oil pressure and water temp gauges

[Michael Pliska]

Disclosure notice: I am the engineering manager for a gauge manufacturer (ISSPRO, Inc).

That said, I have been hard-pressed to do away with old-school mechanical gauges. I pulled my old bracket car out of mothballs last year, and continue running the 30 year old mechanical oil pressure and coolant temp gauges, but I have added modern electronic gauges (actually prototype test units from work) in parallel (hooked to a tee on oil pressure, and the other head for coolant temp). The modern sensors have come a long way, and I trust them as much as the mechanical gauges. My mechanical coolant temp gauge still sticks occasionally, and the electric one tells me what I'm really running for temperature.

If your electric oil pressure sensor uses only two wires, then it is an electromechanical potentiometer based unit and not very reliable. If it is a 3-wire unit then it is likely a solid-state capacitance based unit, and these are typically reliable.

The electronic temperature sensors are typically thermistor-based. While this general technology has not evolved in decades, the mechanical design of the units have changed a bit (providing better thermal conductivity for quick response, and better mechanical durability of the electronic components). Typically the newer (and more durable) designs of sensors have integral electrical connectors and an isolated ground (2 wires running to it).

I am in the process of returning my Super-Gas car to the track after a 15 year hiatus. I will start out with the old mechanical gauges in it, but will probably convert it to electronic gauges when I have the spare time.

Regards,

[Chris Williams]

Not much help for you, but we switched from mechanical gauges to all electronic through a Racepak w/ a Racepak dash over the winter. Absolutely love it. Not only do you get good info, but it's all logged.

We now carry our full sweep performance electronic gauges:

http://shop.classicinstruments.com/v...white-series-2

[Tom Goldman]

Think about a Racepak digital dash . Gauges are really only useful for warm up , on the track the only thing you need is an oil pressure warning light .
If you're looking at the gauges on the track , you have given your engine more attention than your opponent !
And that comes from someone who lost a $5K final doing just that on the starting line .

[Michael Pliska]

Wow, this is an old thread! Since my last post on this subject we have come up with a few relevant items. For standalone electronic EV2 gauges we now have an output driver module, which allows you to control up to a 10 amp device with the gauge, programmable as a high or low switch point along with some activation delays, all programmed separately from the built-in warning light on the gauge. I have used this to activate the cooling fans on my race car, and consequently cool the engine down to a consistent temperature between rounds. The module is P/N R82006 and adds onto any electronic EV2 gauge.

We also used my S/G car and tow rig (which also gets bracket raced) as a test bed to develop a datalogger add-on for our Performax series of databus-based gauges. You can have analog-appearing gauges which read off of the same sensor as your datalogger, and each of the gauges just connects to the same 3 wires that run from the main controller. The main controller is R82000 and the datalogger module is R82007. It is a very reasonably priced way to get into datalogging. Please PM me if you have any questions.