Air/Fuel Gauge FRUSTRATION!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know there have been countless threads about this...mine is the same but different at the exact same time. Story goes...bought 3 digital gauges. One is Air/Fuel. To start off, connected the ground first, then battery. Tested for function and works perfectly. Now for signal wires. From the gauge i have ground and signal. Found the O2 meter in the engine with 3 wires. Black/Red, Pink and Brown/White. Connected ground to Black/Red. Then
Signal to Pink - No reading
Signal to Brown/White - No Reading
Signal to Pink again - No reading - For some reason now the air/fuel gauge doesn't light up properly and doesn't function properly. Take the gauge back to get a new one. Asked the guy at autobarn and he said to connect the signal wire to the Pink on the O2 sensor. Get home. Connect power. Works perfectly. connect signal. EXACT SAME THING HAPPENED!!!!!!!! The light on the gauge has dimmed and doesn't function properly. Just to let you know. I made sure that this gauge had it's own power source. WHAT is going on?!?!?!?!? i'm about to give up on the air/fuel gauge and go for oil pressure. I worked on this for nearly 9 hours!!! and i feel like crying LOL. Any help is appreciated!
what brand gauge is it? so you are saying the gauge has 4 wires?
the gauge is Drift. Um the gauge has 2 sets. one for the main power which has acc, battery and ground. the other set is for the sensor which has a ground and a sensor wire. so all up 5
oh ok well mine only had 3, did you earth both ground wires properly? you said you grounded one wire to a black/red wire at the sensor, maybe try earthing it to a bolt or something.
ye i tried that first. nothing happened at all. but when i earthed it to the earth wire on the O2 sensor that's when everything started...i dunno i'm fed up with it. see the same thing happened to my cousin when he tried to put his oil pressure gauge on a year ago...to this day it still doesn't work. also you wouldn't by any chance know there the water temperature sensor wire on the engine is do you?
should be near the thermostat but i dont think your gauge will work with the stock sensor so you will have to use the sensor that came with the gauge.
ah k. well my thermostat is behind the engine under the throttle body lol...pain in the a**. downside of a supercharged vt
getting Kustom
DO NOT!!!!!!!!!! i repeat DO NOT!!!!!!!!!! use the factory water temp sensor for an aftermarket gauge, it screws with the ecu with cold start etc. You need to use a seporate sensor, you get a sensor adaptor and a sensor. and put it into the top radiator hose. This is what i did, works like a charm. This is what it looks like --
ye i've got one of those...was just kinda hoping i wouldn't need to cut anything lol. ah well i guess i'll do it. didn't know that it would mess up the ecu though. lucky i hadn't done it yet. i don't suppose you know of any solutions to my air/fuel problem? lol
cheers
Donating Member
connect the signal wire at the ecu, do a search you will find teh exact wire you need to connect to.Originally Posted by ch1mp
-Smit
i put an autometer air/fuel guage in a while ago. it only had 3 wires, ground, power and signal. i ran the
signal wire to the ecu and connected it to the o2 sensor pin.
i had kind of assumed it would read a bit differently from what it did. cause the ecu reads from each o2
sensor the guage display flickers and then when the engine is warm and you are cruising the ecu goes
into open loop so the guage shows no display at all.
all this was explained in the guage instructions but until i saw it working.....i can scan the page if you like
on holiday
your probably connecting to the 12v heater wire on the sensor and frying the gauges
I tune the oldschool way fear on the passengers face and knuckle colour cant go wrong
tabbacco is still my favorite vegetable
I'm with SMIT and dagsy; making the connections near the PCM will be easier than running wires in from the engine bay.
You can use either of the two sensors.
From my wiring diagram:
LHS: +ve is violet/black trace, D16 @ the PCM (=> signal on the gauge)
-ve is violet, D15 @ the PCM (=> [signal] earth on the gauge)
OR
RHS: +ve is grey/black trace, D14 @ the PCM
-ve is grey/yellow trace, D13 @ the PCM
Use both the sensor +ve and the sensor -ve for the gauge inputs as the voltages generated are small and any difference in voltage (potential) across the wires can affect the reading on the gauge. i.e. avoid using just any convenient earth for the signal earth if you can (and you can).
The power and earth wires for the gauge operation/lighting won't be critical so you can use pretty much any convenient ignition and accessory power source and body earth.
Wiring for S/C V6 is different to NA V6.
The pink wire @ each of the sensors is the power wire to the O2 sensor heater, B+ve with ignition on. The black/red trace is the heater earth.
If you made two pairs of pigtail wires, spliced into the wiring for each O2 sensor near the PCM, with male/female connectors (available from Jaycar or similar eg. two of PP-2062), you could easily unplug/plug and swap the gauge from reading one bank of cylinders to the other.
Even better might be to use a switch to swap back and forth which sensor the gauge is reading. Because there are two earths for the sensors, you would need a DPDT switch for this, wired to open one circuit as the other one was closed.
For the temp. gauge, you could use the second (gauge) sensor in a similar location to that used on S/C VS V6. This would involve a drill and tap operation into the inlet manifold/thermostat housing but should be cheaper than sxc_sound's hose mount if DIY. As it's on the engine side of the thermostat it will also read engine coolant temp. rather than the temp. of the coolant flowing out to the radiator (which only occurs with the thermostat open). Depends on the available level of skill and tools though.
As a philosophical aside, working on cars is invariably frustrating at times but ultimately satisfying if the goal is persisted with. Inanimate objects must eventually respond to reason and resilience is an invaluable life skill.
Wow that last post was incredible. i'll have to read it a few times to get my head around it to see what i can do. i don't think i'll be drilling any holes in my engine to put the signal into for the coolant temp. although it would be ideal but i don't have the tools and if i screw it up...i'm not too sure how i'd fix it and i need my car for everyday use. i've had soooo many water problems since i've had my car that i don't want to create any more. i still have one more ongoing one which i plan on fixing in about a month or so. i've replaced the whole cooling system so far except for the heater core and the tap. doing those myself too. oh yeah and one of those vacuum tubes is faulty so that needs to be done too.
as for Delcowizzid's response...i realised this on my way home about 20 minutes ago...i realised this because, to avoid anymore damage to the gauge (which i believe it is fried now anyway), when i decided to leave it alone i removed the fuse. this you would assume would turn it off completely. HOWEVER, i left everything in the engine connected to where i had it (ground on ground, signal on pink), and when i turned the ignition on, the air/fuel gauge very very dimly turned on. and i couldn't figure out why. so i disconnected it completely from the engine. about 20 minutes ago i had the epiphany that, hang on...that must be connected to the power on the sensor!! i'll give the other wire a shot first and then i'll give the ecu a try...that's if the gauge isn't already fried which i think it is.
dagsy i would very much like the scan of the page too. much appreciated.
thanks for all the help. i'll let you all know how it goes. won't be till about tuesday at least though. gotta make some money
on holiday
ide say gauge is toast and wouldnt dare plug it into an ecu for rick of killing it
I tune the oldschool way fear on the passengers face and knuckle colour cant go wrong
tabbacco is still my favorite vegetable
ok guys so i know it's been ages since i updated you on this. 2 reasons. i've been away AND i've been waiting for 1 month and 3 weeks for my replacement gauges to arrive!!!!! so after the airfuel debarcle i found out that i was told to connect it to the heater wire!!!!! so that got toast. The owner of the Autobarn was PISSED! so he ordered me another one and i found out the correct wiring to connect it to. While i was at it, i asked him to order me another boost gauge, BECAUSE the idiot who told me to connect the air/fuel to the heater wire, ACTUALLY gave me a vacuum gauge instead of the boost. "Oh ye the vacuum will show boost too" my ass. when the car is boosting the gauge says 0. so ye i told the owner to order me a boost too. i've kept all my wiring in my car so i don't have to go through all the crap again and i'm just going to swap over the gauges ONLY. So here i am now. still waiting for the gauges 1 month and 3 weeks later. I found out that "Drift" has been lying to all the retailers "oh yeah we've sent them and you'll get them soon". They leave Japan this Monday! So by the time they arrive in Australia and get distributed to all the retailers...about another month or so...so i'm going to call em up next week and see if i can't make a deal with them.
That's my vent. i don't feel any better coz i have a gap in my dash waiting for gauges but oh well.
cheers
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