Frustration with this Ultragauge.......

Looking for some help here with this Ultragauge regarding the fuel calibration. I’m in the middle of a long road trip and I’m about to pull what hair I have out.
Here it goes, after improperly calibrating the thing by pressing wrong buttons and zeroing things out before I left the trip I thought that going back after a fill up and resetting to full tank, zeroing the average MPG and resetting the calibration factor to 1.0 after a fill up. All is well until I fill up again and go to enter the gallons used I see the number in there that is no where near close to what I have so I change to the amount that I put in. Well what that does is just wack out the unit as far as the MPG and DTE. So I go back and zero out the average MPG and reset the calibration to 1.0. Do you see where this is going…..round in circles!
Thinking I need to go in and reset the whole thing.
Ant thoughts for help since I’m frustrated?

 

how far off was your gallons vs fill volume? without the menu or manual in my hands, i feel there is another counter that also needs to be reset. I can confirm tomorrow if no one else chimes in.

 

It sounds to me like the gallons used for the calibration isn't resetting to zero but you're expecting it to. It won't reset to zero with a trip mpg reset. I ran into this when I moved the ultragauge from the honda to the tacoma.

I wound up zeroing out every counter in the thing, which was ok because it was going into a new vehicle. I'm not sure which one did it, but eventually I got it to start at zero again. It doesn't explicitly say in the manual how to make that number start at zero, unfortunately.

The closest references I can dig up:

Calibration section says to start this process to report tank filled (top button, 5 sec) and then Zero Avg MPG, G/H.

Gauge Description section says the Avg MPG is part of the 'general' gauge section rather than 'trip' and is reset like it says in the Calibration section.

Something you can try if you can't find the one that wipes it down to zero: next fillup reset the calibration to 1.00 and record how many gallons it says. Write it down and be exact. Then next fillup, check the difference. The calibration factor will match exactly the number a calculator spits out if you divide the actual used gallons by the UG's measured gallons; then you can 'fudge' the calibration with a little trial-and-error to match that number your calculator spit out.

Remember, once you set and forget that thing will count up forever.

edit: the gauge you need to say zero to restart calibration is Fuel Used General. Zeroing procedure not described explicitly in either version of the user manual.

 

If you ignore what it says for mpg, you can set both at the same time. There's no calibration interference between them.

 

It takes some getting used to and one wrong press (with no confirmation!) will start you over at square-one.

I had finally pinned mine into a factor of around 1.085... then I zeroed MPG and it reset to 1.000 again.
Of course, I did this about 60 miles into a tank, and it reset EVERYTHING.

So today I fueled up and I played with the fuel amount until it reported 1.085 again, so hopefully I'll be close now.

Short story... Keep all of your fuel receipts, or write down your exact fuel quantity for each refueling.
Once you get 10 tanks or so, the gauge should be pretty well calibrated and you can just tell it "fill tank" and not have to go into calibration to add the fuel you just put in.

But until you have the calibration dialed in, you need to track TOTAL fuel... so first tank you put in 10 gallons and the UG already has a 12 there, change it to 10 and it'll bump your correction factor.
Next time you might put in 12 gallons... the UG might say 21... change it to 22, and it will further tune your correction factor.
When your correction factor is dialed in for your truck, the number already in the UG will match your TOTAL fuel used from the first entry to and including the receipt in your hand.

I save my "sent" text messages to Fuelly so if I lose one of my receipts I can manually add up my total.

 

You all must have fuel level sensors in your tank. I don't. I just calibrated the distance so next I'll do the MPG. The directions seem straight forward but I haven't stepped through it yet.

 

I screwed it up the first time too. On the fuel used calibration page in the manual. do step 2 only the first time. I did it the third fueling and messed it all up and had to reset to 1.00 and start over.
first fillup follow the calibration instructions in full
second fill up skip step 2. The number of gallons shown should be fill up 1 + fill up 2. Make any corrections.
third fill up same as second fill up but the number of gallons should now be the sum of the 3 fill ups.

fill up 4 to N: same as 2nd and 3rd fill ups and keep adding the total gallons up and adjust the UG gallon settings.

You should eventually get to the point where the number of gallons from your fill ups (from the receipts) should equal what UG is showing. Then you can stop calibrating because you are right on.

 

Ok Thanks. I'll look for that. I recall seeing on the gauge that the auto fuel level stuff was already disabled because it was not found. I'll double check.

Thanks. Got it mounted tonight.

 

So when you fill upthe second time, lets say you put in 12 gallons, you will actually put in 13, and then on the third fill up, if you put in another 12 gallons, you would actually put 25 gallons into the ultragauge?

 

No, you tell the UG exactly how much you put in.
First fill up, if you put in 12, you tell it 12.
Next time, you put in 12, the UG might already say 22 or 26.. change it to 24.

Eventually, likely within 10 tanks (I screwed mine up and reset after 3 tanks), the number already in the UG will match your total.
At that point, you're done with your calibration.

 

My calibration continued to refine until I fucked up and zeroed the calibration.

First tank my correction factor was around 1.1, 2nd tank it was around 1.09, 3rd tank it was around 1.088... then I fucked it up and had to start over.

 

So you don't just hold up to tell it you filled up after the very first time, you do have to go in and do step 3, until the calibration factor is 1?

 

Default calibration factor is 1.0, and on my truck was 2mpg high.
First tank, it jumped to 1.10
2nd tank, I put in something like 14 gallons, UG already said "21", but my 14 plus the first tank was 20 so I adjusted it to 20.
3rd tank, UG said something like 33, but my total for the 3 tanks was 32 or something like that so again, I adjusted the UG down.

Had to start over on the last tank, but knowing that I was between 1.08 and 1.09 before, I played with the fuel quantity to get it to that point. Hopefully it'll be dialed in after a couple more tanks.

 

It pulls the information from the fuel injector pulse timing.

It knows how much fuel you are using... you just need to fine tune the calibration, which takes more than one tank.

 

So i guess i will have to keep a log of how many total gallons get put in.

 

I just keep my receipts in the coin holder pocket over the fusebox on the left.

 

Send it in for like $18.00 bones they will fix it.

 

Ok, I got the method now. That explains that after I zeroed it and the next fill up entry was good and the 2nd would be bad. Wouldn't it be nice if it was in the manual?