Needle Recalibration

[Keats25]

I recently replaced the stock gauge face in my 98 Mitsubishi Eclipse. During this process, I needed to remove the needles from the boost, oil, fuel, and temp gauges. The speed and tach were not removed. Now the guages that had their needles removed are not registering data as they should. I called the local Mitsubishi dealer and they told me it would cost 50 bucs to recalibrate the ECU. Does anyone know any tricks to accomplish this without taking it to the dealer?

 

[heavyD]

You are SOL. Any time you remove the needles, you should mark where they are with the car at normal idle as well as when the car is shut down. If you are way off you are screwed because you have no reference to where they were before you took them off.

 

[TSiAWD666]

Um, dude... the oil, boost, and temp gauges are all estimates, and so it's not important that they line up exactly I don't know what the dealer was smoking when he said you needed to have your ECU recalibrated... you need to just adjust the needles. You can have the needles be wherever you want. If they're not in the right range, simply pull the needles off and reposition them, and use trial and error to get them displaying where they "should" be. As for the speedo and rpm, while the former can be adjusted by having a friend pace you at a given speed, the latter you'll probably need something like an AFC to give you alternative rpm reading so you can adjust.

 

[Keats25]

To the first reply, read the post before you comment. I never removed the tach or speedometer gauges, those are working just fine.

Now on to the comment that actually made sense, I have tried the trial and error technique, the problem is that wherever my needles are set is where they stay, they don't move at all. Do you or anyone else have any more idea's?

 

[TSiAWD666]

Oh man, I'm guilty of not reading either I would just make sure that the screws are contacting properly, as I believe all of them are connections for the gauges to the electrical traces on the rear of the gauges. Dunno what else it could be.

 

[Defiant]

I've never heard of calibrating the gauges through the ECU, but at this point, there's not much about DSMs that'd suprise me.

Get a grease pencil or a washable felt pen or piece of tape or whatever, and go run the car. Mark where the needles are when you're up to temperature and running normally, right there on the face of the instrument panel. Also mark where they're "supposed" to be. Measure the difference, pull the needles and -from wherever they stopped when you shut off- re-mount them the amount they were "off". If they aren't broken, and your ground screws are making good contact, that _should_ fix it.

 

[heavyD]

Originally posted by Defiant
I've never heard of calibrating the gauges through the ECU, but at this point, there's not much about DSMs that'd suprise me.

Get a grease pencil or a washable felt pen or piece of tape or whatever, and go run the car. Mark where the needles are when you're up to temperature and running normally, right there on the face of the instrument panel. Also mark where they're "supposed" to be. Measure the difference, pull the needles and -from wherever they stopped when you shut off- re-mount them the amount they were "off". If they aren't broken, and your ground screws are making good contact, that _should_ fix it.

That's what I said.

 

[heavyD]

Originally posted by Keats25
To the first reply, read the post before you comment. I never removed the tach or speedometer gauges, those are working just fine.

Now on to the comment that actually made sense, I have tried the trial and error technique, the problem is that wherever my needles are set is where they stay, they don't move at all. Do you or anyone else have any more idea's?

I don't recall saying you did remove the tach or speedo. All I said is that you mark the position of all of the needles in respect to each other. Standard practice for changing gauge faces. If that doesn't make sense to you, I'm not surprised you are in your predicament.

If your needles don't move, make sure the instrument cluster is properly connected (pushed in as far as it will go).

The dealer doesn't re-program your ECU. All they do is connect a factory calibrator that inputs a known voltage in respect to RPM (eg. 2000 RPM), Speed (eg. 80 mph), Temp, etc. and move the needles appropriately. Takes about 15 minutes.

 

[Defiant]

Originally posted by heavyD


The dealer doesn't re-program your ECU. All they do is connect a factory calibrator that inputs a known voltage in respect to RPM (eg. 2000 RPM), Speed (eg. 80 mph), Temp, etc. and move the needles appropriately. Takes about 15 minutes.

How weird. Now, when they "move the needles", is that done with electronics, or do they have to mess with the physical needles?

Sure beats the crap out of running the speedo spindle at 1000 rpm and using a soldering gun to put more or less magnetism into the aluminum cup surrounding the drive magnet. Stone knives and bearskins.

 

[heavyD]

Originally posted by Defiant
How weird. Now, when they "move the needles", is that done with electronics, or do they have to mess with the physical needles?

Sure beats the crap out of running the speedo spindle at 1000 rpm and using a soldering gun to put more or less magnetism into the aluminum cup surrounding the drive magnet. Stone knives and bearskins.

I've seen it done on a Sunfire trust me it isn't any differnent on a DSM. Maybe you should be a DSM "Wiseass" because you obviously don't know much about automobile electronics but you make an ass out of yourself quite well.