I’ve always gotten by with just the four basics: oil pressure, oil temp, water temp, and voltmeter. It kept the cockpit clean and the wiring simple. However, as I continue to dial in the wagon, there are two more monitors I’ve decided to add: an oil low-pressure light and an AFM gauge. I’ve spoken with several racers who have saved their motors from a complete melt-down with these devices, as it’s pretty easy to forget to look at your gauges while in the heat of battle. So I’m using a 20 psi oil pressure switch that I plumbed into the oil pressure gauge line (which is tapped into the remote oil filter housing). I fitted it with an Earls -4 male, -4 female, 1/8 npt tee. I then wired in a bright red warning light in easy view, as 40 year old oil pumps do have the tendency to fail on occasion. For the AFM gauge I went with the Pro-Comp wideband unit. It’s easy to read with digital and lightbar readouts. And if you hook up a throttle switch it even has programmable lights so if your air-fuel-mixture goes above a pre-set level of, say 15:1, you get a flashing warning. It also gives you another tuning tool for racing at different altitudes.
I’m racing at Cal Speedway later this month, a track known to be hard on engines as it has the longest full throttle/top gear section of any track out west. I’ve put in some shorter gearing as well, so I guess we’ll find out the terminal velocity of a 510 wagon ;-)
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