gauge question, which ones are most needed?
 

Hey Guys,

I have room for 5 gauges and am just looking for your opinions on which ones are considered most important?

I already have the Boost/Vac and would think the Air/Fuel may be next on the list. Maybe Fuel pressure? Is it worth investing in oil pressure or oil temp or coolant temp as well? Also when is a pyrometer considered crucial?

Thanks for the opinions....

I'm going to be running AFR, Oil Temp, maybe EGT, my EBC reads boost. Currently have the AEM WB, works & looks awesome.
Many will argue you don't need the AFR gauge because you only need to know the AFR when tuning the car. So that will be a personal preference thing.

NOS psi

The Knight Rider AF ratio gauge tapping into the stock NB O2 signal is not very useful. I dumped mine in favor of the PLX Wideband O2 digital readout. PLX has a nifty little kit hat allows the Cylon Eye gauge to work off the wideband signal if you really like the bling. I have the wideband O2 AF, Boost/vac, EGT, and a fuel gauge tapped into my fuel lines under the hood that I can tape to my windshield whenever I need to check FP.

The EGT/Wideband combo allows me to sleep at night knowing I have mountain roads to drive the next day.

NB = narrowband :)

FHS do you have a pic of what you mean by cylon/knight rider af gauge, do you mean the little led swoop back and forth gauge?

Not to step on FHS, but basically any gauge that looks like these is to be avoided:
http://www.autometer.com/cat_gaugede...earch&gid=2484
http://www.autometer.com/cat_gaugede...earch&gid=2484
http://www.egauges.com/vdo_ind.asp?T...k&PN=A002E361N

The problem is not the gauge, but the narrowband sensor driving it. The attached chart shows the typical voltage output of a NBO2 sensor. It is accurate only within a very small range centered around lambda, beyond which it becomes highly non-linear and essentially useless.

In other words, a NBO2 gauge will simply read "rich" whether your AFR is 12.5:1 (good) or 10:1 (bad). It's useless as a tool for tuning turbo fueling.

Yup, what Joe said.

I guess PLX doesn't carry their adaptor that allows wideband signals to be sent to any of these types of gauges Joe linked to. Instead, they just have their own gauges now.

http://www.plxdevices.com/2InchGauges.htm

I'm running boost, oil temp, egt and AF driven to reflect WB output. EGTs are another good data point for tuning.