Ok people, let's throw out our opinions on what exactly it is we need to know at the track in order to keep the car (and us) safe. I have the stock (under the toggle) oil temp and volt gauges and am looking to get two more for around the tach. What should I go for?

Here's my uneducated list (in order of importance)
1. Oil pressure
2. Water Temp
3. Boost

Shows you how ignorant I am, I could only think of three! But by that list and my situation, boost gets left off. Right decision?

Thanks!

mb

 

I never look at the guages while driving. Just before and during the cool down lap.

For performance
Shift light. Good one with RPM and Speed (so you know the gear). The shift points are based on the thrust curve of the car, not the red-line of the motor.

For car health
Water Temp
Oil Temp
Oil Pressure

You can actually display the water temp on the odometer portion of your cluster. That leaves the other two.

All the rest, boost, vacuum, voltage, amps whatever, are really only diagnostics that help if there's a problem. If you need to do diagnostics, I think a PDA based data logger is a better idea.... It's got a memory!
And overall, you'll save money. But it won't look that good.

If you're really into it, you can use a lap timer/race display. I have the G2X, but there are many that are out there for a huge range of prices. But with this, I have RPM and Speed in red-leds viewable above the steering wheel. Cause it knows the speed and rpm, it supports gear dependant shift points for the shift light. But you're talking about $900, plus more if you add external sensors.

Matt

 

I second G2x...

 

How do you set your OBC to display water temp while you're driving?

 

With Palm Pilot and Auterra...

You can also show AIT, rpm, speed, timing advance, etc etc....

 

Oil temp, water temp, oil pressure, afr, egt, iat & timing

 

some good suggestions above, here's my personal opinion....

Gauges to glance at throughout the lap:
-tach only

Gauges to check on the main straight:
-water temp
-oil temp
-oil pressure

Tertiary Gauges to put warning indicators on:
-boost
-EGT

Additional gauges might be good for other instances such as running a checkout on the car (but not really during lapping with other cars).
-AFR
-Fuel Pressure
-lots more that can go here

A decent ssytem that won't brake the bank too bad is the Defi link system. It is pretty easily expandable and has record, peak hold, programmable warning indicators, etc

 

Its in Celsius, but here goes..

Push and hold the trip reset button on cluster and turn the key to the ignition on position....Test 1 will come up. Scroll through and go to test 21. Lock and unlock will flash, when unlock is on screen, push the button and let it go. Scroll to IIRC test step 7. The display should show the temp and will remain that way until the ignition is cycled.

 

I'll also go along with this too. Not only can you hook various sensors to it fior logging it makes a great tool for track use.

Check out this thread on MM.org on how one was used this past weekend to cut 4 sec off a lap. http://www.metroplexmini.org/forum/s...ad.php?t=21267

 

Excellent info - thank you all very much.

mb

 

Sorry, I was thinking about it and it's step 19 to unlock and lock the cluster functions....

 

Mini2 or Motoringfile, I never remember which.

FWIW, the G2X is a nice unit, but extra inputs are EXPENSIVE! I hope to do something about this eventually (not nessisarily for the G2X, but for some logging and data collection stuff). I really like some of the features of the G2X, but it's a road race unit, with poor drag racing support. It has expandible features, but also some draw backs. I live in hills, and while I can set up a "hill climb" course, if it looses site of the satillites, you get a speed of "0", no matter what's up. This is too bad, as many of the GPS data sets have accelrometer based dead recconing features that kick in when the sats aren't in view.

Matt