Jumbo Gauges

jumbosrule

jumbosrule

Fully FX Invested
Premium
Location
Redondo Beach, CA
Car
2003 FX35T
Name
Brad
So my research into gauges has just begun and I thought it would be good to actually have a thread that talks about all the different systems out there and what the most common monitoring displays should have.

Already there have been a couple of suggestions in my turbo build thread, so I have cut & pasted them here:

Universal, expandable setups that have been suggested:

http://www.zeitronix.com/

http://www.hksusa.com/products/more.asp?id=3471

http://www.egauges.com/Defi/dp_top.html

I have identified the items that I want to monitor but I am still not sure where the gauges will be mounted and what they will look like. I'm thinking SMALL. If anybody has links to small gauges - from 1 inch to 1.5 inch digital displays - please post up. I think I'm leaning towards individual gauges rather than a universal display:

Oil pressure
Water Temperature
A/F
Boost
Transmission temp

I have seen some gauges that display multiple items as well - with the ability to display of two or three of the items above on one gauge all at once or selectable with a button.

Here is my shop's recommendation:

"AF gauges are nice but only truly useful under WOT for critical monitoring, otherwise they are always in a state of flux. Oil pressure and water temp is always useful data especially when the motor is cold - to monitor oil pressure vs. motor rpm. So when limited to two and knowing the Haltech sees its own wide-band, I prioritize two gauges differently.

The zeitronix display is likely a OBDII pass through tool that displays that data then pipes in it's own wide-band. Currently the Haltech will see all of it's own sensors which can be viewed in the software (read: your laptop), the next option from Haltech is they use Racepack and AIM dash setups which plug in native to the Haltech ECU. These are far from a simple gauge though and are generally meant to replace everything in a car to act as a new digital dash.

This all being said, once Haltech finds a new maker for there gauges themselves (used to be Nordschief or something like that but that went under about a year ago), you'll be able to buy a standalone gauge and wick the signal from your Haltech wide-band so that the same sensor feeds the standalone gauge and the Haltech ecu."

I have seen the Racepack display before and it is sweet, but doesn't fit with the theme of the interior. I want it to look like it belongs there. Here are two options from Racepack:

http://www.racepak.com/Components/Dash_Compare.php

http://www.aimsports.com/auto/index.html

Really I'm wide open to anything as long as the new gauges look like they belong. I'd consider mounting anywhere - on the roof liner, dash, on the console, hidden, pop-up, etc. Only thing that is non-negotiable is the aesthetic. They MUST match the amber OE gauges or interior.
 
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my opinion on gauges is that they are for critical monitoring... many factory systems have done away with many gauges & replaced them with warning systems that alarm when any monitored system goes out of range... from the simple original idiot light all the way up to modern built in electronic monitoring systems with more elaborate displays that can convey anything from an overheating engine to a left turn signal bulb out... the more you monitor the more you know... but manufacturers have found out long ago that a warning system is better than an actual gauge in many cases simply because gauges require a constant monitoring & if a gauge goes out of range the average driver will not notice it until it's too late, you've got to make a conscious effort to continuously monitor gauges where a warning system requires none of that

the question then becomes, what should be monitored? the bulk of what should be monitored is taken care of with the factory dash, vehicle speed, fuel level, engine rpms & even engine temperature is pretty much covered with the factory dash. so now the question becomes what else should be added? to me, things that are normally self contained systems & that don't vary widely in actual use are not so important to monitor on a regular basis, for example oil pressure... oil pressure is the kind of thing that is determined by the mechanical health of your engine & it's oil level... if you have an oil pressure gauge the truth is that you really don't have all that much use for seeing it on a daily basis & really you will spend the next several years of your engines useful life really having not much use for that gauge ever... an idiot light that warns you of a very low pressure is invaluable, but a gauge telling you that the pressure is higher when the engine is cold & gets lower as the engine warms up is almost more of a novelty than a useful gauge. same thing with a tranny temp gauge. I mean if you are not beating the crap out of your car continuously or towing heavy loads & you know that you have a more than adequate tranny cooler attached to the system then the gauge is that much less critical, like anything else, having the info is nice, but when you're trying to minimize the amout of added gauges it might be something that I wouldn't consider critical...

a stock fx to me really doesn't need any gauges added, so the reason to add gauges here are mainly because the vehicle is now turbocharged. why does turbo charging create the need for added gauges?, because now the engine is being pushed past where it's normal comfort zone may be, & because it is forced induction, it is now operating much closer to the range of failure... the closer it is to the range of potential failure the more critical a gauge becomes, & the bottom line is your looking to add gauges that may give you a heads up when something does go wrong in the hopes that you recognizing the gauge being out of the safe range will be enough for you to back off, & ultimately not torture the car when something isn't right & damage can occur...

with that mentality, what can go wrong with a turbocharged car? 2 main things come to mind, 1 would be an over boost situation... if for any reason a wastegate control problem arises, say a vacuum hose pops off or the boost is inadvertently raised too high then you could wind up with a situation that can cause immediate damage, it only takes a few seconds to blow a headgasket or overboost into detonation & cause internal engine damage, so in most cases a gauge to monitor boost levels is going to be a good idea...

2nd, & to me I think this should even be first, is detonation... detonation & pre ignition are the main causes of almost all turbo engine failures... I'd bet at least a 10-1 ratio of detonation pre ignition vs any other sort of failure in a FI car when it comes to the engine itself... the best way to insure against detonation & pre ignition is to fatten up the air/fuel ratio while under higher levels of boost & higher chances of this detonation & detonation inducing pre ignition... the air/fuel ratio should be in the 11:1- 12:1 range max while under extreme stress... yes, the rest of the times this gauge will do nothing but give you a fancy light show & dance around for you, but when your right foot is buried to the floor & your really enjoying the amount of power the FI is allowing, knowing the air/fuel ratio is right is a good part of insuring that your engine is not a time bomb under these conditions, so to me that is a critical thing to monitor & to me that should be placed in a way that the gauge is in your peripheral vision enough that you can see the green, the yellow & the red... that's something that I would have my eye on each & every time I was running hard, that, along with ensuring that your boost level isn't going beyond where it should is really what you want to know when your foot is buried in it... most other times these gauges can be ignored & the only reason there there is for when you are pushing closer to the point of potential damage... normal driving then your like any other fx & you don't even need any additional gauges for that. I'd like to take it one step further & advise a warning system that detects knock... ideally it would put a big bright red light shinning right in your face in a way that you cannot miss it ever, because this is something that you should react to immediately to avoid engine damage...

now this is not to say that other gauges are not useful, personally I'd love a ton of gauges & I'd love to be able to monitor everything, but, unless you want your dash to look like a fighter pilots cockpit you have to draw the line somewhere... in a fighter pilots cockpit everything monitored IS critical, so it is necessary to have all the gauges laid out in a way that anything can be monitored in a glance & there is even special training on just the monitoring part, along with many redundant warning systems, but in a car you've got to decide what is critical & what is just nice to have...

personally I'd recommend AF ratio & boost in your peripheral, & then maybe something like a zietronics for everything else... now you can look at the zetronics to see everything from tranny temps to oil temps, exhaust temps, oil pressure, water temp & many other things that are good to know, while having the critical gauges available in your peripheral for just the critical times that they really should be monitored...

---------- Post added at 09:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:24 PM ----------

oh, & as far as aesthetics, I've played around with a few tinted films overlayed over the zietronics display & have been able to get my zietronics display to match the amber lighting if that helps... the films do unfortunately cause the display to be a bit dimmer than it was so I installed it overhead in a way that it will not have to battle direct sunlight exposure & be always readable...

---------- Post added at 09:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:33 PM ----------

oh, just want to add that all this is just my opinion & my personal outlook on the situation, I guess others may look at things differently. also I don't mean to totally dismiss the thought of an oil pressure gauge either, it can be valuable in monitoring the health of your engine & detecting any strange readings there can possibly avoid more catastrophic failure if you decide to tear down the engine to look for the source of the anomaly rather than just keep beating it, the point I was trying to make though was that in most situations the gauge will not be useful for critical monitoring assuming the engine is built well & the oil level is correct...
 
How much of a role will a laptop be playing in this? Will you just use it to switch maps with the haltech, or could it be used to display multiple parameters while driving?
 
My goal would be for the laptop to play zero role in this. Unless I want to learn how to tune, but that would not really come into play for the gauges I want to have for, "critical monitoring".

I got a great tip from a local forum. Another universal, but this one is customizable and there are a lot of options. Doesn't fit my vision per se, but I'm trying to get a demo to learn more about it and exactly what my options would be.

Very techy site. iPod and Droid users rejoice.

http://www.plxdevices.com/

http://www.plxdevices.com/multigauges.html

So I'm thinking this would be good for the general monitoring - but would still consider Turbo's suggestion - A/F and Boost on permanent display. And I'd have to find a classy way of integrating the PLX someplace in the FX.

Here are a bunch of the downloadable gauge face graphics:

http://www.plxdevices.com/customgaugelibrary.html
 
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just found a few shots of what the zetronics looks like when color matched if it helps... it's also pretty easy to custom install if your looking to integrate it well ...

1


1


1


1




this is what the stock illumination looks like as a reference

1
 
Yes, now I remember reading up on this in your thread. I guess at the time I didn't realize what the Zeitronix was. Nice custom install for sure!

Seems like 2 or 3 gauges would be appropriate. Two of them would be A/F and Boost, then the third might be the PLX option above where I can display a third (oil pressure) or four more simultaneously (oil pressure, water temp, transmission temp, XXX-OBDII). Going this route would give me the same info as the Zeitronix, but in a much cooler interface. I'm leaning towards these three below. I really like that the A/F and Boost have a digital read, plus the color coded programmable warning set points.

PLXBoost.jpg

PLXAFR.jpg

These are the selectable OBDII & 4 item simultaneous display.

PLXiMFD.jpg

Not sure if I would get the larger or the smaller of the two. Probably depends on the type of mounting I go for - Installation is another consideration. Classiest install would be a custom bezel, but placement still matters. I'm prolly going to cut out some cardboard and try out some locations. Maybe drive around like that for a little while. Anybody looking into my car would definitely get a WTF photo, lol...
 

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what I'm thinking of doing to avoid the fast & furious look while still keeping critical function in my peripheral vision is to disassemble both a wideband gauge & a boost gauge, the kind with a circular graph line of leds, & then custom remote mount the leds in a straight line like a bar graph instead of the circular layout of a gauge, haven't 100% decided on actual location I'll mount them yet, but thoughts are either on the left side pillar or maybe overhead just above the windshield, possibally even built into, or even reflecting in the rear view mirror... basically I'd then be able to tell where the gauge reading is without having to have a round gauge sticking out... I want it to be very stealthy so I may even use a boost sensing switch & have the leds only come on when boost is achieved, when the leds are off should be near invisible.

I know that this may not be something you can do yourself, but to find someone who is good with electronics that can do this sort of remote wiring of the leds shouldn't be too difficult. of course this is custom work though & no where near as easy as just mounting a gauge or gauges, but the easy way is not always the best way if you want to really keep a stealthy look... I may in the beginning just mount the gauges more conventional like but intend of converting to stealth at some point even if It don't wind up that way initially...... probably wouldn't be a good idea for the more intense graphical gauges your looking at though...
 
Yeah, I'm with you. I've considered making an effort at a classy traditional mount with the intention of revisiting with a more elegant integration.

At this point I think I just need to look at the gauges in my car. I considered removing the center speaker and mounting the gauges in the cavity - maybe motorized pop-up? Saw a motorized LCD screen mounted in the center speaker box over on the org.

http://www.infinitifx.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=24094&hilit=motorized+LCD

Doing gauges like that could be pretty cool. The guy that did the screen said he had to "hack up the duct work". Hopefully I can avoid that or at least re-form it to make it work.

I could be into a custom display like you are thinking about. Maybe integrate the gauge screen into the dashboard with it's own bezel? It's hard to visualize since I don't really know what would work best for me. Trial and error once again, I guess...
 
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I mocked up a lil something in powerpoint to get an idea.

In both concept sketches, the center gauge is the selectable iMFD gauge. I can put any single face on it or display four sensors at once - or OBDII perameters.

Gaugemockup1.jpg

I packaged them like this only for the stealth - speaker mount. They would pop up from the center speaker grill either on command or via ACC power. Definitely a custom install.
 

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Found my old thread and realized I never updated it with the actual gear I went with.

Almost two years ago I purchased the DM-100 & AFR display along with Fluid Pressure, AFR & O2 sensor modules. I used a local shop to do the install on a custom turbo build they had completed on my first Infiniti FX35. They did the job but there were a couple of features I just wasn't using because I never really took the time to read the PLX manuals and explore everything. It was set up to read coolant temp, vacuum/boost, oil pressure and AFRs on the four item display screen. It did the job. I would occasionally scroll to OBD data or to change the type of display but for the most part I never touched the system after it was installed.

I think the fit and finish of a product is just as important as how well it performs on MY cars. I was not happy with the install... "presentation"

IMG_2880.jpg

Fast forward to December of last year when the FX was totaled. :disapointed:

With the settlement money, I purchased another FX35 and decided to swap over everything into the new build. I removed everything myself after keeping the salvage:

IMG_9316.jpg

This time I want everything packaged better, so this weekend I did the wiring myself, using a mounting board. The only thing NOT connected in this photo are the sensor wire runs going into the engine bay.

IMG-20120916-00026.jpg

I had the A-pillar gauge pod leather wrapped at a local upholstery shop and they did a great job.

IMG-20120816-00003.jpg

Unfortunately, they broke the OLED screen when trying to fit the display back into the pillar. The OLED screen was ripped completely off the circuit board. I'm in contact with PLX right now to see if it can be repaired or if it just needs to be replaced. The upholstery shop already discounted their work by the cost of a new DM (as they should have).

During my repair and rewiring effort I visited PLX's website and read through the manuals for each product I own. Turns out they were not wired correctly (I was not getting all the data I could have been getting) and I wasn't using some very cool features built into the gear. This time will be different.

Knowing what I know now, I really didn't need the AFR display. The multi display is capable of showing four sensors, including AFR.

I have an OBDII splitter on order so that I can permanently install the PLX OBDII iMFD link and still have an open OBDII port to use for the UpRev Osiris cable.
 

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Sucks about the screen Brad, hopefully you can get that resolved (and improved) fairly quickly. What I can see of the leather it looks very nice, more pics?
 
Fortunately quickly isn't really that important. Until the built motor and turbo are in there I don't really NEED the gauges. It would be nice to get them wired up and working though - a few hours of shop labor is a few hundred bucks. I'm also planning on passing the sensor wires through the firewall in a dedicated boot OR having a bulkhead connector installed on the firewall - allowing me to have a dedicated engine bay harness and an interior harness/board.

The only other photo I have of the pillar is in the Silver FX custom build thread. Think I posted two of them in there, including the one you see above in this thread.
 
Nice work! Your wiring and layout look so much better.

I have that same PLX multi-display. At first I thought it would be the only one I would need (for NA), but in your case it might be nice to see afr and boost at the same time.

Also, great call on the bulkhead connector. :thumbup:

SfmDRuT2
 
I gotta say it doesn't just look better - it FEELS better, lol. Just knowing the wire rat's nest was behind there drove me crazy. I'm still working out how I will mount it inside the footwell so that it is out of the way and protected.

I went ahead and ordered a new replacement gauge for the PLX multi-display. It was only $99, so I'm over the fact that the upholstery shop broke it. It arrived yesterday.

I also ordered/received in an OBDII splitter - which will allow me to hook up the PLX OBDII display interface and the UpRev Osiris interfaces at the same time. I should have everything I need to get the OBDII display connected and working.

Both USB connectors are routed into the glove box along with the Haltech cable so all three of these USB connectors are ready to hook into a computer. That will give me the ability to tune the stock ECU, the Haltech PnP and access to PLX display customization (wallpaper, intelligent warnings, GUI) from the passenger seat with a laptop.

About the only thing I don't have in my hands is the bulkhead connector I decide to go with. I know I need to pass through the firewall for the O2 sensor (6 wires), a vacuum line, and Fluid Pressure (2 wires). There is also the ACC power & ground, but those can be tapped inside the cabin rather than in the engine bay.
 
Once the Haltech is up and running, there won't ever be a need to use an open OBDII port.

I'll detach the OEM panel mount connector, mate it to the splitter and connect both the UpRev and PLX cables, then zip tie everything up out of the way behind the dash.
 
tchuck said:
What about emissions checks? Does your deq not plug in to check for codes?

SfmDRuT2
Click to expand...

The PLX multi gauge actually displays/clears any OBDII codes.

OBDII communications for emissions testing doesn't work for me, but I can still use the OEM port by disconnecting the splitter.
 
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I only asked because the Oregon deq testing procedure is an obd code check via the oem port. That's it. No emissions codes - no problem. It takes about 3min including paperwork.

I was actually curious as to whether you added a port and routed both to the glove box or just added one behind the dash and left the original intact.

SfmDRuT2
 
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