ITT We discuss high quality gauges
 

For the last few years I've relied on cheap autometer short-sweep gauges for water and oil temp.

I've had several issues with strange readings, finicky behavior, etc. over the years, changed the senders out more than once, and each time I have it seems that each new sender has it's own story to tell.

With the new motor that went in, I changed both senders so I'd be sure to get good temp readings moving forward. Gauges behaved normally but oil temp was strangely high. I tore everything apart, tried three different oil cooler orientations, tested every part, and basically wasted two days.

I'm banging my head on the wall, about to pull it all off again to test the sandwich plate/thermostat in a pot of water when my neighbor comes by and offers to loan me his uber-fancy gauges from his STI to compare readings with my autometer.

He comes back with an Omari temp gauge. Full sweep, all the connectors are OEM grade, turns out Omari is the mfg. of gauges for Subaru and that's why all the Suby guys go through the trouble of getting these from Japan because they are top quality and match the illumination of their oem gauges. So I wire it up and swap the sender in and voila! It reads 40 degrees less than my autometer did, and agrees with what my ECU is reading from the oem water temp gauge (my autometer h2o gauge was reading higher than the oem too).

Went for a drive and turns out my new oil cooler config is working great. I spent two days chasing a non-existent problem that I thought existed due to crappy gauges.

For those who TL;DR:
Cheap gauges suck. Factory-grade stuff is still working properly after 20 years. Autometer senders fail constantly and are not consistent unit to unit.

I want a full-sweep temp gauge with a proper range (100*-300*F) that is consistent and reliable and uses high-quality wiring, connectors, and materials so that it doesn't fail/fall apart in a year.
Bonuses would be peak temp recall and/or warning system at a set temp.

I'd go get the Omari units but it turns out they are hard to acquire, mostly available to UK and Japan. My neighbor says they are usually ~$175 per gauge when you can get them. After seeing how nice they are, I think I'd be willing to plunk the money down for them.

Let's discuss options.

I have a sponsor who can get ProSport and STACK gauges, prosport I've heard of, but at their price point (~$70 for the "premium") I'm afraid of their quality level. STACK looks really nice but is really $$ ($240 for premium)

-Ryan

Prosport are meh, boost gauge was ok for a while, voltage gauge was off by a couple 10ths. My fuel pressure sender form them started leaking, which is kind of a bad thing. VDO are really the only choice for not baller money. And VDO does also use OEM level connectors, OEM for a 1970's Porsche.

Not sure full-sweep vs short-sweep is the defining difference in the two setups you tested. I think full-sweep is nice and easier to see/read, but I am not sure you will get a more "accurate" gauge just because its full-sweep. I am wondering if you had some kind of mismatch between your senders and gauges? do all temp gauges come with the same ohmic range? I vaguely remember seeing different ranges for the oil pressure senders, but that may not apply to temp senders.

VDO gauges/senders are "cheap", but mine have been spot on so far. I am just a bit short of two years on them now.

I like VDO, Stewart Warner, Defi, and some of the older JDM ass fuck gauges are actually quite good as well.

I've had "sensor drift" issues with Prosports in the past. I'd run them on a street car because cheap and they look decent, but no way in hell i'd run them on a track car.

If you're willing to move from full sweep analog gauges, Zeitronix has an "all in one" solution that's pretty slick and accurate.

Get a digital dash if you can stand them. Aimsports or something similar. generally the sensor packages are high quality and some will use motorsports connectors which are way better than the exposed thread sensors most autometer guages use.

The digital dash will be more useful than a dash packed full of gauges, IMO.
Prosport gauges aren't that great. Having used some in a friends build they are no different than autometer.

I had some STRI gauges at one point and the fit and finish was nice, but I believe they use the same sending unit as most aftermarket gauges. they were brass and looked similar to autometer, though Im sure you could replace them with a nice stainless sending unit of the same range.

prosport is trash.
vdo is great omori is great and defi is great.

My autometers work just fine. Both water and oil temps are within 5 degrees on a boiling water test (BTW, when testing your temp gauges, don't compare to another gauge -- use physical properties instead -- water boils at 212F when subjected to a pressure of 1ATM -- end of story).

BUT, I take great pains with the quality of my electrical work. MILSPEC wire. Aerospace grade crimp connectors installed with a ratcheting crimper. Etc. Absolutely no BS. It's not expensive either. Go to Aircraft Spruce, Wicks or someplace similar.

The gauges are simple voltage dividers. The senders are RTDs (basically resistors). Everyone's senders are RTDs -- and everyone buys their RTDs from pretty much the same sources -- they're almost all made at foundries in the Far East these days. Don't think for a second that Autometer, VDO, Prosport, etc. make their own RTDs. LOL.

If you don't pay attention to your electrical work, you'll introduce resistance into the circuit and then all bets are off.

good post Ryan. Do you mind if we use spread this thread out a bit as it progresses to sender discussion and placement as well?

IIRC It's been suggested to me by a few guys in our local crew to check the accutech gauges out. I believe the 949 guys have used them for a few projects. The price seems to be right on these things and they look the part. I'm thinking I'm going to give them a shot in the very near future.

2 Gauge Molded CF Panel with AccuTech

AccuTech

Check out SPA's dual gauge offerings:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1401896563 https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1401896563

Dual Gauges - Buy dual gauges online

This is something I've been wanting to move towards any time I do eletrical jobs(MILSPEC wires & connectors, etc). Do you have a particular crimper you recommend?

Once you get into high end wiring, you need to consider the connection type for the proper crimper. Not the other way around.

I agree, full-sweep =/= more accurate in and of itself. Certainly given the ultimatim, I'd take a high-quality short-sweep over a low-quality full-sweep.
However, assuming a high-quality gauge, I want full-sweep for the accuracy in reading the gauge at a quick glance. Having used short-sweep for the past few years and just now experiencing a nice full-sweep, it's a night and day difference in the confidence you have when reading the gauge, and that's going to be important when you only have 1/2 a second to devote to looking at it between corners.

Agreed, a digital dash would be nice, I considered it for a moment but the budget isn't quite there for an all-in-one like that.

OK here's where we are at:

Prosport is out
VDO - I took a look and didn't like what I saw - almost everything is short sweep and it gives me the feeling of a glorified autometer.
Omari - turns out they are out of business
Defi - looks to be great quality, they actually remind me of the Omari stuff a lot. I like what I see here. Retail around $350 for a pair of temp gauges
AccuTech SMi - appears to have all the bells and whistles (full sweep, stepper motor, programmable warning light), and the price is attractive @ $200 for a pair, but I can't be sure about the quality (fake CF background doesn't instill confidence!) and I don't want to be the guinnea pig trying out an unknown... but could be promising.

The more I look at this the more I really like this option. I know SPA makes really good stuff, and $330 looks like a big chunk, but it's actually better than the cost of two Defi gauges...

Gotcha. VDO has the vision series which is supposed to be full sweep I think.

Edit: Most of them are full sweep.

Yeah, most of the VDO gauges are full sweep, and by that I mean ~270° I've never seen a 360° sweep gauge that wasnt a clock.

Ryan I'd ask emilio. He's the one I found out about the accutech gauges from.

This is erik btw... if you didn't know. :dealwithit:

Just got off the phone with SPA because their site had a typo (max temp listed as 70* C, it's actually 150* C)

Obviously every mfg is going to say their stuff is high quality, but I asked anyways. He said he couldn't say if it was MILSPEC or not, he believes it is, all the wiring is shielded and the gauge is aluminum and glass construction, not plastic.

The only thing I wasn't ecstatic about was they use a regular brass temp sender - The sender for the Omari I used was something else, some kind of chromed steel by the look, and not to say brass can't do the job but coming from experience with autometer brass senders being junk and Omari being awesome and using some other material, it makes me shy away from traditional brass senders, even though I probably shouldn't...

Ahhh thanks man. I might see what E has to say, but I always hate to bug him with a question not related to buying a product from him. If they're satisfied with the accuracy of the AccuTechs when compared side by side with their other readings from the digital dash, etc. that would be very reassuring. 100*-280* is a perfect range. Has an easily programmable warning system... I like.

edit: Now that I think about it, these are the gauges I saw in Nemo. I acutely remember not liking the look of the flat fake CF panel they were mounted in which is the first link you provided haha. But the gauge itself seems to be legit.

:bowrofl:

-Ryan

This. If you plan to have more than 2 or 3 gauges, a digital dash really isn't that much more expensive and looks waaaay cleaner. The Racepak stuff seems really nice, but they require a lot of add-on boxes and adapters and stuff that really drive up the price.

I have a Race Technology Dash2 and love it. You can wire in any sensor you want and calibrate the dash to the sensor yourself. The shift lights double as warning lights so that you can set min/max levels for each sensor channel and then never have to watch your gauges. They also have a serial interface that talks to megasquirt.

The Racepak IQ3 i have didn't require any add-on anything. Just plugged into my EMS and i was up and running.

I'm sure an all-in-one is in my future some day, but the jump from $200-300 for a couple gauges to $900+ is a big gap.

Speaking in terms of working within a budget, the oem tach and speedometer and my AEM wideband are already there and functioning. If it aint broke, don't fix it. (At least my speedo is working now that I've re-routed the cable through the cabin so the turbo doesn't melt it ;) )

As for other readings, everything except for temperature and AFR is something I don't need to see while on track - oil pressure sounds nice on paper but from all accounts I've heard, within the moment it takes for you to notice the gauge saying something is wrong (or even to react to a warning light), you'd know just as quickly by the bad noises the motor will be making.

Aside from that, fuel pressure, volts, etc. are things better left to just running a sensor to the megasquirt - you only need to see this stuff while troubleshooting in the garage/pits with the laptop plugged in anyways.

-Ryan

For general wiring on the car . . .

This for wire (high heat, abrasion resistant, super-fine tinned strands):
UNSHIELDED WIRE MIL-W-22759/16 from Aircraft Spruce

This for studs (note the feature "tin plated copper wire support sleeve" -- that's the main difference):
RING TONGUE VINYL INSULATED TERMINALS from Aircraft Spruce

This for spades (Style B):
PIDG FASTON RECEPTACLES BY AMP from Aircraft Spruce

This for crimping. BTW, I've noticed something that looks really similar at O'Reilly's. I'm wondering if there are reasonable quality knock-offs out there these days?
22-10AWG TERMINAL CRIMP TOOL from Aircraft Spruce

The studded senders are reliable if you use these types of parts for wiring. They will not be reliable if you wire them with whatever you pick up at the parts store. The advantage to the more expensive senders being discussed is the modern weather-pak style connectors they include which forces you to use good wiring practices. The actual sensing element in both types is the same and probably came from the same foundry.

we are a SPA dealer. We stock a lot of their fire systems. If you need a quote just PM me.

I just had a quick conversation with Emilio, he had some good input about the AccuTech gauges as well as insight about gauges in general - what's important to have and what isn't.

I checked to be sure he was cool with me putting this info online and he was all for it.

Regarding the AccuTech SMi gauges, this is what they've been using in most of the enduro cars and now most of the SuperMiatas ever since they discovered them.

Some of the enduro cars used to have IQ3 dashes, so in those cases these gauges were just for visual confirmation of readings on track. Now, for many of the SPMs which have a smaller build budget, these are the primary gauges. They did their due dilligence on testing the AccuTech readings side by side with the IQ3 and were happy with the accuracy. And he says he really likes the warning system on them.

They've had only one or two senders go bad for these (and remember this is 949 which is spending more time on track in one year than many of us in a decade), but the nature of the failures were very clear and identifiable - basically a dead gauge - not a case of the gauge reading looking OK but being off by a bit, such as was my problem with the Autometers.

Regarding gauge choices for a race car:

Water Temp, Oil Temp and Coolant pressure are the key gauges to have he said. Oil pressure is less necessary than everyone thinks, if things go bad you won't need a gauge to tell you.
Water pressure is the interesting item to me. Sender location at the back of the head. They run the signal to the IQ3 and set a minimum value with a warning. This is crucial because a cooling system leak, pinhole in the radiator, etc. can often not show itself in the temperature in a good cooling system until it all of a sudden spirals quickly to a total failure, but it will show up in the pressure a few laps earlier.

Given no IQ3, he agreed that a oil pressure gauge re-purposed for coolant pressure would serve the same function (coincidentally, Accutech has a great looking unit)

The only other gauge he put on the list of must haves is fuel pressure IF you run boost - but unnecessary for N/A. But, since I have a wideband front and center already, I will probably not add a fuel pressure gauge for now.

-Ryan

Awesome info, thank you for this.

Water pressure gauge can also help show loss of the water pump as well. IIRC some gauge companies actually sell water pressure gauges.

Excellent! I will bookmark them. :)

It's hard to beat a mechanical gauge for reliability in the face of voltage variations, but accuracy is also meh and you don't get alarms.

I just want an alarm if my oil pressure drops below 18psi or my water temp pushes above 230 degrees on the track so I can keep an eye on it. I'm only glancing at them occasionally otherwise. Many brands will do that.


Besides VDO, I also see ISSPRO in a lot of OEM industrial and heavy truck applications.

If you are truly running all of it, you need an appropriately scaled gauge:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1401909588

Shit! I thought i had my boost gauge game on lock, and you had to go and post that?

Fucking Picasa is killing me. I have a VDO 60psi gauge. You'll just have to trust me.

Pretty sure I'm going to pull the trigger on some AccuTechs.

Not at all, on that subject, my current sender locations are:
Water temp - back of head in reroute spacer (ideal)
Oil temp - in drain plug adapter. Pros and cons to this. This location should read slightly lower than other locations might, but on the up-side it's a really consistent, reliable source since it's sampling from the greatest pool of oil. You won't see the temp gauge drop once you get up to speed and get airflow through an oil cooler until all of the oil has cycled through the cooler and come back to the pan.

-Ryan

My oil temp sender is in the sandwich adapter. Reads hotter but it's a direct read of the pre-cooler temperature of oil in active circulation.

What is the consensus on VEI system gauges?

Products - VEI Systems

Both the V1 single gauges and the D1 dual function gauges?

I run one of the dual function wideband/boost gauges in my own car. The boost gauge portion has never worked. I called VEI and the guy was very helpful and told me to send it in and they would fix it at no cost but I was lazy and still haven't done it almost 2 years later. The wideband part however is very accurate and the build quality on the gauge is great. Does anyone else have experience with them?

In for the response. Considering running their oil temp/oil pressure gauge.

I use their dual wideband/boost gauge on the Silver car. I remember there was some kind of issue with it that they immediately fixed with a software upgrade (probably in my build thread). It's been fine ever since, This would have been like 3 or 4 years ago.

I've been running my SPA dual gauge for 5 years now. I did have to replace the oil pressure sender once. Other than that, no issues.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...gauges_day-jpg

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...uges_night-jpg


Edit - each warning light is independently configurable, and there's also an independently configurable output for each readout that you can use to drive a relay to power a warning light somewhere else.

Found it. Had a software issue that kept me from being able to calibrate the wideband portion of the VEI gauge. No issues whatsoever after the fix.

https://www.miataturbo.net/build-thr...d-55737/page3/

Have you looked into the innovative dual function gauges?
MTX Digital Series "Dual Function" Gauges

The outer color bar on both of those is useless. You want data, not fancy colors. The D1 dual gauges seem to be a bit better thought out but still I just get a sense of "tuner" focus and bling from both of them, with not enough focus on just making a gauge that works well - maximum amount of data in a quickly retrievable format. And that doesn't give me good feelings for where their focus was for the build quality.

The SPA gauge looks like the best "dual" gauge I've seen for easily readable display, identifiable ("OIL" is way better than a little oil can symbol - although it's best practice to just add a label to the gauge anyways) and having good construction quality.

Regardless though, I'm going to give the AccuTech oil and water temp gauges a shot. If my experience mirrors how Emilio feels about them, I'll go ahead and get the pressure gauge to use for coolant as well.

-Ryan

I have two of their gauges. The boost/AFR and oil pressure/temp. Oil temps randomly read incorrectly. Within a 5 second span it will vary up and down 50+f and sometimes past the 320* limit. Doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason when it happens, steady state cruise, stopped, on the track. Maybe the sender is bad or I need some aircraft grade wiring.

Calibrating the AFR gauge is a giant pain in the ass. It only adjusts up and with 3 digits that means you're hitting the button 90+ times just to cycle back around to a couple points below.

This thread makes me warm and fuzzy inside.

Might want to check that the temp gauge has a good ground path to the engine block. This kind of randomness sounds like a ground loop.

+1 on AFR calibration. That was a pain. And first time I did it, it didn't work anyway because of a software issue.

Crap. My confidence level in my 3-4 year old never installed VEI boost/AFR gauge is now waning. :bang:

I've looked at both Turbofan's and Mobius' Spa gauge. They work very nicely. I've found that on track, you have a split second to look, and would never notice if they dipped to unacceptable levels anywhere but a straight. For instance, I've wanted for years to monitor my oil pressure during braking. I have yet to remember to do it.

Whatever gauge you get, plan on three giant warning lights for low coolant pressure, and higher coolant/oil temp.

+1 on you wont be looking at gauges while on track/racing.

My plan was to build a BIG YELLOW and BIG RED light, probably shift light type, to mount on top of my "dash". Yellow is better watchout, something's about to go. Red means shut it down NOW!

Yeah warning lights seem like a great feature to have/add. You have only moments to monitor gauges on straights. For temperature, it's not so bad - periodically checking just to make sure the value is within an acceptable range is great, but pressure can fluctuate quickly just based on throttle activity. Warning system is crucial.

Aaand that short moment of time to visually scan each gauge on the straight brings us to the subject of gauge location. Basically the entire center console is out. Perfectly fine for a street car, terrible on the track. It requires wayyyy too much head motion and detachment from view of the track ahead.

My oil/water temp gauges are currently in a pod mounted on top of the center of the dash. The height is good, just below your line of vision looking out the windshield, but I'd like them to be angled towards me instead of pointed at the back window.

In a perfect world with high budgets, most people's answer is to go the opposite way - get an all-in-one dash with all your various senders wired to it, then just set up warning lights for each thing, then go drive and never look at any of those numbers unless lights start flashing at you. But especially with a turbo car, I'm constantly monitoring how everything is behaving, I don't think I'd be happy just ignoring everything and telling myself it must be fine because the warning lights aren't on...

Mounted in a bad location, you won't ever look. In a good location, you'll check them often.

-Ryan

I'm going to act like this is the subreddit explain it like i'm 5.

Let's assume oem 01 motor with all of the oem trimmings (no coolant re-route, oem oil filter stuffz etc, oem radiator) Where would I place senders for Water Temp, Oil Temp and Coolant pressure.

Water Temp - I assume that you drill/tap the spot on the back of the head where a coolant re-route would go?
Oil Temp - Ryan suggested drain plug, some one else suggested at the oil filter. If you don't have an oil cooler or an oil filter relo... do you just add a spacer under the oil filter? If so who sells them?
Coolant pressure - No idea.

Water temp: use the stock location.
Oil Temp: if you are not running oil pressure, then remove the dummy oil pressure sender and put your oil temp there. Otherwise you can tee off that port.
Coolant pressure: harder, you will have to drill for that one. I would use the back of the engine where the temp sensor is.

Welll, you should always have a re-route, really.

So then, for the reroute you add a spacer to the back of the head (between the block and the water neck that your new upper radiator hose will attach to) there are a couple spacers out there, but the one I have from BEGI has several threaded ports in - for the oem coolant temp sender, a barbed fitting for your heater core line (this hole is plugged for me) and also for additional sensors. Can't remember exactly how many ports it has on it, but if you have enough, you can put your additional water temp and pressure senders in there.

For oil temp, the method I use is a brass adapter - has a male side with same threads as a drain plug, with a hole that runs through the center of the thing, and that hole has internal female 1/8 npt threads (universal sender thread size).
Your other option would be a sandwich plate between the block and oil filter that just has ports for senders. This wasn't an option for me because that location is taken by a sandwich plate for the oil cooler. I wish it had a third port on it for a temp sender, but alas.. Anyways, Mocal makes good sandwich plates.

Here's one from Maruha - I'm sure Bill at Miataroadster can get these for you: http://www.maruhamotors.co.jp/miata/parts/oilblock.html
Here's one from Mocal, this is the style for gauge senders, not flow-through for an oil cooler, so I don't run it, so I am not 100% sure I'm linking to the one that fits our cars, you'd need to verify that's the right threads: http://www.racerpartswholesale.com/p..._Plate#reviews
Oh, and absolutely don't get the eBay sandwich adapters that look similar to the Mocal stuff. Just say no.

-Ryan

On oil temp locations:

1. Drain Plug: Pre-cooler location but will see some cooling effect from the pan and stagnation.
2. Oil Filter Sandwich: Pre-cooler location for sensing actively circulated oil.
3. Oil Pressure Port: Post-cooler location for sensing actively circulated oil.

Adjust your expectations of oil temperature accordingly. 3 will be the coolest (assuming your oil cooler works) followed by 1 and then 2 (hottest).

Like Track said, use the stock locations if possible.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...-along-hed-jpg
Yes I know its a 4W head but the casting is pretty much the same.

Big red arrow is pointing at a metric port that can be drilled and tapped for something larger, like 1/8" NPT. Perfect place for an aftermarket water temp or pressure sender (assuming you aren't fighting with clearance for an EGR tube, reroute tube, etc.)

If you are going to drill and tap the head, you should probably remove the head. If you are going to remove the head, you should think about using the 94-00 head gasket + coolant reroute. If you end up with a reroute, you will have extra ports for more things ;)

The sandwich adapters for oil temp are pretty common. I believe the filter is M20x1.5 (someone please correct me if this is wrong) and you can usually find the sandwiches sold by the same folks that sell the gauges, or turbo oil feeds generally have extra ports in them as well. I know Glowshift makes one but some people have reported quality control issues with that particular brand. Get your search on!

I drilled my oil pan and had a 1/8"NPT bung welded in for oil temp. I wanted a pre-cooler location because the mocal thermo sammich should keep things under control regardless :party:

also, you can use -AN to -AN with 1/8 npt port spacer on a sandwhich plate or on the way out to an oil cooler if you like for oil related stuff.

Because in the back of my head I always knew I was using a cheap water temp gauge, I wanted to keep my stock water temp gauge functional for comparison.

I was about to say that if you get a nice quality gauge that isn't an issue any more, but doesn't the ECU still need to see coolant temp for warmup and other things, in which case you need to keep the oem coolant temp sender, not just yank and toss it to make room for an aftermarket one?

Just keep in mind that anything in-line with the cooler is on the outside of the thermostat in the sandwich plate. Probably not best for temp since it won't read until the thermostat opens.

-Ryan

At least on the VVT heat thats an NPT port.

Well... yes and no. There's water temp gauges that have an output.

Really depends on the setup. On the Miata, i believe the fans are controlled by MS, MS reads the factory sensor, and the gauge has its own deal. (But, the water temp gauge could handle output to ECU as well, moving to a single sensor setup) On my MX6, i have an aftermarket fan thermoswitch, sending unit for gauge, sensor for ECU, and i can't remember if i removed the factory gauge sensor or not.

Escort.... i have an AEM sensor. Feeds Haltech. Haltech controls fans. Haltech transmits temp to be displayed on Racepak.

Tons 'o' ways to skin the cat.

SHit really? I thought it was metric. Now that's even easier! :bigtu:

With regards to factory temp senders, fans, etc... I believe this changed between the 1.6, 1.8 and NB models. Some have one sender for the ECU and a separate one that controls the coolant fans. Concealer is right about the MS though, it's usually wired to control everything

Moral of the story is Be aware of what you are working with before you go crazy pulling out and relocating sensors.

Personally, I would not want to eliminate the oem water temp sensor or wiring. Replacing it with an aftermarket one and doing your own wiring for it almost guarantees something in that sytem won't be as high of quality as the oem was, and your ecu is using that signal. I don't mean for fans, those could be on switches or operated by a separate sensor as is the case for the 1.6, I mean for warmup enrichments, etc.
It's one thing to get an innaccurate reading on your gauge, it's another thing for that reading to be affecting how your motor runs.
I'd leave that exactly as it is so that if I suspected something wasn't reading right, I could always verify it against the oem reading. I like redundancy...

In my case, the entire harness had to be built from scratch, all mil-spec w/ deutsch connectors. I'd trust that over 20+ year old factory crap any day.

I'm anti-Miata.net viewpoint to the extreme. Fuck everything factory. :rofl:

Fair enough, and there's some great info earlier in this thread for quality wiring resources which will help for single-wire stuff like grounds and sender wires.
I need to elevate my game in the wiring department.

So what about if you're dealing with multiple wires and want to simplify things into one plug - as opposed to how I do it now which is a single male/female connector (low quality auto parts store style) on each individual wire?

I've looked up deutsch connectors before and just gotten lost, not knowing the differences between all the different types. Then I looked at all the choices of pins, didn't know which ones went with which connectors... yikes. What series has the specs you want for automotive stuff?
Something like "ignore the rest, use this type of connector and pins, just pick how many pins you need for the speicific job" would really clear things up to a wiring rookie like me...

-Ryan

edited the above post with additional questions...

Well, honestly. I use the stock water temp gauge and sender. They work amazingly well if you do the linearity mod. There is like 50 million write ups on how to it and it costs about $2 in resistors from radioshack. I don't see the need for an aftermarket water temp sender or gauge on the miata.

I also happened to do the linearity mod on my oil pressure gauge but found it to be less useful. With temp. you know about where you need to be and small red strip will tell you what not to pass.

As for oil temp. if its before your t-stat opens, then you probably don't care anyway. You can also run a non-t stat'd sandwhich plate, or run an in-line t-stat that is outside of the sandwhich plate. All options which can get pretty complicated quick.


Pinning connectors tends to be difficult to find. A lot of the high quality pin & connector stuff are intended for manufacturing. the parts aren't expensive, but the pinning tool is usually north of $1000, some way beyond that. It sucks. SparkFun has some good stuff for the hobbyist, but most of it is not intended for automotive or high heat application.

We use these heat shrink/solder crimp connectors from Del City with the correct ratcheting crimper.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1401994771
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1401994771

Ryan if your willing to wait I am working on an arduino based gauge solution that monitors oil temp, oil pressure, coolant temp, coolant pressure, voltage, and fuel. Code will contain warnings and shift light as well. Currently have the circuitry and sensor calibration equations down on paper. I have built similar circuitry and wrote programs for the lab like this so should work out. I plan to do a writeup once done.