Fried Rice BANZAI: Project-T: Gauges Install

Alright! The kit is sorted! My gauges have been selected and has arrived! While installing the AEM FIC, I've went ahead and installed the gauges! Efficient!

The gauges I've chosen are the Auto Gauge "Angel Ring" gauges! I've chosen a boost gauge to monitor boost, an air to fuel ratio (AFR) gauge to monitor AFR and an oil pressure gauge to.. You've guessed it! Monitor oil pressure.

The gauges come with a touch pad, hood, mounting pod, wiring, sender (some), instructions and a sticker!

Although not a cool name brand gauge like A'PEXi, GReddy or even Autometer, the Auto Gauge "Angel Ring" gauges have some pretty cool features like warnings and peak data display. But some really unique features like a changing back light colour that can be flipped at a push of a button! Neat! It changes from white, red to blue! Also, they're "black faced" or "smoked" meaning, when it's off, the guage face is totally black!

My initial idea for installing it was to cut two slits on the dash and have the mount poking in from under and hold the gauge just above the dash as if it's totally integrated. But that plan failed, as the mounts were to short... Ah well, I'll just install it on top as it was originally designed for.

I cut slits to put the mounting through, but it didn't fit well... Ah well.

Since I can't put the mounts from the bottom, top mounting it is!

The "Angel Ring" also comes with a touch pad that you mount on the side of the gauge. But I didn't want that. Instead, I extended the wires and relocated the buttons to the side of the dash, near the airconditioning vent. This way I don't have to lean right across the dash to push buttons! It also gives the gauges a nice clean look too!

Drill a hole, mount the touch pad, solder the wires!

Ducks in a row

Each gauge has a number of wires which I couldn't hide below the mounting points. So if you can't hide it, might as well flaunt it! I drilled a hole, a little from the rear of the gauge, to show off the wiring and put a grommet to protect the wires and to give a real professional feel. Cool!

Hole drilled and wires fed through! I taped the connectors so that they don't get ruined when wiring everything up.

Two done, one to go!

Wiring is pretty straight forward, I added a 5A inline fuse for the power wire. I didn't fuse the 12V accessories wire though, I'll rely on the factory fuse and hope the intermediate device doesn't fail. One cool feature about the "Angel Ring" gauges is that you can daisy chain the power to other gauges! Nice! That saved me a few wires!

Each gauge also comes with their own sensors (or senders) with the exception of the AFR gauge. I mounted the boost sender in the dash, but for the oil pressure sender, I only routed the wire to the engine bay as I'll hook up the oil pressure sender to a oil filter sandwich adaptor when I install the turbo later. The AFR gauge has an input wire for a AFR signal source, for this I'll use the Innovate LC-1, so for now, I'll leave this wire hanging.

The boost sender requires a vacuum line. I replaced the vacuum hose from the throttle body with a brand new one and added a nylon tee-piece to grab a vacuum source. The hose is then routed from the engine bay to the dash. The "Angel Ring" gauge also came with an inline filter for the vacuum hose! Neat! So in that goes and after the filter, the vacuum line is split again, one line going to the AEM FIC and the other to the boost sender. These hoses are pretty small to put metal hose clamps, so cable ties should suffice.

Once complete, I powered it on and gave it a test run! The "opening ceremony" is pretty cool! You can also adjust the brightness of the gauge and set it to beep or not.

For the ScanGauge it's even more easier! An RJ45 (Ethernet) connector connects to the ScanGauge and at the other end, a OBDII port connector! I drilled a hole above and slightly to the right of the steering wheel to route the cable. I put a grommet in to protect the cable and I also put a screw in, which lines up to one of the screws on the ScanGauge. I put some heatshrink on the screw to give it some friction, and the end result? A nicely mounted ScanGauge! For ease of use, I can actually pull the ScanGauge out, tinker with it, then set it back down in the dash! The cable is restrained in the dash, but provides enough give for me to pull it out, but not so much that it fall out! Awesome!