Hey guys,
i recently bought an apexi el backlit mechanical boost gauge. Bought it for 30 Bucks. On the Pictures from the seller the needle was sitting at 0 BAR but i recived it with the needle sitting at about 0.3 Bar.
Now the question is if i can recalibrate it somehow? It has no real buttons to change anything. I installed it in my car and it reads negative pressure while idleing, which is logical. But giving it short revs boosts the needle to 0.5 Bar.
Iam kind of confused if the thing is broken. During my reasearch online i read that a offset from 0 is pretty common. But THIS much?! I can´t run the car right now because iam doing the front sills right now. I can only hope that getting into boost under load resets the gauge...
Anyone experienced similar problems?

 

It is broken. Get your money back.

 

Does that say 'El back light'? Like.... fake spanish?

 

Welp, not the kind of answer i was hoping for... Well i guess refund is not possible because it was sold privatly on ebay. Will try to contact the seller though. Only option i have left is cut it open and take peek.
Iam waiting until i can take the car for a spin and check the crazy readings

 

El = Electronic , at least to my knowledge thats normal for the el series 1 apexi gauges

 

You said it was a mechanical gauge. Now you say it may be electronic. A mechanical gauge will read zero if unhooked. Not so with electronic.

An electronic gauge will sometimes read incorrect values depending upon voltage, grounding, and possibly the sender.

 

You missunderstood. It is a mechanical gauge. El backlight is for electronic backlight. The backlight is the only thing electric.
Maybe i didnt put it correctly as kam not a native speaker 🤔

 

It's a mechanical gauge. It's a broken mechanical gauge. It's a broken mechanic gauge with ELectroluminescent backlighting.

 

Yes you are correct! Any idea how i can maybe fix it?

 

There's a calibration method for autometer mechanical gauges, you can send them out to be repaired. I never bothered because boost gauges are pretty much free.

But i'd start there, search google for "Autometer mechanical boost gauge calibration" and then tear yours apart and see if it's the same.

 

Yep allready saw the "push a screwdriver in the back oft the autometer gauge" calibration method.
Not really hepful since the apexi gauge has no slot to push a screwdriver in. If i cant refund the dann thing i will try to somehow pry it open and take a look inside. I guess the ******* Form DHL dropped the dann thing. And Herr in germany boost gagues are not free...unfortunatly

 

excuse my autocorrect

 

Herr. Lol.

I will have to look around. I used to have a spare boost gauge.

 

So here is another update. After getting fed up with negotiating any refunds i opened the gauge by bending the crimped together gauge-ring open with a little screwdriver.
This is how it looked inside.



It is pieced together with 3 parts.


First i wanted to rotate the scala. but that did not work out that well So i removed the needle and put it on centered as i didnt want to mess up the mechanical calibrration anymore by bending the internals or somthing like that. I didn´t get the needle to center the first time so i pushed a screwdriver between the gears, blocked the mechanics and rotated the needle to center position.


I know that tha calibartion of the mechanics is probably still screwed up.

Allthough the readings now seem plausible to me. This is in now way intended as a tutorial, it is just what i did in a situation where i otherwise would have thrown it in the garbage. It goes up to 0.3 Bar of boost wich is exactly what the preowner of the car told me.
Only thing i have no idea about is the vaccum. Is a vaccum this high/low normal ? It goes to 0.9 under decel. Maybe someone can help me there.
Here is a small clip of a pull. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kz...G7QZdqkV7Ht9rm

Quick Question: How do i resize the pictures. Do i have to do that pre-upload?

Greetings

 

It is good enough for what you are doing with it. The ECU will read accurately regardless of the gauge position and that is what matters.

 

regarding reading on deceleration and at idle
I have two different cars with turbos
a) at idle, they run about 20 inHg vacuum, which should be almost -0.7 (actually -0.68) on your meter
b) on deceleration, they run about 25 inHg vacuum, which should be almost -.9 (actually -0.85) on your meter
Therefore, it looks like your vacuum readings are close to what they should be..