I am very close to firing my freshly overhauled 2.0. I want to make sure I can keep an eye on everything so I figured oil pressure, water temp, and possibly voltage gauges would do the job. Now, I am in no situation to be spending $800 for a defi setup for I figured a basic Autometer setup would do the trick. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

AEM all the way, I have their analog wideband and boost gauges and couldn't be happier. Great price point too!

 

ebay glow shift pod, and then fill it with autometer gauges. Best decent bang for the buck IMHO

 

Bar none I would go Zeitronix. Most reliable wideband and top notch quality. Their customer service is like no other. I've sent emails to them on several different occasions before I ever even purchased anything and the response time was crazy fast. I run their multi gauge (ZR-2?) to read boost and AFR simultaneously. You pay for quality here but if you use their multi gauge you could still come in way less than $800.

 

sport comp autometer gauges are great for the money. accurate and look good. They may not be as popular as some of the more flashy gauges now but for the three you listed I wouldn't hesitate to use them.

 

Prosport
Stri
Aem
Autometer
In no particular order. I have herd a lot of complaints on autometer though.

My prosport boost gauge is .5psi off. My old defi was3-5 psi off

 

I have autometer and ultrslight series and work great.

 

aem all day and night

 

AEM. do it once, do it right.

i have the aem uego wideband, boost and oil pressure. personally, i could have got away with just the wb and boost but i wanted a third gauge.

 

VDO - very fairly priced, given the quality.

 

Thanks for the info on the shift pod. I don't like the A-pillar pods so I will look into this for my next car.

 

AEM, not only for price point but for ease of install... power and ground and run harness to sensor...done...

 

AEM makes great stuff for a good price, ill be buying some AEM gauges soon.

 

I love my AEM gauges, but they are pretty expensive. Prosport makes a great gauge for the price though, I have liked all the stuff I have bought from them in the past.

 

IMO, I would get the EVOScan GPS from Hamish. Its like $379 and will log and display everything your ECU is seeing. Its like getting hundreds of gauges in one, lol.

I got this last year and after using it for a few months I can not believe how I've been racing/logging/tuning with out it.

Not only will it log all your engine parameters and do EVERYTHING EVOScan does on a regular PC, but it has cool things like a peak feature for all the readings and audiable warings. You can also customize your display to show you as many or as little info as you want.

Another advantage is that its removable, so when you park somewhere you can take it with you and not have to worry about someone breaking into your car to steal your gauges.

I have mine setup to show me Boost (and peak boost), ARF, all my fuel trims, speed (and max speed), coolant temp (and max coolant temp), Knock (and MAX knock), but you can customize it however you want.