Meter gauge help

Upc23

The mitsubishi evo which recently i bought doesn't have any auto gauges installed, which ones are necessary/worth buying (oil temp/boost/turbo etc) and where would be best to purchase them and have them installed? Thanks

Chimaera

For a performance car, I'd probably go for turbo boost, oil temperature, oil pressure as a minimum. I'm surprised they're not fitted as standard in an EVO.

dougie-lampkin

On mine I've gone for oil pressure, battery voltage and inlet vacuum. On a turbo motor you could swap this for combined boost and vacuum. I assume it has the standard water temp gauge, anything else isn't of much use (bar the vacuum gauge if you want to drive economically) apart from aesthetics, so you might as well get something that moves around like oil pressure and vacuum/boost.

I got mine from mcgillmotorsports on eBay, send them an eBay message and see what they can do if you want to get a few gauges, I got the three for €65 including delivery over a year ago. They look the business, especially at night, but the oil pressure gauge packed in after a month when I jump started the car with no battery. Also, as you can see in the picture, the voltage gauge is missing a few segments. This occasionally happens the vacuum gauge (once a month), but was a one off on the voltage. This could again have been caused by the jump start. They're decent units for the price IMO, I've saved the cost of the gauges in fuel as a result of the vacuum gauge. I've gone from ~25mpg to ~32mpg just by reading it carefully, and that's without driving like an OAP

Chimaera

I'd argue that oil temperature is probably the most important - you don't want to cane an engine that's not at operating temperature, and oil temperature is the most reliable indicator of that.

Most modern cars have idiot gauges for water temperature that only give a rough idea of the actual temperature. I've done a lot of research into VWs setup in particular where the gauge shows 90 *C for anything between about 75 and 105 degrees.

CJhaughey

Chimaera wrote: »

I'd argue that oil temperature is probably the most important - you don't want to cane an engine that's not at operating temperature, and oil temperature is the most reliable indicator of that.

Most modern cars have idiot gauges for water temperature that only give a rough idea of the actual temperature. I've done a lot of research into VWs setup in particular where the gauge shows 90 *C for anything between about 75 and 105 degrees.

Thats common in a lot of cars, it saves the manufacturers helpline from being inundated with calls about gauges moving!
Toyotas have a resistor that flattens the temp out so the needle never moves from the middle of the dial.

idunnoshur

dougie-lampkin wrote: »

On mine I've gone for oil pressure, battery voltage and inlet vacuum.

What does the inlet vacuum guage tell you?

dougie-lampkin

Chimaera wrote: »

I'd argue that oil temperature is probably the most important - you don't want to cane an engine that's not at operating temperature, and oil temperature is the most reliable indicator of that.

Most modern cars have idiot gauges for water temperature that only give a rough idea of the actual temperature. I've done a lot of research into VWs setup in particular where the gauge shows 90 *C for anything between about 75 and 105 degrees.

The main reason I didn't plumb in an oil temperature reading was that there's already an electronic sender for oil pressure Water temperature isn't as reliable as oil temperature, I agree. But certainly on an NA motor, once you're not running it within an inch of its life, having the coolant at running temperature is a good enough sign of a warmed up engine. On an oil cooled turbo, an oil temperature (and possibly an EGT) gauge would be a bigger priority.

idunnoshur wrote: »

What does the inlet vacuum guage tell you?

How much vacuum is in the intake manifold? It's an indication of how much air/fuel is being sucked through the carb basically, keep the vacuum as high as possible and you'll burn less juice. It's almost the same as a throttle position sensor if you're measuring manifold vacuum as opposed to ported vacuum, but this means drilling and tapping the manifold for a take-off. All well and good on an alloy manifold like mine has, but I wouldn't fancy it on a modern plastic manifold.