I have recently wired up my Autometer A/F gauge and thought I would share my installation knowledge with all of you since there is no current guide to hooking these up. I apologize for the lack of photos but I will try to be as descriptive as possible.

IF YOU ARE NOT USING THE ALTA GAUGE POD, SKIP STEP ONE

Necessary Tools
T25 Torx
Phillips screwdriver
Flathead Screwdriver
Wire Strippers
Conduct Tite Wire Connectors (The crimp on kind.. they are sort of light blue in color and translucent)
Crimper or Plyers (crimper is MUCH easier)


Step 1 - Remove Tach
This is the easy part. Put the steering wheel in its lowest possible position and remove the 2 screws right behind the tach using your T25 torx. I would disconnect the wire harness going into the tack to give you more room to work with. Now feed all 3 of the wires through the dash and pull them out the bottom. This is kind of a pain if you havent done it before, but once you are familiar with the steering column on the MINI you can do it blindfolded.

Step 2 - Get Power
On the gauge, the red wire is supposed to be connected to a power source. I found that the easiest place to get this power was to T into the power for the cigarette lighter. The wire supplied by autometer was more than long enough for this task.

In order to get to the cigarette lighter, you are going to have to remove the cover. Removing the cover is actually much easier than you would think. First, grab opposite sides of the ring around your shifter and gently lift up. The thing should pop right up. Next, you are going to need to remove the mirror controls. If you look in through the hole where the shifter is, you will see 2 small golden tabs on the mirror controls. Simply take a flathead screwdriver and slide the tabs downward.... they should slide right off. Now just lift up on the mirror controls and it should come right out.

Now its time to remove the screws. There are 4 altogether, 1 in each cupholder and 2 right underneath where the mirror controls were. Once these 4 screws are out, you can easily lift this piece up and down freely. Once you lift it you will see 3 wires sticking out of the cigarette lighter area. The one you are concerned with is the Red wire with stripes on it. Using your strippers, strip a small area of this wire and connect your red wire. The T fittings I had wouldnt fit onto the power wire, so I had to just twist it on and electric tape it up.

Step 3 - Finding Ground
I already had a boost gauge grounded into the engine bay that I just Td into, but if you dont have a wire like this its still super easy. Since you still have that cover off, strip a bit of the solid red wire. The black wire on the A/F gauge is for ground. Now just connect the red wire to this black wire and you should now have power to your gauge. You will know because when you put the key and and put the car in the on position, one of the green LEDs should light up.

Now just clean up the wiring here by using some zip ties or just running them so that they arent in the way of anything. Replace all of the parts you have removed so far (including the tach) and now we are onto the last phase!

Step 4 - The O2 Sensor
Finding the O2 sensor was actually a bit easier that I thought it would be. If you look to the NE of the intercooler a bit, you will see a thick white cable running up into the engine bay from underneath the car. Coming out of that thick cable are 4 wires, a purple, a black, and 2 white. You will want to strip a bit of the BLACK wire.

Now for one of the more pain in the *** parts, getting the purple wire into the engine bay. If you look, there is a grommet that carries wires into the engine bay that is located just NW of the airbox. You can also see this from IN the car if you have a flashlight. I found it easiest to run this wire by poking a hole into the grommet and then using a turkey baster (without the end on it) to shove the wire through. Just shove the baster through the hole and then feed the purple wire through the baster. Pull the wire out the engine side and remove the baster (unless of course you like the way it looks ). I used a T connecter from Conduct Tite for this one part.... I connected the dark blue piece to the black wire, and the lighter piece to the purple wire. Now just lock them into place and you should be good to go!

Take it for a quick test drive and make sure everything is working.
If you have any more questions feel free to either post them here or PM me.

 

Turkey baster! What a great idea! I just use the poke and thrust method. Use a metal clothes hanger (un-twisted), tape your wire end to the end of the hanger, poke through the rubber grommet and pull thru from the other side.

Thanks for the install info, I'll most likely use it soon...

 

Is the 02 sensor wire location (inner white wire) the same for mc and mcs?

:smile:

 

I dont see why it wouldnt be.... maybe you could answer that question for us

 

I'll let the mc guys figure that one out. hehe

Any picts of the finished product? I got an autometer one sitting around too
so was kinda wondering where to tap that 02 sensor wire for my color organ.
All I need now is a guage pod. :smile:

 

I can take some pics.... PM me if I dont post any within a few days... im sorta forgetful sometimes...

 

ok, will do. Thanks!

 

A quick update here..... Above I said it was the INNER WHITE wire.. this was INCORRECT. I was getting weird readings off of the white wire so I talked to Autometer tech support. After a couple of emails, we determined I needed to be hooked up to the BLACK wire.

Why I didnt get a reading off of this wire the FIRST time I tried it I dont know... but now it works perfectly fine.

 

Jason, thanks in advance!

 

No Problem! Here is the pic of the a/f gauge installed....




I can try to take a night shot with both gauges lit up also, but its only 11:45 AM. Let me know if you guys want a night shot also or not.

 

NICE !:smile:

 

That looks very good!! :smile: :smile: :smile:

 

The black wire is giving me 2 yellow LEAN led's when car is in ON position.
there is something wrong with the wiring.

Was the inter white wire the 2003's 02 sensor wire and not the black?

2003 = inter white wire
2004 = black wire?

 

Hrm, I think I may have messed up. It might be the black wire :\. Ill go check for you and send you a message

 

nnn. not sure. mini2.com also has someone saying it's the black wire.

Are you getting 2 yellow LED's (lean side) when the 02 sensor is still cold?
I started the engine and one was solid, one was slighly blinking.

 

I remember that I changed it because I called autometer and they said it was wrong.... Ill go check for oyu right now.

 

Its the black one kenchan.... sorry, I must have forgotten to update this thread when I changed it.

 

Actually, I DID update it

 

Thanks. No, what I meant to say was that I am already tapped to the black wire, but getting 2 yellow LED's when I should be only getting on green LED
in the ON position...


I might be getting ground loop cause I am sharing power with my Volt meter.
I'm going to go back and tap into the cigarette lighter wiring.

thanks.

 

I have a question. I did this install last week and I am pretty sure I messed up becuase my meter keeps jumping back and forth from lean to rich. Have any of you seen this, and if so can you clue me in as to what you did wrong so I dont have to redo it step by step to pick up my mistake.

 

you did it right.The car is constantly changing irs air fuel mixture. You should notice then when you floor it, it will go rich and when you let off the gas it wll go lean... this is normal.

 

Ended up my a/f was broken. kinda was upset cause I routed

everything correctly and just didn't work. At least got my voltmeter
wired up.

Thanks for the how-to on removing the center console. came in
handy. I just tapped everything to the cigarette lighter
circuit. I used the autometer cups and 3M taped it on the
bottom of the toggle sw box. Real thing looks better than
this pict because the wiring wrap isn't as visible in real light.

 

wow I really like that. Was it the gauge that was broken or the sensor

 

Thanx. :smile:

It was the guage. I fed is a little bit of power (0-1v) to the purple signal
as my last resort to test and it didn't react other than the 2 yellow LED's.
should've done that before I ran everything.

I use to use it on my WRX and it was working fine before.
I think when I was removing the wiring from the ECU (wrx), the wire
may have gotten caught with a powered line.