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| AutoMeter A/F Gauge |
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I was bored one day and decided to get one of these air to fuel ratio gauges basically to tell me a couple things: how bad my idle was with the cams, if I was approximately in the right a/f range for full throttle, and whether or not I could grind out a mounting hole in my console and not make it look like complete and utter shit. The first two were fine, and the third...well...let's just say I'm ok with the dremel, but it's nothing special. Anyway, if you go read over at the APEXi S-AFC page, you'll see that I mounted that computer with sticky tape on the front of my console, where a cd or tape player would be if I cared enough to own one. Thankfully, I don't give a shit, and therefore have a nice spot to mount my ugly gauges. So, to mount the gauge, essentially I just traced a circle around the gauge, in pencil, onto the plastic next to the S-AFC and started grinding the fuck out of it with a dremel sanding wheel. It actually worked surprisingly well, though the circle didn't come out EXACTLY as planned...oh well. After the mounting hole was satisfactory, I ran the wires down through the center console just as I did with the S-AFC wires, and they came out at the same location into the driver's side footwell. This is what the mounting job looks like in the day time.
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Now, I don't have any pictures of the wiring into the PCM, but it was the same process as splicing in the S-AFC wires, but just to different leads. Go read the S-AFC page if you don't know how to splice the new wires into the PCM wires. That being said, there are three wires that came out of the back of my gauge. The backlit ones have four, but you're on your own if you like fancy, glowing gauges, you dork. My three wires were black, red, and purple, for the ground, power, and O2 sensor, respectively. The picture to the right shows where to attach the ground wire. You can use any chassis ground, but I liked this one because it's right in the bottom of the console, so the wires were right there anyway. I just stripped a bit of extra insulation off the end of the black wire, unscrewed the bolt a bit (15mm), stuck the end of the wire in between the metal and the bolt, and tightened it back down. The power wire I spliced into the exact same wire as I did the power wire for the S-AFC, just about an inch down the line from the first splicing. Now, for the purple wire, you have to remove the J3 PCM connector, which is the only one we didn't touch when doing the S-AFC install. It's the only one that is partially brown, on my car. The other two were completely blue. Anyway, the wire you're gonna be splicing the purple gauge wire into is also purple. However, you'll notice that there are MANY purple wires going to the J3 connector. Here's how to find the one you need: first, find two purple wires that are right next to each other. Beside one of the purple wires will be a black wire. Beside the other one will be a tan wire. You need to splice into the purple wire that is next to the TAN wire. This is the lead that comes from the 02 sensor mounted in the exhaust manifold or header. Hook it up and you should be good to go. Oh, and needless to say, make sure you tie the loose wires up so they don't dangle down into the footwell.
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A couple notes about the use of this thing: first and foremost, it is not very accurate. Don't use it for really fine tuning or anything. The only things I'd use it for is tuning the idle so it's not too rich, and getting your full throttle A/F ratio in the right BALLPARK. My boy Chris's nitrous wagon, for example, runs so rich the gauge can't even read it when he's at full throttle. If you find you're running THAT RICH, I think it'd be safe to cut some fuel. But honestly, you MUST go to a dyno for any kind of fine tuning. However, this gauge IS useful for telling if something has gone wrong and you're running lean at full throttle, so it has it's purpose. Just don't inferr any kind of great accuracy to it. Oh yeah, here's a night shot. Saweeeeet.
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