DIYEFI.org Forum

You guys might have seen my truck in the user rides section - it would be fair to say that it's pretty heavily modified. I've been sneaking it out onto the streets of Auckland recently for a few car meet ups with some local online guys from NZ car forums. As I've been cruising and caning around I've found a need for a few bits of information that my only gauge, an inaccurate speedo, doesn't tell me.

It would be really nice to know :

• Current battery voltage
• Current oil pressure
• Current oil temperature
• Coolant temperature in degrees C rather than OEM gauge.
• Boost/vacuum level
• Wideband output... yes, I know I should have this...
• Fuel pressure - have this, but would like to see it while driving

re fuel pressure: esp when battery is going flat and pumps are running on lower voltage... also to see how it sits at idle vs 100kpa manifold pressuure at 4k or so.

Now, what else do any of you run on any cars that you have? And how the hell am I going to get that much info onto the dash without looking like a total ricer... ??? Thoughts? Keen to see pics and or discussion on what others have done and use.

Fred.

Left to right: Fuel, Speedo, Odo, idiot lights, (under these the unseen row of LED's for wideband with a fast response), tach, with CEL replaced with the knock sensor light, coolant temp

Then the three gauges above the radio: oil pressure, oil temp, boost/vacuum (sized so I can tell if it's a psi high, not needlessly a 4 bar gauge), AFR's (slow, actually a narrowband gauge with a careful tuning of the output of the wideband. Works very well) and finally an EGT gauge.

Looks damned near stock - completely so if I put up the screen on the DVD player. I've through about replacing the dummy factory oil pressure guage between speedo and tach with the boost guage... But then what would I put over there? A clock? I'd have to keep monkeying with it due to relativistic concerns.

I've always really wanted to just have one screen, running tuning software, and an ECU capable of dealing with ALL the sensors I want. Then fuel pressure, GPS coords, or whatever I want would all live on a screen where the factory gauges now are. My sound system would be controled by that, as well. I could technically put it where the radio is... Right now all I can think of is making a small thermo-electric fridge in the hole.

I want to retain my stock fuel/speed/rpm/temp gauges as is. I don't mind sticking some in the middle as you've done, but down by my knees may work too.

I also like the idea of a single screen doing the job with a micro backing it. That will have to wait till I get FreeEMS running the thing, though.

Thanks for the pic, good food for thought there.

Fred.

Hi I'm new,

Here is a project I'm working on:

mini2440 embedded computer with 7 inch touch screen from friendly arm. Picked it up for $150



it has a serial port, USB host, SD card slot, 34 GPIOs and so on...

Right now I'm working on installing a better linux kernel, tuner studio, power supply (12v to 5v), and the aluminim enclosure:

BTW, MegaTunix now suppors ms2extra, the gauge clusters on that are nothing short of awesome, perhaps give it a whirl? :-)

Feel free to start a project thread, if you want.

Fred.

Being a builder and racer my self i find gauges a wast of time.

When u are cruising it is one thing or after a race you can look as see where everything has settled.
But when u are driving the piss out of something there is no time to look at a gauge, well they way i drive.

What i like is things like STACK or AIM where you can have a configured warning light or a screen turn color, something that can alert you from your peripheral vision that something is wrong. Bering in mind that is you are at full tilt and something happens, 90% of the time it is to late anyway..

just my 2 cents

Your 2c was echoed by slacker cam on another site i linked this thread on. I would likely agree for a race car setup, but I'm talking street car setup, where I can back off and take a look any time I feel the need. Specifically what happened was I had a couple of faults whose symptoms could have meant more than one thing. If I had had some of the above gauges I would have known instantly what was wrong, rather than guessing. Plus, this setup is new, I don't know that oil temps etc are good, they might not be. It's a setup aid too for me.

Thanks for your input! :-) The more and varied the more useful this thread will be for someone else with different requirements.

Fred.

I, too, find my gauges good mainly for getting stuff set up. Learning the car, making calls on new set ups. Things like over/under boost are really handy to know, as is speedo. Temps are great on street car/long trips use.

I would love to have a ECU with enough inputs (perhaps the thing pictured above) to know what's going on, so I can make calls like that. A simple, ~3 gauge set up and a couple very clear idiot lights to tell me to dig more. Something to say "you're up to temp"
and something so I don't have to worry I might be knocking or have no oil.

How about using a 16x2 alphanumeric LCD?

Display "info(units) Name"
second line "max= x, min=x"
Have a button to cycle through the inputs and one button to reset the tell-tales.