I just bought a boost gauge

georryan · Post by **georryan** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 3:48 am

Yes EastbaySubaru I got a boost gauge

(he was complaining that about how I hadn't done that yet).

I just read a post about getting rid of the nylon tubing because it is "crappy."

Is this a good idea? Do most of you drop the nylon for vacuum line?

Now I got to figure out were to mount it. I'm either going to do it on the console in the middle of the speedometer, or by the piller, or make a plate that takes out one of the AC vents in the center of the dash above the radio and put it in there.

douglas vincent · Post by **douglas vincent** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 3:57 am

I bought a "Made in China" boost gauge off of ebay. Good and Bad. The good part was there were all the parts for hooking it up. The bad part was NONE of the parts hooked into each other.

So I went and bought 1/8 copper tubing and hooked it up fine.

THAWA · Post by **THAWA** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 4:00 am

jawesome, I dunno where you should mount it but cool none the less.

georryan · Post by **georryan** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 4:33 am

yeah I cant wait.

I'm seriously thinking of buying an optima battery next week and then a dis-2 ignition very shortly. I don't know if that will come before tires though.

I'd also love to go to that track meet in Reno. Bah, I want to save mone too.

legacy92ej22t · Post by **legacy92ej22t** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 5:13 am

Cool, boost gauges are key! It's great to know what's really going on. =) I vote for the steering column. That's where mine is and it's very convenient for viewing and it looks good too.

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 1:13 pm

Excellent. All turbocharged cars should have boost gauges.

I don't understand why everyone dislikes the 1/8" nylon tubing. I think it makes perfect sense for this application. You can route it flexibly, it'll go where you point it, and unless you abuse it it won't kink back on itself or collapse shut.

eastbaysubaru · Post by **eastbaysubaru** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 2:27 pm

Exactly. I used the nylon tubing and it worked great. I see no reason not to use it.

Good work on getting the boost gauge Ryan! Mount it wherever you think is the best.

-Brian

legacy92ej22t · Post by **legacy92ej22t** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 3:18 pm

I too used the nylon tubing. I did put vacuum line over it in the engine bay for heat protection though.

BAC5.2 · Post by **BAC5.2** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 10:19 am

I did the same as Matt, but mounted my gauge in the center of the Tach. That way I can look at both at the same time.

Doug - Why do you have a boost gauge?

georryan · Post by **georryan** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 8:39 am

I'm thinking of puting it in the center of the tach as well.

BAC5.2 · Post by **BAC5.2** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 9:38 am

Do it in the tach. You can glance down and make sure everything is legit. The speedometer becomes useless on backroads, so looking at one place helps keeps your eyes off the instruments and on the road.

Also note: Optima's only come in the Group 34 size in the Red-Top (which is no better than your average die-hard). I'd HIGHLY suggest doing a relocation job and getting a Group 35 Yellow-Top.

Once I got my wires crimped and set up, it took almost no time to run everything and set it up.

georryan · Post by **georryan** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 1:20 am

So the yellow top won't fit in our engine bay?

I couldn't tell from looking at them how you got the designation group 340 or 350.

Oh and DANGIT! My boost gauge is off!!!!! I should have figured when I looked at it and the needle wasn't sitting at 0, it was sitting at 6 inHg. When I hooked up the ol laptop to the car to see what i was getting the laptop read 19 inHg while the gauge read 26 inHg. GRRR! I'm only getting 5 psi of boost from the gauge, so if I'm off by 5 or 6 then I should be up to about 10. Mind you I'm running the stock boost controller. With my old exhaust I was getting 8.9 or so.

I just don't want to pull this gauge out and replace it with another one.

On the up side, I got it all in without a hitch. I wired it to the cigerette lighter, but the dimmer doesn't work. I'd like it too, but I don't feel like changing up the wiring again. I grounded it to a bolt that screws into the frame next to were the radio plugs into the antenna plug. I pushed the nylon tube through that grommet behind the clutch and brake pedal, that was pretty easy, and I plugged it in to the manifold spot that everyone plugs it into.

Soooo,.....yeah....anyone know of a way to adjust an autometer boost gauge, or do I have to run back to the store and get another one?

-Ryan

QuickDrive · Post by **QuickDrive** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 1:31 am

My Autometer phantom +30/-30 psi gauge was dropped 5 minutes after I took it out of the box

The needle sunk to like -5 and I shook it and nothing happened....
I ended up taking the light bulb out of it's holder and jiggled a pencil or something (can't remember) inside until the needle moved.

I managed to get it to -1 and figured I can correct it with my own powerful math skills..

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 1:50 am

Even if you fix the offset, how would you know if the gain was correct? Like, even if you got it to read zero, how do you know it's not reading 1.2 psi for every one psi of input pressure or something?

georryan · Post by **georryan** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 1:51 am

Are you talking to me or Quickdrive??

That is kinda what I'm afraid of.

It looks like the inHg is more off than the psi of boost. The boost is only off by about 5 maybe 6, were as the inHg is closer to 7 or 8. (from looking at it further)

georryan · Post by **georryan** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 1:52 am

So in all honesty, I have no idea how far off the psi is. I haven't actually had the laptop and the guage together running at the same time under boost.

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 2:13 am

Well, both, but I guess it was mostly a response to QuickDrive's statement about his powerful math skills.

legacy92ej22t · Post by **legacy92ej22t** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 4:50 am

georryan wrote:.

On the up side, I got it all in without a hitch. I wired it to the cigerette lighter, but the dimmer doesn't work.

Did you wire it to the actual lighter or the light on the lighter? I hooked mine to the lighter light and the dimmer works perfect.

georryan · Post by **georryan** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 6:03 am

Yeah I did it to the actual light. There was two wires though, a red/green and a red. I took the red one and I'm guessing that is the fully 12v line rather than the dimmer. So if I fix this I'll have to rewire it. For now I'm going to leave it.

georryan · Post by **georryan** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 3:24 am

Sweet!!! Just got the gauge exchanged. It seems to read much better. The dial sat in the box when it was in the box, and at idle it reads close to 19 and at WOT it will jump up to 10 and then settle down to just about 9 or just under. I figure that is about right. What a relief. I'm glad that is over. I was getting afraid that they didn't have one because the guy at the counter had to go looking all over to find another one.

I really like the one I got. It has a black face which matches my gauges, and it has yellow numbers in the vacuum that pretty much match our dials, white numbers in the psi which match our numbers, and a bright orange dial for uniqueness.

-Ryan

THAWA · Post by **THAWA** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 3:35 am

does the organge needle match the other needles?

where di you go to get this?

georryan · Post by **georryan** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 3:45 am

I got it at Tognotti's. I changed it in their parking lot.

Oh, and no, the orange needle is much more orange.

The vacuum numbers are closer in color to our needles. All in all it matches fairly nicely.

eastbaysubaru · Post by **eastbaysubaru** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 4:14 am

Good work mang! Glad to hear everything worked out in the end.

-Brian

georryan · Post by **georryan** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 5:16 am

Yeah, the only thing left to do is change the wiring around so that it dims, but I'll save that till I have more motivtion to do it. Not that it is hard, its just that the wires don't come out far enough to make it REALLY convenient.

I can live with it for now. I got two new Balljoints last night as well, so that's good. Swapped them for my old two front seats.

eastbaysubaru · Post by **eastbaysubaru** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 7:48 am

I wired mine up the exact same way as you and I'm not getting any dimming either. It really isn't much of a pain for me though as I always leave it at the highest setting

-Brian

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I just bought a boost gauge

I just bought a boost gauge