Gauges with warning function?
 

What does everyone run? I never have much time to look at gauges when I'm out on the track deflating egos of those with more expensive cars.

I'm after something that can activate a light and/or buzzer and has an electric sender (no mechanical shiz, not keen on hot oil lines in cabin).

Cheers

Prosport makes great defi knockoffs. electrical with light and buzzer functions.

though I don't think most here will see a tiny little led on a gauge light up or a little beep when they're on track focusing on not killing themselves.

That's OK - I'd be prepared to rip one apart and extend the wiring out to a crazy bright LED on the cluster.

Buy this.

http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...Ti75jSAlCjsGWK

Fraking LOVE mine. So nice to have on the track. Oil/water temp, oil press, boost, rpm, speed, lap timer, shift lights, warnings custom settable with BRIGHT red lights + more.

I have liked my 10mm LED shift-light aimed at my eyes through reflection in the windscreen.
Call it HUD if you want but the main point is that it's right in my face when looking straight forward, no need to peek through the wheel to see the tacho.

Oil light and coolant pressure light will be the next ones to be placed there (on the right edge of the instrument cluster cover, aimed by bending the legs of the LED).

In bright sunlight it could have been a little brighter (just choose resistor to your liking) but then it would have been blinding in darker situations (it should be information, not a distraction).

I've got a dual oil & water temp gauge from SPA. You can customize the alarm set points and it has outputs for external warning devices.

Whatever gauge you get, check the current limits for the warning device outputs because they probably aren't more than 100-200 mA. You're probably okay with running LEDs directly but loud buzzers or incandescent bulbs will probably require a relay.

DEFi.

I have DEFi in my STi they are quite nice but spendy
I have Prosports in the Miata not quite as nice but cheaper
I think STRI have warning lights but I don't know how good they are

The PLX MFD LCD gauges are cool and have configurable warnings I think but they can get spendy with the sensor modules. Someone on here has a PLX set up Faeflora(?)

I could program my MS to make my door ajar buzzer go off under certain conditions.

For low oil pressure, I run an LED in the pillar and an oil pressure switch out of the Borg Warner book. Its a 10psi switch. Its fairly blinding and grabs your attention.

Total cost- 10 dollars.

Great thought on the door buzzer Brain. I can program my ECU to blink the check engine light under certain conditions, knock is what I'll be monitoring when I get around to it.

Any info on this?

I have AEM digital gauges...I fucking hate them.

According to my diagrams the door switches are switched grounds on a red/white wire in my 94. You could splice into that wire and run it to one of your spare ports on the MS and have it triggered to ground whenever your warning conditions are met.

Buzzers can be annoying though. Older RX-7s have a buzzer that goes off at redline to remind you to shift. It's only on for a split second at a time and I still find it mildly annoying. If your oil temp goes high, that buzzer could be pissing you off for a while before it cools back down. You can set the hysteresis of the warning parameter to a low value so it turns off quickly, but I don't know off the top of my head if you can set the port to shut off after x amount of time.

This would be the settings on the "outputs" section in tunerstudio? It has an option for CLT, TPS, etc etc. Sorry for the questions, I didn't even know MS could do this. :facepalm:

This seems easier than buying gauges with a warning function. I looked at some prices for the gauges mentioned in this thread and they aren't as cheap as I thought.

Thats exactly why it'll work. I'd rather have to deal with 5 minutes of buzzing than hours in the shop fixing stuff.

A well-placed light will get my attention just as well as a buzzer, without grating on my nerves.



Sounds about right, though I never messed with tunerstudio when I had MS1. You should have a couple unused outputs that can be triggered by any of the selectable parameters.

Of course, for MS to trigger an alarm for it, you have to have a signal going to MS in the first place. CLT and RPM are no problem but most people probably don't have their oil temp sensors hooked up to their MS. Not sure what else would be important enough for a buzzer.

On MS2/3 you can configure the outputs so that multiple parameters must be met, so you could make the buzzer only buzz when MAP is above 240 kPa and AFR is above 15:1. :D

Autometer "Elite" series gauges.

Electric with "full sweep" movement.
LED illumination.
Full-face warnings (the entire illumination of the gauge changes colors).
Several different colors to choose from.
Typical setup:
Over-Low warning: Flashing Green
Low warning: Green
Normal: White
High warning: Red
Over-High warning: Flashing red
"Pro Control" Activate solenoid when a set point is reached (ie: turn on fan at 190°F). Has two outputs one high (12v), one low (ground).
Data acquisition (0-5 volt) output for data loggers.

Not cheap. $150-230 depending on the gauge.

I like them high on the dash. Anything below the steering wheel or eyeball vents is useless on-track.

For $230 per, there are a whole lot nicer gauges on the market. It doesn't take very many of those to make a data logging dash viable.


And Dave Coleman published a study in Sport Compact Car years ago about ergonomic gauge placement, and had a lot of very good reasons to mount your gauges as far away from you as possible on the far side of the dash board, all on the same focal plane. It takes much more time to focus on several focal planes and look back at the track than it does to process the data on all those focal planes.

Why ?
I just bought 3 of those

I run the same gauges as Wildo (and attend the same events) but never looked in his car for placement. Mine are in a common bezel top/center of dash. What doesn't come across in Wildos description is how bright the entire gauge face is when lit up. When it goes red you can't miss it. You don't have to look for some little LED - the whole 2" gauge face lights up, then strobes if you continue into the alarm zone. There's a peak memory too, I think they're excellent.

Only downside (to me) is the dimmer isn't a significant difference & they're distractingly bright at night. I put a toggle in line on the power feed and only use them on the track or for diagnostics.

I've got the boost and UEGO.

The numbers aren't too bad on the front... but the dial indicator is useless and at night the numbers don't even lights up. The LED display numbers are 10x brighter then the dial indicator so its impossible to read.
Also, the digital boost comes with a shit map sensor that even the aem ems doesn't read properly. After a 30min convo with aem themselves, they told me not to use the output on their own gauge for the AEM ems.

That is why they suck, i'm sorry you wasted your hard earned money.

I went with separate warning lights independent of the gauges. I'm pretty happy with them. Gauges are great, but if I have an issue I want something obnoxiously blaring "shut it down".

You can find them at the bottom of this page:
http://www.longacreracing.com/catalo...t.asp?catid=11

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-8...2/PICT5448.JPG

I just looked at all 150 of your LS1 build pics. Very nice.

The gauges are mounted very high up - can't miss 'em! This is an old pic. All 3 gauges are Autometer Elite now. All 3 also have outputs to my datalogger.
https://www.me.com/ro/willm/Gallerie...13112909110001

Another old picture, this time in the car. Pardon the mess. :)
https://www.me.com/ro/willm/Gallerie...13112909220001

I thought this was important once, then I twisted each gauge so that if it went past vertical, there was a problem.

Awesome idea! I just ordered three Prosport gauges and will be mounting mine in this fashion. They have the alarm, too.

Cheers

Prosport gauges are a piece of shit and you will end up replacing them in just a few years but the price is nice. Kinda penny wise dollar foolish when it comes to them. LOngarce is what i would buy next.

PLX DM-100. Can set thresholds for alerts. Win and no gauges eeeerrrrywhere spam.

Yep, old racing trick. I do this when I can. Our FSAE car's gauges were like this, even the tach.

Where is that thread about the guy in Turkey that was building a DIN mounted kit for a decent price? Tried to search but couldn't come up with it.

^ YES! Winning.

Prosport gauges are JUNK---period.

I had prosports in my WRX.

The boost was pretty inaccurate over 9psi, when I compared the manifold pressure readings from Romraider, I was tuned for 18psi, my logs confirmed this yet my gauge would read anywhere from 17-21psi

The EGT was very slow to react, and only said it was seeing 1200F in the Exhaust mani 2-3inches from the head.

Then I switched to Defi BF, boost was right on. EGT moved very fast and actually went up to 1400F(generally what is seen)

So ya.... you get what you pay for

When I got my Defis I actually gave my prosports away for free because I felt like I would be ripping someone off if I took money for them.

PLX DM-6. Badass shit. Touchscreen motherfucking gauge!!!!

Also they have a wideband sale. DM-6 and wideband module for $200! FUU YAHH

Thanks for recommending them and then bagging them out! :giggle:

If it all goes to shit at least I have the senders I can feed into something decent.

I really need to stop coming to this forum.... its making me poor.

The PLX system has me very interested.

I just use an " oh shit " led light for the oil pressure.

Can't miss that mongrel, unless you bloody useless ( and yes he was) as my co-driver doesn't look at guages, and now the car is fitted with murphy units for when the new motor is finished.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1319961955

Terry

I've been running the Spek Pro series gauges, same things as seen in NASCAR now. Saw these guys at SEMA back in 07 and fell in love with the quality, performance, and accuracy. They have programmable outputs, flashing alarms (low and high) dimmable lighting, the best sending units known to man... and really great mounting system.

After using Defi, Prosport, Autometer, and all others... Spek has totally won me over in all of my cars. You will spend more $$$ on them but they don't die like the Prosports, ohh and scratch resistant lens with anti-reflective coatings!!!!!!!!