Boost gauge recommendations?

[ISUJakey]

Yeah, that thing looks sweet. I like my Isspro gauges, but if I had it to do over again, I'd get the Stewart Warner.

I also ordered the SW 2200 Degree F EGT gauge so I would have a matching set.

 

[hystericfox]

I have Defi D boost and EGT gauges. I chose these over Autometer mainly because of lighting, believe it or not. They were expensive, yes, but I have Sport Comp trans temp and oil temp gauges in my Jeep and they're incredibly dark at night. I was going to get Autometers for this car, but not being able to read them easily in low light conditions changed my mind, considering the functions they are serving. I don't want to take my eyes off of the road for longer than I have to to get a reading. The fact that the Defi EGT gauge had a braided line along the entire length of the wires was a nice touch, also. The housings are also metal, compared to Autometer's plastic ones (on S. Comps at least. I'm not sure about the other lines.) Having owned both, I feel that the Defi's are a little higher quality to justify the price. (I don't have anything against Autometer. I'm actually putting a full set of Cobalt's in my '65 Plymouth. ) I'm happy with my Defi's, and would recommend them to anyone. BTW, that TRE probe is going to be an upgrade soon, as the Defi one does seem a tad slow.

 

[JiveMasterT]

I have Defi D boost and EGT gauges. I chose these over Autometer mainly because of lighting, believe it or not. They were expensive, yes, but I have Sport Comp trans temp and oil temp gauges in my Jeep and they're incredibly dark at night. I was going to get Autometers for this car, but not being able to read them easily in low light conditions changed my mind, considering the functions they are serving. I don't want to take my eyes off of the road for longer than I have to to get a reading. The fact that the Defi EGT gauge had a braided line along the entire length of the wires was a nice touch, also. The housings are also metal, compared to Autometer's plastic ones (on S. Comps at least. I'm not sure about the other lines.) Having owned both, I feel that the Defi's are a little higher quality to justify the price. (I don't have anything against Autometer. I'm actually putting a full set of Cobalt's in my '65 Plymouth. ) I'm happy with my Defi's, and would recommend them to anyone. BTW, that TRE probe is going to be an upgrade soon, as the Defi one does seem a tad slow.

i think its only the autometer gauges with the black faces that have trouble being seen at night because the bulb that comes with them isnt bright enough. personally, i have a set of autometer gauges (phantom) that have white faces and i put euro lite bulbs in them and they are easily readable anytime.

 

[ahaidet]

I recently purchased an Autometer Sport Comp mechanical gauge. I hooked it up to a battery quickly and at night and it seemed very visisble to me, with the red light cover on the bulb, the color of the gauge and illumination matched the stock gauge cluster quiet well, which I think makes it look classier. I will have more info on accuracy tommorrow as I am taking the gauge to work to do a calibration on a Dead weight tester, I will have results by the afternoon and have them posted on here and on my website later on. However when I was originally in search of a boost gauge I decided I would send out emails to all the major manufacturers of gauges (autometer, greddy, defi) This was several weeks ago and I had not received a response until today. This is what Greddy said in my email to them:

> I am currently shopping for a mechanical boost gauge. I am curious
> however as to what internal standards your gauges are held to accuracy
> wise.
>
> Thanks for any info,
> Andy Haidet

Thanks for your interest in our products. Actually our boost gauges are
quite accurate. I do not have an exact specification, but most boost gauges
are fairly accurate. Thanks for your email.

--
GReddy Performance Products, Inc.
9 Vanderbilt
Irvine, CA 92618
www.greddy.com
bi

...really helpful makes me glad they responded...
Either they have crappy internal standards and are not proud of them.. or the guy who answered the email knows nothing. Maybe both. If someone in the Northeastern Ohio area has a Greddy gauge and wants to know how accurate it really is send me a message. I can test it on the dead weight tester and get some more info, would be interesting to see if they are really worth the extra money.

 

[ahaidet]

Well I just completed testing my Autometer Sport-Comp -30 Vac to 30 PSI range boost gauge, $43.00 at Summit Racing. All testing was done on a Ashcroft 1305D Deadweight tester. That is certified accurate and traceable to the National Bureau of Standards (and cost $15,000.) It is guaranteed accurate to 0.1% of the reading. This is probably way overkill for this but we have one at work available and I am trained to use it.

The gauge does not read perfectly 0 at 0PSI as most do not. (who really cares what 0PSI is, they are set up to be accurate at real readings)

Applied Pressure Autometer Gauge Reading
0PSI---------------------0.5PSI
5PSI---------------------6.25PSI
10PSI--------------------11.25PSI
15PSI--------------------16.25PSI
20PSI--------------------21.0PSI
25PSI--------------------25.5PSI
30PSI--------------------29.75PSI
15PSI--------------------16.0PSI

For the decimal point, I basically read the gauge as 0.25 if the left side of the needle was touching the lower number, 0.5 if it was dead center between two, and 0.75 if it was touching the right side of the needle on the high side. This Autometer gauge is not super high accuracy but this will get the job done... I now know that my gauge reads a little high. If you do not have a dead weight tester available to you this is hard to do accurately. However you can use this as a baseline, If you have an Autometer gauge I highly doubt it will read exactly as mine does so don't go turning your boost up a little bit more because you think that it reads low. With the nature of test equipment/ measurement tools I could test 3 more gauges just like this and they may not read identical even coming out of the factory right in a row. Even our $700 digital Ashcroft tire pressure gauges do not read exactly the same, much closer than a $40 Autometer boost gauge.. but still. Hope this helps anyone who was curious about accuracy of an Autometer boost gauge. Would be interesting to now try out one from the other end of the spectrum a $150 Defi or Greddy gauge. Let me know if anyone is interested...

 

[doug]

Yeah, I'd be interested. I think that would make for a terrific Tech Article-- a boost gauge roundup. I'd suggest Defi, Greddy, Blitz, Stewart-Warner, and Isspro <-- (only because that's what kind I have).

Any others, like maybe Faze or Sunpro or whatever?

 

[hks-gst]

Hey the defi boost gauge is really nice from defi you can get them cheap at www.Edoperformance.com -Giovanni

 

[ahaidet]

Perhaps I should rephrase my last sentence. I am not currently going to buy anymore boost gauges for myself. But if someone locally (or even if you wanted to send your gauge to me, but I hold no responsibility) is interested in having me test their gauge I would be willing to do so. I don't have the money to go out and buy 5 different or even 2 different boost gauges to do a comparison. I do agree that it would be a great thing to look into as there is a huge difference in price from low to high end here in something that only has to read accurately and consistently.

On a side note it is interesting to note that my gauge became more accurate the nearer I got to the max PSI of 30.

 

[Patterson]

I have the autometer Ultra-Lite Series with the silver face plate. I love them!

 

[fulanititoo8198]

I see you guys have bad ass gauges, well I bought mine for like 16.00 I think.. or 20.00 on jcwhitney. Yea I'm always broke and I figured I wouldnt need anything expensive since I'll be stock for a while. It measues -30 to +30 but yea it works.

 

[WatchItExplode]

Does anybody have a picture of the black face Autometer gauges at night? I was thinking about going with those, but if they are hard to see in the dark then maybe I should rethink it.

 

[kicker91laser]

I have the autometer Ultra-Lite Series with the silver face plate. I love them!

I'll have to second that

 

[Turbo Talon DL]

I have the autometer Ultra-Lite Series with the silver face plate. I love them!

I have the same gauges, and im content with them as well! My only beef is the Autometer boost gauge, it reads a little differently after I vac-tested the line to make sure it didnt leak. The needle used to sit at the top of the -0- bok, now it sits about 3/4 of the way up in the box. No biggie to me, i'll get used to it. I have NO problems looking at this gauge at night. I dont run a bulb cover just so I can see it easier.

 

[ahaidet]

Does anybody have a picture of the black face Autometer gauges at night? I was thinking about going with those, but if they are hard to see in the dark then maybe I should rethink it.

If you can wait till this weekend I will have one for you. I have tested mine outside the car and it seemed to be plenty bright to me. I will be hopefully installing mine this week/ weekend.. Plus like I said before it matches the stock gauges nicely..

 

[daren_p]

I took my autometer boost gauge off today so I could check its accuracy, so here are the results. The readings from the gauge are on the left and the actual pressure that was applied to get the autometer gauge to read what is listed in on the right.

0, 0
5, 5.02
10, 10.20
13, 13.25
15, 15.30
16, 16.30
17, 17.33
18, 18.37
19, 19.42
20, 20.54

So my gauge is reading low abit and its a span error as it increases as more pressure is applied. It looks like the gauge would still be classified as in spec as it is more then likely a 3/2/3 % gauge.

 

[spades_gsx]

when I had my auto meter 30-0-30, I used to boost 19psi then one day it read 14psi I thought I had a major boost leak. two days later the gauge read 8psi. I parked the car and noticed that the vac at idle was almost 30in! with the car shut off it read almost 10in! the gauge when I purchased it read at almost 1psi. I decided to switch brands. I'm not knocking autometer just decided to try something different.

 

[gixrman]

I like my Turbosmart E-boost gauge controller nice bright digital readout and overboost alarm. Still have my AM boost gauge to see pressure drop.http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=167866