S13 project -- looking for some feedback

[SickS13RB26]

Looking for some feedback on the placement of the gauges. Let me know what you think...thx
http://i412.photobucket.com/albums/pp203/daherron/IMG_20130609_085310.jpg">http://i412.photobucket.com/albums/pp203/daherron/IMG_20130609_085215.jpg">http://i412.photobucket.com/albums/pp203/daherron/IMG_20130609_084945.jpg">

[ShadowMan]

That's a whole lotta gauges. You sure you want that many in and around your cockpit? With that much work you are already doing, maybe a custom gauge pod? Or 3 on the dash and 3 on the right side of your dash where it comes down to meet your center console. What are all 6 of those monitoring?

[shift_down]

Three on driver side a pillar, and three in the ac vent unit. That way you can categorize them by priority. The three on the driver side pillar being the most crucial (wideband, boost, oil pressure), and the other three in the ac vent.

[Kingtal0n]

Can I guess some?

Water temp
oil temp
oil press
EGT? (i hope)
Air Fuel
transmission temp?

That was fun.

edit: forgot boost. of course, boost.

[SickS13RB26]

monitoring this:
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also installing Racepac where gauge cluster used to be, was thinking of flanking it with a gauge on either side, possibly leaving 4 on the dash
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[shift_down]

Why you have 2 mafs?

[SickS13RB26]

that was old setup changing it over to the Power FC Djetro. Those are going away.

[Kingtal0n]

your bmc looks like it might melt. get a turbo blanket and a heat shield.

[SickS13RB26]

still doing some engine work swapping the turbo for a precision 62/62 ball bearing, blanket will be going on. thx

[Croustibat]

You cant monitor that many gauges AND drive at the same time. I already have 4 were you have them and it is hard to keep an eye on them (i also have a boost gauge in the left vent and an AFR gauge in front of the oem temp display).

The best place is where you already have them. The problem is the sun will cook them here, and if you dont put a sun visor you wont see anything. Also, if you dont have tinted rear window you will always have some reflexions there (guess how i know ? )

Forget the A pillar, that is just rice and useless. You cant "see" all 3 gauges at the same time as they are on different planes.

I'd suggest going with a centralizing unit and a couple of displays, like PLX or defi. What is important is alarms, not the actual display. If you can get gauges with programmable alarm and an output pin, you can connect some shift light on it. That is a very efficient solution.

[shift_down]

A pillar gauges are rice? He has a turbocharged rb, no rice involved. I run my gauges on the a-pillar and it works out perfect. To each his own.

[ShadowMan]

I really was curious as to what they were all for? I'm not being sarcatic at all. If you are set on all 6, maybe 3 in the center vent and 3 right above it in a molded housing? Like a 6 pack.

[Croustibat]

A pillar gauges are rice? He has a turbocharged rb, no rice involved. I run my gauges on the a-pillar and it works out perfect. To each his own.

No matter what engine or car you are running, using 3 gauges with their screens on a different plane, height, and close to the driver is no good, because you absolutely cant read all 3 at the same time. That is how optics work. You can say whatever you want about the gauges working, you still cant read all 3 at once with a glance, while you perfectly can when they are on the same plane, on the dash.It defeats the purpose of having 3 displays, as only 1 is really usable at once.

So yeah, putting 3 displays on the pillar, when you can only use 1 at a time... that makes it quite rice.


Shadowman > i'd take a guess and say:
oil pressure
oil temp
water temp
AFR
EGT
boost

[racepar1]

Why is it necessary to have that many guages and a fancy dash? You should be able to get all the temp and pressure readings from the dash. All you should need is a boost guage and maybe an AFR guage. To me that's WAAAAAYYYYYYY overkill and looks super ricer. Is this supposed to be a track car or a show car? I'm guessing show since everything's so shiny...

EDIT: On a REAL track/race car you want your guages to be as simple as possible. You don't want to have to look in multiple places to monitor the engine. It should be done at a glance as you don't have time to be looking closely at guages. Racecars usually use idiot lights wherever possible to simplify it all...

[jscherf92]

Is this what you were going for?

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2098/2284211600_122333d990.jpg

But seriously, if youre gonna run 6 gauges and a digital cluster, maybe put some in the center console or the A pillar. The cluster with your two most used gauges on either side would probably work best since you already have that planned out a bit.

[ShadowMan]

Boost, oil pressure, afr, water temp. Beyond that is overkill IMO. Those 4 will let you know when something is wrong and the car needs to be turned off. I can understand wanting to more, but sometimes less is more, ya know? Either way it's your car so whatever you like will be best, but one of my buddies had 4 or 5 up there, and all the extra lights just became too much for him. He regretted it after a while, especially since he drilled holes in his perfect dash to run all the lines and wires for the gauges.
Isn't there a some sort of display that has multiple inputs for temps and pressure? That's reliable? I've never looked but I'm sure there has got to be something in the form of a screen display to take the place of having to have so amny gauges.

[brndck]

like aaron said, if you have a racepak dash, why do you need extra gauges???
maybe a boost gauge i could understand, but beyond that.....