Critical gauges

I just got finished moving my oil pressure gauge to a more prominent location, since I don't have a dummy light anymore. I was going to also get an oil temp gauge. This is just an HPDE car, so I figure low oil pressure or high oil temps are the two primary things I would pit in for. However, I thought I'd check with the GRM wisdom - if you could only have 1 gauge, and oil pressure was already covered, what would you get? Is the stock coolant temp gauge good enough? Am I forgetting something entirely?

Coolant temperature or oil temperature. If you could only have one, I would say it would depend on the strengths and weaknesses of your particular engine.

Personally, though, I like gauges and like my car to resemble an airplane cockpit. 'Course, while racing, you can really only "see" the most important ones.

A tachometer?

If you have the usual stock gauges the next thing I'd get is an oil temp gauge.

for 2 guages - oil pressure and water temp

Depends on what I already have working. I think I would put in idiot lights for things like OP(too low ~30psi), WT(above ~230-ish), shift light. After that, I believe everything else is a distraction. I would also orient any AM gauges to have the needles run at 12 o'clock at operating conditions. If it isn't at 12, you have a problem.

IMO, when driving 10/10ths... you really just want a blinking light to tell you to back off and shut down or to just tell you to look at the gauges because something is wrong (yellow for check, red for STOP!!!!!). It takes mental time to glance at an analog gauge, interpret the results and move to the next one. When I have traffic all around or am really working on pace - I am just not going to ever glance at the water temp or oil pressure. There are individual gauges with a programmable threshold like this (or a full Stack type dash) but they tend to be very expensive. One of my winter projects is to wire an arduino up to all of my senders via optoisolators and let it do the threshold management to turn on the "HOLY berkeley" lamp for me or control the fan, fire the ejector seat, etc.

I already have it managing my fuel gauge this way (programmable blink with 2 laps to go!) so this should be a < $10 project.

Yikes, I just looked up the oil pressure/water temp gauges with warning lights built into them, and they're about $225 apiece. That's hard to rationalize considering I bought my whole motor for $700.

Any cheaper options? That don't involve words I don't know like "optoisolators?" Or should I just stick with the you-can't-win-an-hpde-so-check-your-gauges-frequently method?

Man that's crazy. Other options include putting a T-fitting on your oil pressure gauge socket and hooking up an idiot light sensor to an LED. I can't think of anything cheap and off-the-shelf for water temp though.

Yeah, I found some idiot lights at Jegs for oil pressure and water temp that are in the several dollars range; I'd just need to get a T-fitting for oil pressure. The senders have pre-defined values (6 psi for oil, 245 for water or something). They're just not the most attractive solution, but it sounds like I'd be wiser to do that than spend more money on a gauge I don't really need.

Whoa didn't know they had idiot light sensors for water temp, I'll have to find one.

http://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS-Performance-Products/555/41371/10002/-1?parentProductId=1321858 http://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS-Performance-Products/555/41370/10002/-1?parentProductId=1321858

GameboyRMH wrote: Whoa didn't know they had idiot light sensors for water temp, I'll have to find one.

They do. Is in your nose. "What smells like pancakes?"

steronz wrote: Any cheaper options? That don't involve words I don't know like "optoisolators?" Or should I just stick with the you-can't-win-an-hpde-so-check-your-gauges-frequently method?

Tape probe to radiator hose. Set temp alert buzzer to 230. Bonus session timer. Close enough.

I'll give away a Paul Costas secret here.

Don't mount gauges on the dashboard. Mount LEDs in your helmet, just below the top of your visor.

Yellow LED = shift up Blue LED = engine cold Red LED = overheat Purple LED = no oil pressure Pink LED = battery is currently discharging

Fuel Level

Tachometer

Oil Pressure

Water Temp