Was wondering if some creative person has come up with a re-work that gets the temp gauge to read REAL temp? Depending on how the actual gauge actuates I can imagine a variety of ways to do it.

 

Nope. If you want accurate temp numbers consider installing an after market set. Might consider a oil pressure and oil temp set of gauges that will give you a lot more important information.

 

Interesting idea. The oil pressure gauge on Miatas is the same. The first ones had real gauges. Then they did a refresh in 1994 and the gauge was actually just an idiot light with a needle. You could swap everything to the old style gauge and sender. Then they changed the body style in 1999, and the old parts wouldn't fit in the new dash. I saw were someone took the new style gauge apart and modified it to read a pressure sender instead of a pressure switch.

 

If you can hack the program of the Bosch ECU, you could impact the display. The ECU converts the temp sender to digital, then for range X to Y, about 130 - 240F, it sends a pulse-width modulated stream to keep the pointer of the idiot light pretending to be a gauge at 50%. Easier to buy something like an Ultra Gauge ($70), which will use OBDII live data to display that and other things like volts, reset codes, and have a get-SWMBO-attention alarm you can adjust set points for. Note two pix of two different trucks, two different temps, same gauge. A reasonable owner will start doing something about running warmer each day, if you don't know, you are driving to the Colonel for some "extra crispy".

As for oil pressure, oil temp, tranny temp, those are all things that can be done with aftermarket gauges. If running the oil PSI line to a mechanical gauge use the nylon line so sound is not conducted into the dashboard.

D1's have similar issue because the time constant of the gauge design allows high temps and medium gauge display. Later D1's support the OBDII port. Here's a pix of mine, for those who think D1's are immune to the weird gauge problems. I don't believe 235F should be considered a "normal range" temperature.

 

I'd really rather use the dial gauge already in the dash.

When I was in high-school in the 70's I though it was cool to have lots of external gauges mounted all over the place in my Jeep. Now,,, not so much. I'd rather it look stock but have totally modern capabilities under the covers.

I've got a rough design that looks pretty good and is pretty cheap. (don't worry, I'm an electrical engineer).

The low and hi temp dial indication range can be set to whatever you want. I'm thinking 100F minimum and 240F max and have an approximately horizontal dial position indicate a normal operating temp (180F-190F ?).

There are some other cool features like a warning indication for over-temp and also ability to display other info.

This will all work via the standard gauge with no major modifications.

If it's as useful as I think it will be, maybe I'll sell them if anyone is interested in buying them.

What do you guys (are there any gals on this forum?) think?

 

There is alreay a warning light for over temp, if you consider 284F just barely over.

 

I don't consider that a "warning". I consider that a belated statement of unfortunate news.

OTOH- I'm talking about the real original LR gauge telling you what the actual temp is in real time (like gauges did in the 1950s) and if necessary telling you in a very eye-catching (analog) way that you have a problem and exactly how bad the problem is, before the problem gets critical.

Pretty significant improvement I think.

Anyway- that's what I'll be running in my Disco sometime in the near future. I'll probably throw a video on Youtube for anyone interested in how it works.

 

I would be interested to see that and get some detailed instructions and parts list.

 

Id like to see it

 

Would be interesting, but the $70 cost for the UG, or the obdii-smart phone app; these give you real time data on everything that comes out the OBDII port, plus codes, plus ability to reset codes, plus custom display, mpg calculation, and alarms. But I have always liked analog.