Electrical or Mechanical gauges

[Rally_2.6LC]

Hey guys looking at getting some Speco gauges for my car (Autometer a bit out of the price range for now) and was wondering what people recommend
Electric gauges
or
Mechanical gauges
im open to both (or a combination)
I'll be getting:
Boost
Oil Pressure
Oil Temp
Water Temp
Volt

and maybe a fuel gauge.


Discuss....Opinions.....Stories......Advice



Cheers Matt

[woops]

I know these artices are almost 10 years old but they would still be of some use to you about the quality of the different gauges. They show the accuracy of a whole heap of tested gauges and it really does go to show that price doesn't always mean quality.

http://autospeed.com.au/cms/title_Giant-Gauge-Test-Part-1/A_1008/article.html

http://autospeed.com.au/cms/title_Giant-Gauge-Test-Part-2/A_1017/article.html

[krohny]

from what i have been told mechanical are the way to go, electric senders can be a bit out sometimes..
but im no specialist.
and you should go round to a few auto shops asap.. most are having sales at the moment, i got $175 worth of autometer guages for $80 a few weeks ago

[HoonBoy]

Do you really want hot oil running in to the cabin? Mechanical gauges are not a good idea when they are going to be mounted inside the car. They are also much harder to mount up compared to electrical ones. As for reliability, look at what they put in cars from the factory.

[amgis_obrut]

Mechanical ONLY for oil pressure, don't take a chance with electric senders and gauges for oil pressure

With mechanical if the gauge isn't working its either the line or the engine though its rare for a correctly installed line to fail and theres no need to run oil or fuel lines inside the car as you can use an pressure gauge isolator




Fuel or oil line goes to isolator mounted in the engine bay then a line filled with ethylene glycol goes to the gauge inside the cabin, I've been using these thing for years and have one awaiting to go in the V8 GH

[oldn64]

amgis_obrut is 100% right, this is the only way to go when looking at mech gauges.

I used to be a guage repairer in my spare time..... LOL (well that dried up) this was a very very common question. I do like both. For different reasons. BUT I always stated this, a guage is only as good as the user. If you dont look at them while driving then what is the point of having them?? What I mean by that is, If the guage is telling you that your motor is bloody hot and you dont look at it then what is the point of having it? Like oil pressure. I know so many people who installed then and pu tthe sender where the factory sender was only to let the guage tell them but never really looked at it. So when they had no oil pressure they did not notice anything because teh idiot light was not working anymore and the guage wasnt looked at, The first sign was the knock in the motor....

So to further this guages are there to be used as a guide. During driving you will never "read" the guage but glance at it to get a reference. If roughly in the right area you believe everything is normal. So move onto the next guage, etc The only real time you will "read" a guage is when you are stationary and working on the car. With this in mind it does not matter how accuract the guage is, but that it give a good indication as to what the motor is doing. I have seen many people put trans temp guages in only to have them last a month and they pull them out again because they are not happy with what the guage is telling them.

So my advice. Choose what guage you like the look of and are easy to read. Something that is rock bottom will actually do the same job of a item that costs 400% more but is more accuract by a few degrees/PSI.

Electrics will suffer if regulator or battery drains. as their reference voltage will change but a voltage guage will suss this out. My race car does run all electrics, but the oil pressure is mechanical and I have a huge orange idiot light. It is worth the piece of mind.

Cheers

[amgis_obrut]

I like to use electric temp gauges

Another thing i like to do is turn my gauges so all the needles point up when they're operating, its easy to flick an eye over them and see that they're all reading correctly and you'll notice when ones out even if its a little bit

[krohny]

i like that idea of all the needles pointing up.. nice one!

[Rally_2.6LC]

Thanks for the input guys.
I to do like the idea of having the gauges all pointing the same way for normal operating capacity.
I like gauges that have a blue background with red needle, i just find these easies to read (like agmis said, get gauges that you like and can read.

I will probably go electric Speco gauges, except I have found one Autometer series that I think is tops. The Elite series ( watch the demo at the bottom of the screen http://www.autometer.com/cat_gaugedetai ... 944&sid=76 )
basically these gauges can be set with your preference of backlight. You then set the paramaters (like max or min oil pressure) and if the gauge reads the max or min it will change the backlight to a different warning colour. If the warning paramaters are then exceeded by 10% or more the whole gauge starts flashing at you (wow you get two idiot lights lol).

In my rally car I will be setting it up with some serious warning lights like oil pressure and water temp warning lights (it will look like I have 3 or 4 shift lights hahahaha)


Again thanks for your help guys, and Whoops those test sites were awesome, great find.

Krohny, I have been to a few places and i do know of some places having sales (on autometer) however they are not what I want, so i dont exactally want to fork out the money for a design I do not like. But your dash is looking nice and stock thats what they should look like so no idiots try and steal our cars.



Cheers Matt

[amgis_obrut]

Low Oil pressure warning light is pretty pointless unless you can set it to a minimum psi, if it comes on at 7000 rpm the engine will be rooted before you notice

[oldn64]

Low Oil pressure warning light is pretty pointless unless you can set it to a minimum psi, if it comes on at 7000 rpm the engine will be rooted before you notice

Amgis_obrut is correct here and something I didnt explain properly. I selected a sender which went on at 40PSI which means at idle it is on. It is there again as an indication to help me alert to a potential issue early enough.

Cheers

[brendon]

Also hasn't been mentioned but under CAMS you can't run mechanical gauges in the cabin.....I changed to electric and have already had issues with an electric oil pressure gauge... I HATE them

100% agree with amgis.... and will be definately looking at those remote senders

[amgis_obrut]

Hey brendan the part number on the autometer isolator I have here is 4413 but thats for a kit with fuel pressure gauge, I got mine from Rocket

If you get one dont open the isolator until you're ready to fit it as its full of ethylene glycol and if your not prepared you will lose it

[amgis_obrut]

Low Oil pressure warning light is pretty pointless unless you can set it to a minimum psi, if it comes on at 7000 rpm the engine will be rooted before you notice

Amgis_obrut is correct here and something I didnt explain properly. I selected a sender which went on at 40PSI which means at idle it is on. It is there again as an indication to help me alert to a potential issue early enough.

Cheers

I had a feeling you had it set up like that, just thought id raise the issue for new players