Brand? Westach? VDO?
Vendor recommendations?

What temperature range does yours cover? So far I've only seen gauges that top out at 350 or 600 degrees. Are there any that top out closer to 450? I'd like to mark redline around 390 and don't need to see much above that. I guess a 600 is fine, but would like more resolution if available.

The VDO and Westach are commonly used and trustworthy. Dakota Digital sells one, but it's quite spendy.

You can get a VDO from CB Performance for under $70, which is probably the best price right now.

buy one that tops out at 600 degrees as it is "common" to see head temps of 350-400. being a CASOB, the gauge to buy depends on your use. to me, a VDO is OK and reasonable from CB performance. if i was a racer, maybe a westach because of the extreme use. don't know if there is any performance difference between the gauges, just price to a CSOB

At 450 degrees your heads are compromised absolutely, so don't worry about monitoring anything past that..

I am now a dealer for www.dakotadigital.com and have a big order of their digital instruments heading this way as we speak. Look for them in the store soon.

QUOTE (Jake Raby @ Sep 8 2005, 11:09 AM)

At 450 degrees your heads are compromised absolutely, so don't worry about monitoring anything past that.. I am now a dealer for www.dakotadigital.com and have a big order of their digital instruments heading this way as we speak. Look for them in the store soon.

Hmm...Prices have come down significantly on these, too. They used to charge over $250 for their CHT gauge.

Now that gauge runs about 100 bucks... And it is really cool and accurate and fast to respond to changes...

how bout a pic, Jake?

I don't have any gauges here to take pics of right now.. You can see them at www.dakotadigital.com

QUOTE (Jake Raby @ Sep 8 2005, 12:13 PM)

Now that gauge runs about 100 bucks... And it is really cool and accurate and fast to respond to changes...

And, very unlike the VDO or the Westach, it does temperature compensation to correct for ambient temp. No more having the gauge read high on cold days, or low on hot days.

I'll have to buy one of those when you start selling them...

make me wish I hadn't bought the VDO @ CB

I like the price of the VDO, but on a 600 degree gauge, there are no marks and little needle resolution between 350 and 400... which is the range I really want to pay attention to.


Guess I'll be watching Jake's store for the Dakota Digital

Now wait a minute... It says the resolution is four degrees. If it was pushing 400 degrees, I would wish for better resolution.

Maybe putting the VDO sensor in some cooking oil with a candy thermometer and marking 390 in red would be fine. They should be consistent enough... I wouldn't think ambient temperature would affect a head reading when it's that hot. If it does, then it's also affecting the head, no?

VDO gauges are fine.. They are just slower to respond to engine changes and are not temperature compensated.. basically if you are not operating in 75F ambient temp conditions your gauge is not perfectly calibrated...

With gauges you get what you pay for... Whats the use in measuring temps if theyare not accurate?

Here is 5K bucks worth with the logger. They measure into the tenths of a degree and are insanely addictive to play with.

QUOTE (Rand @ Sep 8 2005, 01:09 PM)

Now wait a minute... It says the resolution is four degrees. If it was pushing 400 degrees, I would wish for better resolution. Maybe putting the VDO sensor in some cooking oil with a candy thermometer and marking 390 in red would be fine. They should be consistent enough... I wouldn't think ambient temperature would affect a head reading when it's that hot. If it does, then it's also affecting the head, no?

First, you're getting way too hung up on resolution. Few automotive gauges are even accurate to better than 10%, so +/- 4 degrees over a 700dF scale is hardly anything to sweat over. If your engine is running properly, it will rarely get above 350dF. If it reads higher than this, you're running hot, period. The difference between hot, way hot, and pull over now hot is quite a bit more than 4dF, so there's little point in worrying about the resolution at that level.

CHT and EGT guages use thermocouples to measure temp, primarily because of the high temps involved. Thermocouples measure the temperature DIFFERENCE between two junctions of a pair of thermocouple wires. A non-compensated gauge (like the VDO and the Westach) are calibrated assuming the 'cold' junction of the thermocouple wires are at some set temp. If the cold junction is colder than this, the gauge will read HOT. If the cold junction is hotter, they will read COLD. So, ambient air temps can have a significant effect on the gauge reading, and opposite to whatever effect air temps would have on head temps.

The Dakota Digital unit has a second temp sensor in the gauge itself to compensate for ambient temp. variations.

Thanks guys.

http://www.aerialadventure.net/smart_singl...0Display%20TC-1

I have (2) TC-1 models 4 channel - accurate, cold junction compensated.
One for 4 EGT and one for 4 CHT (you can program the alpha descriptions)

The display is small, but you can configure a high limit warning light off the programmable alarm contacts. I used big red lights from the FLAPS.

QUOTE (Powerman @ Sep 8 2005, 05:16 PM)

http://www.aerialadventure.net/smart_singl...0Display%20TC-1 I have (2) TC-1 models 4 channel - accurate, cold junction compensated. One for 4 EGT and one for 4 CHT (you can program the alpha descriptions) The display is small, but you can configure a high limit warning light off the programmable alarm contacts. I used big red lights from the FLAPS.

Those are killer! I look away for a moment, and everyone is coming up with cheap all-digital gauges...

Well, I went the CASOB route and got a VDO gauge at CB Performance.

Good news is it works fine and my temps are a relief... always under 350, usually 300 or less.

Just thought I'd share a couple install comments though, in case anyone else deals with the same issues...

The wiring is extremely simple... Two wires off the sender go to two wires on the gauge. No power required. There's a red wire and a black wire. So I hook the black wire to the ground terminal on the gauge, and the red wire to the positive terminal...

The gauge doesn't move. Doh. So I hook a power supply to the gauge and feed it some milliamps to make sure the gauge is ok... sure enough, gauge moves. So I hook multimeter to sender and hold a lighter under the sender and get a reading... negative reading. Sure enough, the wires were backwards. No harm done, but it seemed strange to hook red to ground and black to positive. Oh well, it works great now.

So I install in my center console...... oops, hole is larger than gauge. So I wrap electrician's tape around the gauge to bring the diameter up to fit the hole/gasket/grommet. Sounds tacky, but I had to git-r-done at least temporarily. Now that it's in, it looks great.

So I now have a CHT gauge at the top of my center console, where the clock used to be (BTW, anyone need a clock???). I hooked the clock's light wires (brown ground and black/blue bulb wire) to the new gauge bulb, and voila... job done.

A very worthwhile upgrade.

Thanks for the tip.

I installed mine & connected it to the gauge and got no reading. So, black wire goes to the + side of the gauge?

In my case it did. Swap the wires and see if you get a reading. If it's out of the car, test by holding a lighter under the ring for a couple secs.

QUOTE (MarkV @ Sep 21 2005, 03:56 PM)

Thanks for the tip.   I installed mine & connected it to the gauge and got no reading. So, black wire goes to the + side of the gauge?  :shades:

I just went thru the same damn thing.

Black wire to + and Red wire to - is correct.

I think it has something to do with black being positive ground on some euro cars...?

Nice to know what your head temps are doing.

Next I'm installing an EGT gage.


..

The little white connector at the sender is supposed to only allow you to connect the wires up one way, but it's not very good at this, and it's pretty easy to put it on the "wrong" way. You can swap this connector around and plug the red wire into + if it would make all of you feel better.

these look pretty cool, don't know how well they would work, but for aviation applications, I would think they would have to be bulletproof and accurate.

Airplane Guages