Hi Edd, I'm looking at buying one of these in a few weeks once my car has been mapped to 160 by the dealership (I've been driving a 140 for months before they'd admit it), £140 for another 12-25bhp is a bargain really.
Anyway, one thing putting me off is that the boost gauge won't read correctly. I presume you do a lot more than just scale the signal by X so I can't just multiply it in my head.
Have you got any plans for a unit that has an output that feeds direct into the gauge with the actual reading from the MAP sensor? I'm presuming the OE gauge doesn't take the same signal but it's probably not rocket surgery to reverse engineer.
I'd probably end up making a little box to do the same myself eventually but I thought it would be worth asking because it's surely crossed your mind at some point?
Hi Dave,
You are correct that the boost gauge will not take the same signal as the tuning box. The boost gauge will be fed a signal from the ECU directly. I haven't looked into it, but I imagine it will actually be quite a difficult signal to change (its probably a CAN signal).
The thing is that getting in and out of lots of Abarths, what I notice is that the accuracy of the stock gauges is massively inconsistent. Sometimes the gauge will match the values shown on diagnostic equipment, sometimes it will vary by as much as 0.2 Bar either way.
Ultimately there are probably two solutions:
- Solution 1: Accept that the boost gauge is not particularly accurate in the first place, definitely not right with the box installed and not to pay it too much attention.
- Solution 2: Replace it with a nice accurate aftermarket gauge. This would probably be cheaper, and almost certainly would be better than making a unit to recieve signal and drive the existing gauge.
Best regards,
Edd