Let's say you want to mod your Evo up to around 350'ish whp eventually, and you want to get gauges first, to start out. What 3 gauges would you consider are the most crucial, besides the boost gauge?

 

Boost, oil pressure and some sort of A/F guage(egt, narrow band, wide band)

 

Fuel Pressure, EGT, and wb02. Maybe Oil Temp, I guess?

I'm aiming for 350whp too, but on stock turbo.

What mods are you planning for?

 

for light mods, a boost guage and an egt will suffice. if you roadrace or are into competitions, look into oil pres., water temp, oil temp, and water temp, in that order. typical a/f guages are waaaay innaccurate, unless you can get your hands on a wide band. a voltmeter will help if you've got extensive electrical modifications(say re-locating batteries, complete aftermarket electrical systems, etc.).

 

It's a generic question so far. My mods are way in the future, but I have a friend who's turbo'ing his Civic SI.

Would you think a Wideband 02 is wiser to have than an EGT gauge?

What exactly would I be reading with a fuel pressure gauge? Is it just to see if you're pushing enough fuel out? Correct me if I'm wrong. Suppose you have a bigger fuel pump that's fully capable of pushing fuel. Would you need a fuel pressure gauge then?

 

Two water temp gauges? I thought one was good enough, the stock one in the instrument dash.

 

OEM water tempature guages tend never to fluctuate, even when the temperature is varying. For your purposes, boost and exhaust gas temp will be just fine. I like to have oil pressure as well.

 

oops....yea...first one was water temp, second is water press. keep in mind that having readings off these guages alone doesn't do you any good if you don't know the nominal(not normal...nominal...or...optimal) operating temperatures/pressures.

on the wide band a/f against egt...yes...wide band is more accurate and useful than an egt. keep in mind as well that wide band a/f may be affected by temperatures(as exhaust temperatures can go anywhere from 300C idling to +850C when under heavy load) so find one that either compensates for it, or else have an egt aside so that you can determine the correction needed to be applied to the "measured" a/f from the guage/meter. now THIS is where those nice multi-functional and multi-reading data-logging units come in handy.

 

Theo99....heh...sorry...i missed the second part of ur original post. i agree with BPAuto that a boost guage, EGT and oil press would probably be good for the 350whp that ur trying to attain. but always keep in mind...the more things u can monitor, the more things u can keep in check.

 

boost (doesn't have to be analog, on you TT is fine), EGT, oil pressure/temp, fuel pressure, to start...

 

Boost, EGT, fuel pressure.

 

Boost, EGT, Oil Pressure.

Boost and EGT is a given, but the 3rd one isn't really necessary unless you're running highboost or if you're constantly at WOT.

Oil pressure IMO is crucial because say, you got an oil leak, imagine running WOT with little or no oil in the engine.... not good.

Boost and EGT is used for tuning and safety, oil pressure is for safety only pretty much. A/F gauges are never accurate, and even if it's modified to be accurate, it's not a very useful tuning tool.

I'm not really sure what a fuel pressure would be good for. Say if "fuel pressure" drops, your car will just cut off, and/or your egt will skyrocket. So I don't think there is a need for that. Water temp and oil temperature might be the next "needed ones" once again if you're constantly at WOT (i.e. road racing doing lap after lap)

 

I already have boost, so that's why I say don't include the boost gauge in your replies.

Some people are saying the Wideband02 is a lot better than the EGT. Is that so?

 

Theo, a wideband measures the o2 content in the exhaust flow using a very sophisticated sensor. the system....usually about $1000 and comes with a readout(some type of meter or guage) a convertor(sometimes part of the readout) and an extremely fragile/pricey sensor. the sensor outputs a voltage from 0-5v depending on the amount of o2 it senses in the exhaust path.

an egt measures the temperatures of the exhaust gasses exiting from the cyl head. what you can do with egt's is that its temperatures correspond relatively to an a/f ratio. however, in different situations, it can vary quite a bit. its hard to tune with an egt alone unless you've had quite a bit of experience using it.

on a side note...fuel pressure guages is important if you've done any modifications to the original fuel setup. losing fuel pressure at high load situations is very bad...you're engine does not simply shut off if you have a 70% pressure loss...you run lean...very lean. and with a leak...you have the potential of a fire under the engine bay.

 

OK so EGT(not better than a wideband, but more cost effective),oil pressure (a given, it will also rise if your coolant rises giving a rough idea of your over all engine temp activity), and fuel pressure (because you will more than likely see lower or inconsistant fuel pressure before you notice anything on the other guages).