what are the two top gauges worth getting ?

 

boost and watter temp

 

im definitly goin boost what about oil pressure or temp ?

 

watter temp is more important than both of those. here is a list of gauges in order of necessaryness:

Boost
watter temp
air/fuel
oil temp
oil pressure
egt

 

Here's my preferences, depending on how many you think you need.

No.1 Oil Pressure
No.2 Water Temp

Oil pressure will tell you when it's gone before an indicator light. Will also give you an indication when oil temp has roughly been reached, ( press will be slightly reduced from initial start up pressures, start up say 75 lbs, will reduce to about 50 lbs after it's warmed up normal cruising.)
Water temp will tell you when you are indeed warmed up. Don't be alarmed, temps will read about 220 F. to 230 F. that's normal for this motor, although the ECM might read a little lower.
Boost is a kinda fun guage, and if it has a vacuum side, will tell you alot about how your engine is working, necessary, not really, but I have all three.
After that things begin to get pretty crowded. Good luck.

 

Buy a Scangauge.

 

Scanguage can not do oil pressure/temp.

You can set it up to read water temp. Boost, and a tons of other stuff

 

nice thing about gauges is that it gives a nice interior look to the car, thanks for the help guys ! .
i think ill be going for boost right and water temp left :D

 

I never liked the look of the ScanGauge, but I added a Garmin EcoHD to my existing Garmin 1490T and it gives me 5 more gauges. The look is definitely not factory, but I do like it better than the ScanGauge. And, if you already have a compatible Garmin (bluetooth enabled I think, but check the list) its relatively inexpensive - under $100.

Looks like this:

 

I have four gages. Water temperature, Oil pressure, Vacuum/Boost and Oil temperature. I also have a voltage reading in my Bell 995 radar detector.



The original poster asked which ones were the most important. If I were to have only two gages, it would be water temperature and oil pressure. I got the boost gage because I put a BSH oil catch can and dual boost tap on my MINI, so I already had a place to get a pressure/vacuum signal. It's mostly a fun thing to watch, though you can use it to improve your mileage by keeping it in the vacuum range as much as possible.
I got an oil temperature gage mostly to make my gage cluster symmetrical.

Dave

 

That's a nice gauge setup Dave! Are those all Autometers? How did you mount them?

 

Those are Mashall gages.

http://www.marshallinstruments.com/c...per_gauges.cfm

They are made to match the MINI tachometer and speedometer.
They use Autometer type senders.

Cravenspeed sells them too.

http://www.cravenspeed.com/categories/MINI/

I made my own mount out of 2" ABS sewer pipe and 1/8" aluminum sheet. I already had that stuff in my junk pile, so all I have in the gage pods is my time.

I made the pattern out of cardboard, to position the gages so that they were visible though the steering wheel, that took four tries.

I traced the cardboard pattern out onto the aluminum with a sharpie and cut it out with a scroll saw.



I cut the ABS pipe so that the threads on the gage mounts stuck out the back of the pipe far enough to be able to secure the gages to the aluminum with the gages mounting nuts. And I bent the aluminum, so that the gage faces were in the same plane as the tachometer.



The whole thing attaches to the back of the Tach. with one screw, but it is very solid.







Dave

 

That is way to busy for me.