Just wanting to get an idea of the gauges people have in their buggies.

Really only wanting to put in the essentials speedo, fuel etc. Maybe put in a tacho as well.

Have people gone for all aftermarket gauges (which ones ??) or used the VW standard jobbie

Cheers

[ Edited on 31/10/2006 by rupsta ]

speedo, tacho, oil pressure, oil temp, volts, amps, fuel

I have a watercooled engine so I'm a bit different, but this what I have.

fuel, oil pressure, water temp and little tacho. Tacho is nice, but I rarely look at it as the rev limiter tells me when I've gone too far. A shift light is better value.

Oil pressure is probably abit unnecessary. You have an idiot light for that, same with charge warning light. You can always use big indicator lights as idiot lights like race cars do if you don't think you'll see them.

You really only need to know if you're overheating, running out of fuel or going too fast. Less is more.

could always get a sender with a higher switching pressure. I find I hardly look at my oil pressure guage and I don't have many gauges.

Yeah, probably, but a guage also lets you know when the oil pressure is through the roof.

Oil Pressure
Water Temp
Volts
Fuel Pressure

As its a racecar we dont run a tacho (use shift lights instead, but hook a tacho in when its on the dyno) and obviously no speedo.

Just a hint, twist the guages around in the holes so that they are mounted with the normal settings for the needle are all pointing straight up, that way a quick glance is all thats required to see if something is wrong. Its esp handy if you're half way up a steep climb and want to make sure your not sucking air instead of oil!

IE I twisted ours so that with volts 13.5 is at the top, water temp 90deg is at the top etc.

The only lights we run are oil pressure (comes on at < about 8psi, its a toyota item) and alternator.

Was wondering how you could use the new electronic gauges (speedo & tacho). Any preferances for each of them ?? Cost, reliability etc etc

Read my post above.



Tazz

The best, and I mean the best accessory I ever put on my Baja was a $5, 80db buzzer on my oil light. When the ignition is on it screams it's tits off so I know it's working and when the motor is running it shuts up and waits for things to go wrong. I drive along and hope I don't hear from it. Of course there is everything above this post but I found the most important gague I had was oil temp. There is never a good spot for the sender when you read the literature but I had my sender on the dipstick. It was great until it snapped somehow.

I'd love twin cyinder head temp gagues to tell me when I'm really putting some serious load on the engine but the price is too far out of reach at the moment. If I did only have one I believe #3 is the best cylinder to put it on bacasue apparently this get the hottest first. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. It might just be the case for the older cooling types.

Speedo - Nah, I use a GPS onthe dash, never trust my MPH dial. RPM, I can hear whe it's getting close to it's limit. Fuel gague is a bit dicky too so I have a spare 5l can of fuel just in case. Generally I keep a close eye on the distance travelled from the GPS and fill up about 400k's on the open road and 300 if offroading at speed.

I'm to busy looking at the road for gagues to be in my cabin. Now fuses, there a great thing to have.

Having to put the buggy through rego still so while GPS is a good alternative, not going to be acceptable with the rego dudes.
Wondering whether to put in a genuine VW gauge cluster or spend the extra $$$ for the aftermarket jobbies ?? The look of the new stuff is probably more appealing but the original will do the same job.
Cheers