Most Important Gauges for Turbo?
 

I've got a turbo setup. Initially only had a Boost Gauge as that is a very basic requirement and am going to be getting more gauges. I have an AFR gauge ready to put in and spots for 2 additional gauges. So what should I fill those 2 spots with?

I was thinking important ones might be water temp, oil temp, and oil pressure. So which 2 are the best to have? And if there is another gauge I don't know about that is important too, do tell. Personally, I was thinking the 2 oil gauges, but I'd like to hear some opinions.

go for water and oil temp . Even though the stock press guage is only an on/off switch it does tell you that there is oil pressure which is the main thing you want to know .

you can get water from odb2. skip it.

you can get boost from boost controller too, so if it's in a viewable position you can also skip that.

I'd get AFR as #1. Then maybe fuel pressure, oil pressure, and EGT in that order.

I personally did boost + afr.

Agree - if you have accessport you could display it with that

exactly what I'm doing - think it was at your suggestion from a while back

for FI, oil pressure is quite important. (pressure or no pressure is not good enough)
EGT is recommended
Fuel Pressure especially important if you have a certain upgraded fuel pump. (okay, low blow, sorry...)

I recently bought a cool cell phone holder contraption for my AccessPort that clips onto the front A/C vents. Get something like that and you've got the Water Temps taken care of

EGT is what? Exhaust Gas Temp?

yes... egt and afr can go hand in hand, so you can skip one if you have the other, but if you have spaces available, egt is useful.

EGT and fuel pressure

Already have boost gauge and AFR, 2 more spots. Someone said EGT not really needed if AFR is taken care of. Fuel Pressure I had not considered, what will that give me advance warning of? It's interesting, I was expecting more people to say oil temp/pressure is more important.

you need to make sure fuel and oil are working properly, so those are nice to have.

oil temp is usually hand in hand with water temp - both are used to cool the engine. water goes into the turbo too. and like I said, odb2 shows it... not just accessport but scangauge2 too (4 gauges displayed at once).

I have a scangauge2 so I can monitor water, but my turbo kit actually is not water cooled, only oil. So would that make oil temp a definite one to get, because water may not me giving a full picture of my temperature situation?

So then perhaps oil temp and fuel pressure are what I'll add.

if you're using the greddy turbo - the oil flow to it is so low that I don't think it's going to matter. I'd worry more about oil pressure then temp if you're able to watch coolant temp.

There isn't a wrong answer for gauges. In an ideal world you'd have a dashboard of 50 gauges and monitor everything. In reality you need to go over issues others have experienced, and decide what is the most critical things to watch.

It's the esmeril turbo, I have no idea how much the flow compares to the greddy, but it's a fairly large turbo, has a built in oil restrictor to give it the right amount, front mounted so the drainage should be good (i heard the greddy has drainage problems with the short run to the oil pan).

So you think oil pressure and fuel pressure then are the way to go?

And thanks for the feedback mysql, I appreciate your input.

edit: I think I'll PM Chris and see what he thinks. It's his kit, so I bet he'd have an idea of the potential problem areas.

The greddy turbo issue isn't the return line. The GReddy's problem is two fold.

1. It is oil cooled. So if you restrict the oil flow, you decrease it's cooling capacity. Not enough cooling and you damage stuff.

2. It is oil cooled, so if you don't restrict the oil flow, there is too much pressure and the journal bearings eventually die and the turbo smokes.

So ... either way you're screwed with it.

Hmm... I wonder if that's gonna be a problem for this kit then.

there must be a way to minimise the issue ......

if you can figure it out, you'll be the first. My turbo was rebuilt twice before I chucked it for the MM upgrade.

I thought I had it figured out - oil restrictor to prevent the seals from dying, and make sure the turbo is cooled down by easy driving the last 5-10 minutes of a trip. It lasted about 10k miles before it smoked.

The Greddy is the same turbo used on subarus and mitsis isn't it - what do they do ?

according to this thread, skyline and Z:

https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-major-horsepower-upgrades-93/greddy-t618z-51118/

interesting read - cheers for that .
Just thinking about it i wonder if the issue is as much to do with the drain as anything else . If oil backs up in the drain it is going to pressurise the bearings

i thought thats what I heard, poor drainage from it being a short horizontal distance swamped the turbo in oil without a restrictor, but I'm no expert.

yep.

and to much oil before is bad.. you know where the info is..

beers :beer:

a regular old autometer style EGT gauge is semi-useless. It responds too slowly and it maxes out at only 1600 degrees.

Most EGT gauges are slow to react and pretty useless. And unless you know how to interpret the information it's also, useless. Unless you're doing tuning I wouldn't worry about an EGT gauge.

Since you already gave boost and AFR, get oil temp and oil pressure. Water temp can be viewed on the AP.

if i were to add gauges i would add. oil temp. vacuum/boost. afr wide band...

the rest is on the obd2 port..

beers :beer:

Oil pressure isn't OBD-II, Scott!

still say you don't need oil pressure - anybody out there with an oil press guage ever got anything usefull from it ?

correct,

but you have it or you dont. and oil temp at idle will give you a big clue if you have a oil pressure issue..

have not read a lot of issues with rx8s loosing oil pressure..

hey just my opinion, i could be wrong. ;)

but i did buy a wide afr, an oil temp gauge, and a vac / boost gauge.

the rest will be done by scanalizer.. or some other obd 2 device. :)

as i am not fi. the fuel pressure question is a good one..

beers :beer:

i concur. did you get to watch the indy race from you neck of the woods tonight?

a local won! wo wo.

beers :beer:

The three you've listed are very important with the oil pressure being the most critical. Use a mechanical for it with a -4AN line sent through the firewall to the back of the gauge directly. Oil temp is less important unless you're planning on road racing or Auto-X'ing the car and use a front mounted intercooler.

If you wish to do any kind of wild experimentation, two EGT probes with atleast 5V logging capabilities is necessary. At the least in this circumstance, a single w/ cockpit output will work. Probes to be located in the exhaust manifold and not the downpipe.

Btw, what kind of AFR gauge are you using and which sensor does it come with? If it has a Bosche sensor or is the AEM unit, sell it and get yourself something with an NTK 5V sensor and perhaps the NGK AFX or PowerDex units (provided you purchase the one w/ the NTK sensor already equipped).

Don't be misled into buying these Bosche 5V wideband sensors, folks. They're trash.

B

I'd like to know, even though the MT model uses FD-type stationary gears/bearings along with other upgraded oil system components, why the regulator in that engine is in the 40psi range. The older 13B's were up to 105-110psi by the last generation. I can only imagine what the case is with a turbocharged Renny.

Fuel pressure gauges have two uses: One, located on an aftermarket fuel pressure regulator (FPR) in the engine bay for setting static rail pressure (engine off, pump(s) on) and for monitoring rail pressures while tuning on a dyno, and two, in the cockpit to let you know that you're drastically low on fuel and to quit slacking and go to the gas station. An in-cockpit FP gauge is very uncommon and they're not necessary. The one located in the engine bay on the FPR can be helpful when tuning a setup that's non-standard or one that has a back-end (fuel volume) problem on the dyno as the gauge will start to shake violently then flatline.

B

Thanks for the feedback BDC. Unfortunately I already bought the AEM AFR, so I guess I'll see how that works out and swap it out if need be.

It's garbage, Gamechld. Trust me on this. I've never one time seen one of those be anywhere near accurate. Ever.

B

...maybe also a gauge that says '# of miles until blown apex seal'?

...it starts counting down from, say 50,000 miles, and goes down on a 1:1 ratio if you have a perfect tune. Anything less and it counts down at 10:1 100:1 etc. or just pegs low when you pop yer engine.

hahaha

hey man - yeah don't worry so much about EGT, especially if you don't have a cat. If your AFR's are in the right place, you shouldnt have to worry about running too hot.

As mentioned above, oil pressure is important for monitoring the turbo setup, but I don't know too much about that. What I do know is that it's COLD AS BALLS in NY in the winter, and you want to make sure that your oil is up to temp before you do any really hard driving. In this winter this can take a surprisingly long time (20-30 minutes!) So I'd feel the need to monitor that if possible, just for peace of mind.

Try getting gauges that give info that you can't get from an OBDII reader (oil pressure, oil temp, WBO2) Then get some reader device (scanguage and there's a few other good ones) to keep an eye on all the others.)

Where are you mounting this stuff? A-pillar always seemed a little rice to me.....racing beat makes a nice ashtray pod, and there is a center dashboard kit.

Good luck there....

Using the Lotek pod which mounts in the center panel above the radio. Didn't want to worry about the air bags in the pillar, and ash tray is out of the question, I don't want to have to glance down there for readouts. Nice location, but the quality is lacking in my opinion. Will definitely repaint the whole panel someday.

I'd get a really good AFR (There was a shootout on these and the AEM's / Innovative Motorsports were the best, Zentronix was the worst).

Oil pressure + Oil temp

Fuel Pressure Gauge (dont run a fuel line into your cockpit!!!)

I'd skip EGT since it's a way to gauge Air Fuel for tuning, if you got a good AFR or even multi channel one, this is a waste of money.

Edit:

If you decide to get those oil gauges, tell your installer BEFORE the install, unlike other gauges itll be much easier during the install of the kit (he/she will probably doing it while installing your oil return lines to the turbo).

Yeah Lotek pod is a perfect location, but seems a bit cheaply made. I have one too with boost gauge, water temp, oil temp gauges that is about to go in. Hopefully it won't look too cheap once its in the dash. The carbon fiber faced gauges themselves look awesome just the pod plastic looks a bit cheaper than the OEM plastic. (which is a bit sad since the OEM plastic isn't top notch)

It's not an RX-8, but my friend with a turbo'ed FC saved his motor thanks to his oil pressure that dropped and he shut it off just in time. A rock hit his oil cooler and created a large leak.

That could easily happen in the 8, and by the time the low oil light comes on, the damage is done.

thats one of those ,if I happen to be looking at the guages , kinda thing . It is going to lose pressure pretty much instantly so most times you wont catch it in time .
The stock guage would have done the trick in that scenario ........ perhaps better because it will bring up a cel !

If I had to pick two then Boost controller and A/F Got to have both. A/f Will tell you when your running to lean. To lean under boost is what will kill your engine. I run Boost, A/F, fuel press up top and have oil temp and press running through my boost controller. I'd love to post a pic but seems like all the pictures i have are to big for the forum? Anybody know how to post pics?

what i do is post to photobucket then link to it with the [img] [/img] html junk.

Thanks Gamechld, lets try this..........

His gauges was a ProSport warning gauge so once pressure dropped it started flashing and buzzing. Bottom line is it saved his motor and without it he would have been pulling it out.

I don't think you would get a CEL on the 8. Possibly the low oil level light but by then you have basically no oil in the motor. It's still questionable if the stock oil pressure gauge would do anything.

Ah - a gauge with buzzer would be worth having - do they all come with one ?

I don't know if they all do, but thanks to that post, I will definitely make sure whatever pressure gauge I get has that feature. Thanks

No. The ProSport Premium series does, and most higher end gauges do, some Defi's, HKS, GReddy, PLX Devices, etc.

I thought they were just annoying at first but now it's great. I have my water temp, oil temp and oil press set to buzz when they hit their preset limits, so I don't have to constantly watch them.

good info right there - will look into those - probably cost me a thousand dollars per guage to bring here with our dollar at 0.55 :(