Making a custom tri-gauge pod.

[Rieger_RS4]

I'm turning my center vents into a custon fiberglassed tri-gauge pod. I am going with the defi d gauges. Boost is a must.......but what about the other two? I know I'll get the air/fuel gauge and for the trird I'm not sure. Oil press? or exhaust temp? I am planning to do an ABT S-K04 upgrade soon and don't know which gauge would benefit me more.

[awahl63]

Exhaust temp really isn't that important your plan sounds cool...Maybe a DIY is in the works.

[Devious27t]

if you are going to be adjusting your boost and what not EGT is a must, i would do that over an A/F gauge as it is much more of an accurate representation of rich/lean conditions. a third option would be oil pressure....

[Saturnine]

Fitting 3 60mm gauges is fo sho possible.. Here is what i did on my old car..



Im really interested in how your project comes out kind sir

[turboawd]

Saturnine, for the gauge in the middle (the ext. temp), did you just cut a circle into the vent with a dremel? or is that some kind of kit that you bought? if you did it yourself, would you mind sharing the process? thanks...

[Devious27t]

Originally posted by turboawd
Saturnine, for the gauge in the middle (the ext. temp), did you just cut a circle into the vent with a dremel? or is that some kind of kit that you bought? if you did it yourself, would you mind sharing the process? thanks...

check AWE-tuning...

[Zodiak]

there's a link floating around somewhere about cutting your own vents up to hold a guage. it came out really clean.

[Rieger_RS4]

who makes this pod?

I've seen it on many a4s so I don't think it's custom.

[Rieger_RS4]

I think these will be the 3 gauges. I'm going with the white faced ones since i have white NR gauge faces. + at night they should match perfectly.

[[]D[][]V[][]D]

damn, tight

[EVIL-AUDI]

Why don't you come over I'll leave my car unlocked and you can steal my pod right out of my car.

[Daft]

Evil, you should ditch that blinky O2 gauge and get this:



FP is far more crucial than inaccurate O2 values.

[Rieger_RS4]

turbo90awd,

I love that sig!

[EVIL-AUDI]

Originally posted by turbo90awd
Evil, you should ditch that blinky O2 gauge and get this:



FP is far more crucial than inaccurate O2 values.

I'm getting rid of the EGT, I'll think about replacing it with your idea.

[A4 in SC]

Originally posted by EVIL-AUDI
I'm getting rid of the EGT, I'll think about replacing it with your idea.

I agree. The o2 gauge is pretty worthless IMO. I know they work, but unless you watch it constantly, you won't see it go lean until it's too late... Then again, that is just MO. The fuel pressure gauge seems like a much better idea to me.

[Devious27t]

i hope you arent confusing O2 with EGT... O2=worthless without wideband.... EGT = very necessary with a turbo car....

[Rieger_RS4]

Out of the 4 gauges, which 3 should I go with?

Boost(a must)
Air/Fuel
EGT
Oil Pressure

[Devious27t]

Originally posted by Rieger_RS4
Out of the 4 gauges, which 3 should I go with?

Boost(a must)
Air/Fuel
EGT
Oil Pressure

Boost
EGT
Oil Pressure

[Saturnine]

Naw, i made both pods the center one being the OEM one cut out to fit the 60mm gauge..

Originally posted by turboawd
Saturnine, for the gauge in the middle (the ext. temp), did you just cut a circle into the vent with a dremel? or is that some kind of kit that you bought? if you did it yourself, would you mind sharing the process? thanks...

[Daft]

Originally posted by A4 in SC
I agree. The o2 gauge is pretty worthless IMO. I know they work, but unless you watch it constantly, you won't see it go lean until it's too late... Then again, that is just MO. The fuel pressure gauge seems like a much better idea to me.

The real problem with the blinky O2 gauges are that they measure O2 values from a run-of-the-mill O2 sensor that has no real calibration to read from. If you had a wideband O2 sensor installed and you were watching the voltage readings from it you could derive a A/F ratio to work off of.

These A/F meters that most companies sell just have no real-world value. Your O2 sensor (pre-cat) is made to measure oxygen levels when you are in closed loop mode (cruising and part throttle) this allows the fuel trims to be updated in low increments to make the most of your fuel to increase MPG and reduce emmissions.

When you slam the throttle down, you enter open loop mode. This means that the ECU no longer cares about these O2 values because they are being received in a full throttle scenario. Likewise, we have no use for them because they aren't accurate.

Chip tuning companies (APR, GIAC etc...) use a car with their software on a dyno and a wideband O2 sensor installed. This way they can maximize the HP and TQ from the car while maintaining a safe A/F ratio and not melt the piston rings.

An EGT gauge is a good tool to give you a good sense of your A/F without having a wideband O2. It will more or less tell you how lean the car is running based on the exhaust gasses that are hitting the EGT probe in the exhaust manifold. The key is to get a very fast acting and accurate probe (-4F/+4F is good). Your pistons are not made to withstand high temps (1600F/900C) for any duration. so most EGT gauges will top out around there. Your expected EGT levels under WOT should peak in the 1200F-1400F area with a well designed chip. People who run an X-chip or a boost controller can go much higher because the stock fuel system has it's limits and cannot match fuel to that much air.

If I were building a 3 gauge cluster this is what I'd plan to use:

#1- Boost
#2- EGT (w/ peak hold)
#3- Fuel Pressure


Fuel pressure is very important and many people don't realize that fuel pressure is supposed to rise in a 1:1 ratio with boost. Therefore, if it isn't, you are going to run lean. If you install an adjustable fuel pressure regulator, you'll definately need to know what your FPR is all the time to keep it tuned correctly.

[Devious27t]

Originally posted by turbo90awd
The real problem with the blinky O2 gauges are that they measure O2 values from a run-of-the-mill O2 sensor that has no real calibration to read from. If you had a wideband O2 sensor installed and you were watching the voltage readings from it you could derive a A/F ratio to work off of.

These A/F meters that most companies sell just have no real-world value. Your O2 sensor (pre-cat) is made to measure oxygen levels when you are in closed loop mode (cruising and part throttle) this allows the fuel trims to be updated in low increments to make the most of your fuel to increase MPG and reduce emmissions.

When you slam the throttle down, you enter open loop mode. This means that the ECU no longer cares about these O2 values because they are being received in a full throttle scenario. Likewise, we have no use for them because they aren't accurate.

Chip tuning companies (APR, GIAC etc...) use a car with their software on a dyno and a wideband O2 sensor installed. This way they can maximize the HP and TQ from the car while maintaining a safe A/F ratio and not melt the piston rings.

An EGT gauge is a good tool to give you a good sense of your A/F without having a wideband O2. It will more or less tell you how lean the car is running based on the exhaust gasses that are hitting the EGT probe in the exhaust manifold. The key is to get a very fast acting and accurate probe (-4F/+4F is good). Your pistons are not made to withstand high temps (1600F/900C) for any duration. so most EGT gauges will top out around there. Your expected EGT levels under WOT should peak in the 1200F-1400F area with a well designed chip. People who run an X-chip or a boost controller can go much higher because the stock fuel system has it's limits and cannot match fuel to that much air.

If I were building a 3 gauge cluster this is what I'd plan to use:

#1- Boost
#2- EGT (w/ peak hold)
#3- Fuel Pressure


Fuel pressure is very important and many people don't realize that fuel pressure is supposed to rise in a 1:1 ratio with boost. Therefore, if it isn't, you are going to run lean. If you install an adjustable fuel pressure regulator, you'll definately need to know what your FPR is all the time to keep it tuned correctly.

the only thing about fuel pressure is that it tells you basically the same thing that an egt does. most people prefer to have their fuel pressure gauge near the FPR that way they can see readily what their fuel pressure is at. imo exhaust temps are the best way to tell how lean or rich you are.... that or a wideband...

[Daft]

Originally posted by DVS18t
the only thing about fuel pressure is that it tells you basically the same thing that an egt does. most people prefer to have their fuel pressure gauge near the FPR that way they can see readily what their fuel pressure is at. imo exhaust temps are the best way to tell how lean or rich you are.... that or a wideband...

no. FP tells you if you have an equipment malfunction. That's all. Base FP + boost = FP under WOT. So, if you have your FP gauge under the hood, all will look well at idle while the car is parked and making no boost. That's great for getting your base FP set and ready for action but, how will you know what the FP actually is when you're making 1.0bar + of boost?

See my point here? EGT and wideband O2 are equally important but, FP is like engine temp or oil pressure. It's important to normal operations.

[Rieger_RS4]

so is oil pressure gauge useless?

[Daft]

I wouldn't say it's useless but, it deosn't seem to be as high priority as the others since your car already has a oil light to warn when pressure is too low. Essentially, you don't want low oil pressure but, the A4 isn't blind to it.

[Rieger_RS4]

so fuel pressure would be more beneficial?

and what about air/fuel that I had pictured?

[Daft]

Those A/F gauges are junk. Sell it on Ebay and make room for an EGT gauge.

[Devious27t]

Originally posted by turbo90awd
I wouldn't say it's useless but, it deosn't seem to be as high priority as the others since your car already has a oil light to warn when pressure is too low. Essentially, you don't want low oil pressure but, the A4 isn't blind to it.

there are other uses for oil pressure then to tell you whether your oil is low.... as for the fuel pressure i see what you are talking about but this is not a 1g DSM and the EMS for this car is a little more advanced if there is an issue with fuel pressure (which i have had) you will know from the retarding that will be performed by the engine management. i guess we can agree to disagree on the importance of that one.

[Daft]

Originally posted by DVS18t
there are other uses for oil pressure then to tell you whether your oil is low.... as for the fuel pressure i see what you are talking about but this is not a 1g DSM and the EMS for this car is a little more advanced if there is an issue with fuel pressure (which i have had) you will know from the retarding that will be performed by the engine management. i guess we can agree to disagree on the importance of that one.

How is this even related to the ECU or a 1g DSM?

Fuel pressure is made by the following devices:

Fuel pump
Fuel Pressure Regulator

The ECU has no bearing on the amount of fuel pressure that a car's fuel system produces nor can it rectify it when it is too low.

What you're saying here is:

#1. Place the fuel pressure gauge under the hood
#2. Let timing guide you to a fuel pressure problem

So, we setup our base fuel pressure on an adjustable FPR and we can see that it looks ok at idle. We close the hood and go for a drive. We log our timing advance throughout the drive with the VAG-COM logger or similar. We see timing retard at a given point when we were under WOT. Tell me now, how does this show your FP or for that matter, that this is a FP problem?

Who is to say that the charge temps aren't too hot and we're seeing timing retard due to pre-ignition? You can't just rely on timing to tell you everything. Timing is pretty damn important but, once you check into charge temps, plugs, compression and a gammet of other possible issues, you'll want to see your FP when the boost is flowing. Why? To see if it's 1:1 in ratio with boost.

Once again, this has nothing to do with the ECU, DSM cars, timing or any other part one car but the two I listed above. Plain and simple.

You must have the ability to monitor these core items to properly tune a car:

boost
timing
fuel pressure
A/F

optional: EGT

I'm not trying to be a pain in the ass here but, this is very logic stuff and you seem to want the ECU to retard timing to fix a problem. Timing retard is a saftey measure not, a fix for incorrect settings.