So, I lent out my new tire guage at an autocross this weekend. Apparently the guy was suspicious of its readings and compared them to another guage. It was off by more than 10 psi (high). I compared it to my crappy pencil guage, and its 10 psi higher than that one too. So for the last four autocrosses I've been racing at about 23 psi. Lovely. I just bought this thing too. I guess I'll be checking the calibration of any guages I buy fron now on, or just using the crappy pencil guage (since I barely notice the difference anyway )

 

what kind of gauge is it?

 

My Moroso works fine. Some gagues are sensitive to impacts.

 

We took one of those 1/2" thick neoprene foam beer can holders and cut a hole in it for the hose to poke through, thread it in there and trim the cylinder down so that it protrudes about an inch above the face of the dial. Provided some knock protection...
K

 

After about 10 years on my old one, I was getting suspicious that it was no longer trustworthy so I bought a new one last weekend from BSR. They mentioned that you can buy a new head unit and reuse your hose so it would be a bit cheaper than buying a new one. I paid $30 at the track for a complete 0-60 lb gauge and hose although I could likely have gotten it cheaper elsewhere but they had them sitting right there calling my name.

I realized that I don't know a good way to really know if a guage is accurate other than sampling a number of other guages and hoping that most of them are correct and there is some agreement. We have a pretty new one in the KONI R&D shop that the guys think may be off a wee bit as well. Anyone know a better way to confirm it?

 

http://www.bsrproducts.com/homepage.cfm

Mine works fine and has a rubber surround on the readout.

YOP-AG250 60# 2.5"

 

I got a digital Accutire gage, I think it was $15 at Costco. For a given pressure, it gives the same reading as my Longacre. Thus it is equally accurate, or inaccurate. I know what pressures worked with the Longacre gage, so I feel fairly confident using this gage knowing it reads the same. It measures in half pound increments up to 99psi. backlit readout so it can be read at night.

 

I'm using the Longacre 0-60 gauge as well ($30), and it gives the same readings as three other gauges I've compared it against. However, I'm more confident in the Longacre gauge and it will likely outlive the others (well, not if it's used exclusivley) . My main liking of the Longacre gauge is the hose and bleed valve; if I didn't want those, I don't think I would have bought one.

 

Remember too that whether the thing is "right" or "wrong" is less important than whether it is repeatable. Assuming that you do all of your own testing and set-up - rather than just appropriating pressure settings from someone else - it doesn't matter whether the gauge says "25" or "35." You just need to be able to get to the optimum number at each, given the data available in your situation.

K