely want to try adding a ground to the sending units themselves, as that thread contact can be poor electrically.

<p>Mine has gotten pretty out of control. The weirdest part is when I turn the key off and on&nbsp;and it goes back to the correct reading.</p>

So here is what I've got:

AFR/Boost:
D1-BOP-WBA-MO
dual display, boost in psi & wideband in AFR, orange display

Using this with an LC-2. The AFR won't stay "programmed" and keeps reverting to what I believe is volts from the analog output from the LC-2. It seems to take a week before it looses its programming and goes back to displaying volts. It was fine for months after the initial install then started doing this crap.

Boost~Vac seems fine.

AIT/Water Temp:
D1-IAF-WTF-MO
dual display, IAT in F & water temp in F, orange display

Water temp worked fine for about a month, then it sticks at 160° and varies by 2-3°. Variance seems to follow thermostat opening and associated temp swing between 200°F and 185°F (195°F T-stat.)

AIT appears fine.

Oil Temp/Pressure:
D1-OPP-OTF-MO
dual display, Oil pressure in psi & oil temp in F, orange display

Oil temp worked fine for about a year, died yesterday. Sticks at 140° and follows the same type of 2-3° variance I'm seeing on the coolant temp.

Oil pressure appears fine.

Wiring:

12v power leads are all bundled together and sourced from the radio circuit under the dash. I have no radio. I changed to a dedicated source from the fuse box underhood and no change.

Grounds are bundled and run to a dedicated block ground.

Sensor inputs are all brand new GXL wire and ring terminals.

I have a sad, these were supposedly really nice gauges :(

<p>They are the best gauges ever....if they worked. I got one quick response from VEI and then nothing after. Have you contacted them directly?</p>

I believe this is due to how the Miata does its dimming. IIRC its not just a straight voltage regulation thing. This is why the dimmers never work in aftermarket stereos installed in Miatas.
Send them a link to this thread.

Didn't Hornet have some issues with his VEI stuff as well?

Yes, with the same results. They were quick to reply to the initial message then nothing after followup.

A few years ago, when I was working out the problem with my failed sender unit, I spoke several times with the owner/principal. He was quite responsive when available, but it seemed pretty clear (at that time anyway) that it was basically a one-man show there, and as he was traveling a lot, it was fairly hit and miss when you could catch him. YMMV

<p>I sent the link.</p><p>The dimmers work *fine&nbsp;for me.</p><p>You have to follow the instructions. If you hook it up to a dimmed light bulb like you would a standard gauge it wont work. You need to give the dimmer wire 12v and it will dim.</p><p>*they dim when the lights go on. But also randomly dim when using a turn signal.</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

I'm about to drop $150 on an Innovate Motorsports MTX-D oil temp and pressure combo gauge. Its not that I don't like the VEI stuff, I think its fantastic. My problem is I need something I feel like I can trust, and the VEI is rapidly approaching my bullshit threshold.

Anyone happen to know the resistance range on these sensors? No way they are a custom range, there must be a VDO or Autometer sender I can order from somewhere that'll work.

<p>I took measurements at some point. I'll try and remember to find them when I get home.</p>