Tech-Monitoring Mayhem PART 2 : GAUGES

GAUGES are critical -- no question, but are there really big differences between gauges? And what does a little guy hot rodder (like us) really need for instrumentation? The truth is, there really are a lot of differences in gauges. Some are better suited to racing and high performance than others. Some are more complex than others, and yes, some are more (sometimes much more) costly than others. So far so good, but one thing we’ll address right now is the fact there are only so many gauges you can monitor in a car at any given time. Sure an instrument cluster which is one step away from the cockpit of an old B52 is impressive, but something like an aircraft cluster isn’t exactly easy to scan during a ten-second pass down the quarter mile or even for a trip to get an ice cream cone. Bottom line here is, pick the gauges carefully and focus upon the most important pieces for your car. Here’s our take on the topic:

Oil Pressure…

Likely the most important instrument in the car is the oil pressure gauge. The instrument of choice for most applications is a mechanical gauge. There are a number of different mechanical gauges on the market, but one consideration is thenever see the high side of 70 PSI, then it makes no sense to install a gauge which will read 200 PSI. In simple terms, a gauge with fewer markings is easier to read than one with larger markings. That’s why manufacturers such as Auto Meter purposely skew the face on many of their instruments. This allows the area of maximum pressure to be situated at the top of the instrument.