Ultragauge setup

Hey guys just wondering which gauges are most beneficial to watch on my tacoma, Currently i have MPH,RPM,Instant MPG, avg MPG, Engine load, Coolant temp, Intake temp, and oil miles.

What are your guys setups?

 

Why MPH and RPM, do you not have a speedo and tach on your dash already?

I just monitor fuel economy with mine.

 

I went with what I DIDN'T have.

Instant MPG
Trip MPG average
Volts
timing advance
Distance to empty
Throttle opening
Instant MPG will always stay as well as Volts.

Getting a base line is always a good thing so swapping main screen will happen a lot.
If you know what it always was then if something happens you have a reference.

Speedo, Tach, Coolant ???????????
don't you already have those. ?????????

Hey you can have it any way your want.
What do you think is important ???
Oil could be put on the second page with an alarm to sound i think.
With something like 56 pages of information there's a lot of playing to do.

 

Actually the coolant temp is fairly handy. The truck thinks it's warm at 160, but I know better. This gauge was the reason I bought the UG. My Honda didn't have a coolant gauge - it had C and H lights. Useless!

Fuel trip is more useful than you'd think. My truck gets down next to E on the gauge when it still has 7 gallons in it. Totally serious. I always run the numbers when I fill up. The gas light comes on when about 6 gallons are left. Basically the gauge moves over a 10-gallon period, from 16 gallons to 6 gallons, which is why after the first hundred miles when it starts moving it looks like the truck is sucking the fuel.

Ignition advance is nice at times. MPG trip is my indicator of if I'm doing better or worse than normal for mileage at the moment.

Engine load is the most useful gauge to me ever, bar none. Accelerate at anywhere from 75 to 90% and it'll return FAR better mileage than otherwise. When it feels like you're driving conservative in this truck chances are you're doing about 65% load and wasting all sorts of fuel.

RPM, tach, fuel trims, cat temps, IAT and other misc stuff are on my other 2 pages for when I'm curious. I used to have IAT where my ign adv is now but the IAT reading on this truck isn't so useful. It hardly changes.

 

I wondered if the suction cup would stick to that textured area behind the mirror... I must try that.

 

It won't stick up there. I picked up a garmin dash mount disc and stuck it up there.

If you choose to do this, run the ultra-gauge cable from the OBD2 port FIRST because there is literally no extra. I put it a little too far to the right originally and had to remove that supposedly permanent mounting disc, which entailed pulling it with the UG mount and using a dull metal dogtag underneath to apply pressure for over 20 minutes before it would let loose.

Trust me, once it's there, it'll NEVER want to come off again. On the bright side, not even summer heat will drop the UG.

 

Ah ok. I had my doubts. I'll find another spot. Need to soon, the cord is driving me nuts waiting for me to find it a home.

 

to be honest i just bought it and i thought it would be cool, The MPH i wanted to see how off my speedo was with my tires, Im off by about 2mph. Coolant is nice for the above stated reason and because i try to let it cool down before i shut off the engine.

Just wondering, How do you calibrate the Avg. MPG? mine says something ridiculous like 1869.0 lol Anyway to possibly get that fixed? Do i have to reset something?

 

Hit the menu button, pick Gauge Menu. The zeroing functions are in there.
They have a nice PDF of the user manual on their site.. I took a skim through and realized just how much this thing does - and how a good chunk of the data I don't even understand

 

Just installed one in my Tacoma. Fairly easy setup, however when I change pages I have to let it advance two pages to get to the next page. In other words I have to let it go past the next page or it reverts back to the original page. Anyone else have tis issue?

 

There seems to be a lot of information on one page.Can it be set up where you can have only average mpg and instant mpg on one page like the Ki-Wi? Has anyone had any experence with the Ki-Wi?

 

Here's the manual.

 

http://ultra-gauge.com/ultragauge/support/UltraGauge_user_manuals.htm

There, for both versions.

 

Depends if you have the original or EM model Ultragauge. Original looks like it does 6 per page, the EM does 4,6, or 8 (user selectable). You could try only picking two gauges out of six to display on your page, that should work.

 

Indeed you can go less than 6 per. It actually has a clearing function that if you use then no pages will have gauges until you set them.

Still I gotta say I can't drive without %load. 85% accelerating may be even better for mileage than the 75% I was using before. Unfortunately every cavalier thinks I'm racing from a stoplight even though I'm shifting at 2200

Gotta calibrate it if you want it accurate though, and over lots of miles is better. Finally got mine dialed in for the most part. Last fill was off by 0.04gal. FWIW calibration factor at 1.11 is absolutely perfect on my 1GR.

 

Yeah I need to calibrate too.. haven't had it long enough quite yet to do the fill-up calibration.

How did you guys run the wires? I have it tucked in behind the black rubber strip for the driver's door, and the excess tied up in above the OBD connector.

 

Are you saying that a heavy foot, pedal-to-the-metal, lead foot, race to the stop light equals better mpg's?

 

Lowest BFSC tends to occur around 80% engine load for gas engines, although that depends on other factors as well.

It's kind of like targeting the highest engine compression you can do without making the fuel mixture go rich. This lowers pumping losses (lower manifold vacuum, why vac gauge guys would accelerate at 2-4" Hg) and the higher dynamic compression makes proportionally more physical work of the energy released in the burn. When combined with lower engine speed, as drag within the engine increases at roughly the square of its speed, you use less fuel for an acceleration event. You can't go too low an rpm though as the higher manifold pressure coupled with low airspeed will cause fuel to condense out of the mixture before it is burned, causing incomplete combustion and excess carbon. Around 2000 rpm is usually good.

Or so the theory goes. In my Honda 85% load meant 55 mph in a third of a mile. In a truck making around 270 lb-ft that happens somewhat more quickly.

You will NOT hit that load without a gauge though, I can tell you that. It's a narrow window between 70% and 95%, not even a 1/4" on the go pedal I'd wager, although you can tell once you've become accustomed to it how much you're getting on it. Definitely NOT pedal to the metal - 85% throttle at 2000 rpm is somewhere between a half inch and an inch from the UP position.

For what it's worth, it does work. My commute is so short I can't get through a single song on the radio. My lowest tank mileage for doing this commute is 19.1 mpg so far on the V6.

 

Wow. You sir, know stuff.