I'm going to be ordering the rest of my gauges soon, and i need some help choosing between mechanical full sweep and electric half sweep. All of the gauges will be from the autometer phantom line.

I have AEM uego afr and phantom boost gauge already, and will be ordering:
Oil pressure, Oil temp, Water temp, and clock.

For the oil pressure, oil temp and water temp gauges, i was planning on getting all mechanical full sweep gauges, but am now leaning towards the electrical half sweep versions.

It is my understanding that the mechanical gauges would require me to run actual oil and water lines into the cabin, and that seems potentially messy and dangerous. With the electric gauges, I attach sender units and run wires to the gauges i think?

Where would i attach all the sender units? I figure the water temp can go into the begi spacer on the back of the head, and I would need a oil spacer plate to attach the oil sender units.

What types of gauges do you guys run, and what advice can you give me.

Thanks,
Evan

 

I'm running autometer electric full sweet for Boost, EGT. Innovate XD-16 for wideband.... For oil pressure, temp and water temp, my plan was to run the electric short sweet... enough resolution (it won't be in my line of sight anyways when driving), they are pretty cheap, and the biggie being I don't have to run any fluid into the cabin.

As far as attaching the senders, I'll have to see how big they are etc, but should not be an issue finding somewhere in the engine bay near the source.

 

You want VEI guages. If I could spend the money again, I'd have VEI for everything with dual-display gauges.

With your two options, I'd say you do not want mechanical gauges at all. The last thing I want is fluids channeled into the cockpit.

 

Get full sweep gauges, even if you think you do not need the resolution. Mechanical is a big no no and there is no reason to go that route. You are better off getting cheapo electrical ebay gauges than a mechanical gauge. I had to install some for a guy on a 65 cobra kit car and it was a pain that was not worth it. Routing the capilliary tubes are a pain. You would have to cut some holes in the firewall to get the tubes routed to the gauges. Bringing hot oil into the cabin is never safe.
You can mount the oil temp sensor in the oil pan, use oil pan plug bolt temps sensor or install a oil filter adapter to house the oil temp sensor. All the different placements will produce different temp readings, make sure you understand that and know what you are monitoring.
Using the BEGI spacer plate would be a good place to mount the sender. You can also get a 1.25" inline splicer that is threaded for a 1/8npt sender and can be mounted anywhere in the hot hose running to the radiator.
As for the gauges, get the best you can afford. Make sure you mount them where they are easy to read, especially for track use. That slot under the radio is useless on track.

 

I have an AEM EUGO, that is the only electric gauge. The rest are mechanical. Oil pressure, oil temp, water temp, and boost. Autometer liquid filled. I still do not understand everyones problem with running a mechanical gauge. How often do your oil lines break in your engine compartment? I have never had an oil line fail, in both my Miata and every racecar I own. The oil and water temp gauges use temperature probes, so there is no fluid there. The oil pressure uses -4 SS braided line through a -4 AN bulk head fitting. Never once had a problem with it, and running an oil line is not difficult or a pain in the ***. I have never had a mechanical gauge crap out either. You run the chance of a short, the sender going bad, or even just a wire coming off, then your electric gauge is useless until you track down the problem.

I vote full sweep mechanical.

 

Here is what I am using. All electric 2 5/8" Autometer Phantom (Boost, oil pressure, water temp, and oil temp) and an XD-16.

 

Second this. Very happy with my combo AFR/MAP(boost/vacuum) gauge from VEI.

Unless all you're going for is "looks," you should spend some time thinking about the parameters you want to monitor, how you want to monitor them, and visibility. Some established rules:

1. If what you care about is a value (like AFR), then it has been shown that humans acquire a digital value more quickly than any other type of presentation. This was actually shown during Army studies towards the end of WWII, and the finding surprised researchers. A clear single needle on a fixed, marked background came in second, but there can be resolution issues with that kind of presentation.
2. If what you care about is the dynamics of a value and how those dynamics compare to limitations (like engine RPM), then the analog pointer with a large sweep angle is the way to go.
3. Having a lot of gauges scattered around is never optimal, both from a clutter and visibility standpoint. That's the strength of the VEI dual gauges, you can condense what you need to look at and can place them in good locations. However, the VEI dual gauges are all-digital. So, evaluate what it is that you want to see on them. I would not use them for a tach, but for AFR and MAP . . . they're perfect.

I'll call that $0.03.

 

Thanks for all the input guys. For now, the gauges will be going down in place of the radio area. I don't want to have 6 gauges on the dash or a pillar. It's still a street car for at least another year or so. Before I start track days I will re assess gauge placement, but it should be fine for autox use i think.

As far as gauges go, those vei gauges look pretty nice, I'm going to see what the total price breakdown is between those and the autometer electric ones,
But i think I've decided that I want electric. I really like the alarm setting on the vei gauges, so I can set a high temp point for coolant and oil.

 

If I could do this all over I'd...

Do VEI dual display water and oil temp on the right where my Omori gauge lives
VEI Dual Boost and AFR gauge on the left where the fuel lives
leave the oil pressure
Then take the fuel gauge, glue/foam it into a cheap gauge housing and stuff it by the radio.

For the record, I'm still not sure if I'm going to keep the G2X display there, we'll see what I think of the blinky-lights. I like the GPS speed and RPM for cruise though, I haven't used it on the track yet.

 

AEM is always a solid choice, how ever Prosport gauges are great, we have used prosport to stack gauges i our cars and customers cars.

Alot of our customers choose Prosport.

LMK what you like ad we will shoot you a price.

 

Autometer reflecting gauges SUCK. They are hard to see at night.

 

Prosports have poor visibility with the top down. They really need to change the shape of their glass.