im clueless as to where to install the thermistor for it. anyone have any ideas?

tia

 

water neck that goes from the head to the radiator, on b16-under dist, on d series, left side of head next to dist.

 

the threads on the autometer thermister are coarse and the ECT sensor threads are fine. plus, would that not keep vtec from working since the ECU would no longer have a temperature reading?

help!

 

 

that would work, but i have a b18c.. thanks anyway though.

anyone else?

 

Is it a mechanical or electrical gauge?


Mine is electrical so I just tied into the sender wire. If yours is mechanical you would go into the same place. In the pictures it is the sender right under the distributor (blue splice connector attached to the wire).








[Modified by Cobra, 5:58 PM 5/27/2002]

 

Is there a mechanical vs electrical gauge debate? Like some people insist on one kind and someone else the other?

 

Huh?


I was just asking which style he has because if it is electrical he can simply splice whereas if he has mechanical he needs to pull the sender, put in some t-fittings and put both senders on.


Either way the pictures show him where he needs to be.

 

I remember in that "5 most important gauges" thread someone mentioned mechanical or electrical (I don't remember which) is more accurate or something.

 

hey cobra, great pics btw.... how well does that gauge work.... i ask because i am looking to get a oil pressure and water temp both electrical. do you have any pics of the gauge placement?
Thanks
Scary

 

Give me about 15 minutes and I will post up some pics of the gauges.

 

dude you rule !!!
Thanks
-Scary

 

Here they are:






The 3 I have in that cluster are the Air/Fuel, Water Temp and Volts. All 3 are Autometer Ultra-Lite II electrical gauges. Before anyone decides to tell me the value of the gauges I have let me say that I got all 3, practically new, for the price of 1 so the deal was worth it IMO.

They all work great. The fact that they are electrical made hookup simple. I have tested all 3 and found them to be extremely accurate. IMo neither electrical or mechanical is any better or worse. Each is subject to the info it is given, whether that come from a sender, or a measuring unit within the gauge assembily. I like the electrical because they were easy to hook up.

 

i considered doing that, i was told by someone else on this board that the honda's thermal resistor for the ECT sensor and autometer's thermal resistor do not have the same resistance versus temperature. what does your gauge read at operating temperature?
i guess i could just go pull the ECT sensor out of the car and test it.

 

The ECT may be different but you don't want to go into the ECT because it will screw with the computer since it alters the ohm load on the circuit. The coolant sender is much more basic in its function.

In regards to temps, my gauge is accurate within 5 degrees. My car runs very cool (I have not gotten the desire to fix this). My Autometer reads about 150 degrees while the stock gauge is slightly past 1/4. The hottest it has ever gotten with the Autometer was 185 degrees. At this point the stock gauge was a little below halfway. I have checked the coolant temp with a thermometer and it said it was 158 degrees when the Autometer was reading a little above 150.

 

hmm.. i did a little science experiment and found that the autometer sender read about 1000 ohms more on the hot side(same for the cold side) than the honda thermistor. this translated to about a 10-20 degree difference on the cold side as well as the hot side (when the honda read 100 degrees celcius the autometer read 110). i used boiling water and an ice bath for hot and cold temperatures, respectively. i read resistance with a multimeter.

i wired it up to the honda ECT sensor, though, and the ecu sure enough threw a code. it also read 200+ degrees when the engine was luke-warm (can't figure that one out).

anyway, im just going to use the autometer sender at the upper radiator hose.

thanks to everyone for the input.




[Modified by Wide Open Throttle, 12:35 AM 5/30/2002]

 

WOT, thanks for doing the experiment.

I knew using the Honda sender would be inaccurate and nobody believed me.
Thanks to you, I now have proof.

 

np. pm me if you want more specifics.

 

for any of you who are interested (maybe one or two), here is how i did my electrical water temp gauge.

my brother machined this piece to fit in my upper radiator hose:


here it is installed:





the piece is made out of aluminum. gauge reads 180 normal driving and approaches 200 when racing.

 

Perfect. This is exactaly what I was explaining to a friend last weekend that I wanted to do. I'll do a very similar (if not identical) thing with water temp. I was looking at Longacre pre-wired, triple gauge panels at a vendor booth at the Rose Cup race last weekend. Almost bought one similar to the triple panel shown.





[Modified by johng, 9:16 PM 6/11/2002]

 

DUDE...that is sweet looking...hof far down is the sensor in the water flow...does it obstruct the flow

 

it drops down about a quarter inch, and doesn't obstruct flow at all.

 

Very nice. Where did you mount the gauge(s) in the interior?

 

crappy picture, but it will suffice.

 

That is a very nifty peice. Good Job