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I just picked up a Innovate Motorsport MTX dual oil pressure and temperature gauge http://www.innovatemotorsports.com/products/MTXD.php

I need to plug it in to the lap top to configure the warnings and lights that run around the outside for the temperature.

What is a good number to set the minimum pressure to?

The LED's around the outside can be set with different segments in different colours for various temperatures...kinda hard to explain but you can set green lights for XXc - XXXc, yellow lights for YYYc - YYYc and red lights for ZZZc so you can see when you are at normal temperatures, a bit over and very over.

The car is not turbocharged and has no oil cooler at the moment. It is used on road and track.

What do we think are good ranges to look at. I guess green needs to cover normal road use up to a safe oil temp for track...which would be?

Any advice is greatfully received as always.

Ask wozzah for oil pressure recommendation, he runs stable oil pressure with an external reg and has enough testing of pressures to know as well as anyone, oil temp depends on oil so you have to ask the manufacturer, crap answers but thats how it is.

Dann

Hi.
Very interested to read this. How the world has changed. By this i mean how complicated we make it for ourselves to monitor oil pressure and temps while driving a car at high speed around a race track while looking at coloured lights around a dial. Back in the day we had one gauge to monitor oil and water it was a smiths dual gauge oil pressure (capillary)at the top and temp on bottom. To read was to glance at the gauge and if it read like a clock number one (oil pressure= 60 lbs) and number six (temp 190 ) all was normal. You got used to reading it like a clock (five past six). How times have changed and become more complicated for what we thought was a relatively simple system. You can still buy the dual gauge and yes we still use them.

Ralt, I've seen the gauges you speak off and would love a set if only the made then in electric sender types!

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NitroDann wrote:Ask wozzah for oil pressure recommendation, he runs stable oil pressure with an external reg and has enough testing of pressures to know as well as anyone, oil temp depends on oil so you have to ask the manufacturer, crap answers but thats how it is.

Dann

Cheers Dann. I had a feeling there would be no catch all answers.

Maybe as a start I can take the temperature range of the gauge and divide it evenly across the segments of the gauge. If I know each segment is worth Xc then I can at least get an idea of what temperatures I am getting under certain conditions. I can then work on seeing if this is safe, normal etc and figure out where to put the warnings. Make sense?

ralt wrote:Hi.
Very interested to read this. How the world has changed. By this i mean how complicated we make it for ourselves to monitor oil pressure and temps while driving a car at high speed around a race track while looking at coloured lights around a dial. Back in the day we had one gauge to monitor oil and water it was a smiths dual gauge oil pressure (capillary)at the top and temp on bottom. To read was to glance at the gauge and if it read like a clock number one (oil pressure= 60 lbs) and number six (temp 190 ) all was normal. You got used to reading it like a clock (five past six). How times have changed and become more complicated for what we thought was a relatively simple system. You can still buy the dual gauge and yes we still use them.

I agree that setting up a digital gauge is a little more complex (fun if you like fiddling!) but once it is running it will never get itself out of calibration, change its settings and I do not need to run lines of fluid in to the car.

I do not think it will be any harder to read than a traditional gauge...once it is set up it takes a quick glance to see the temperature is still in the green and the pressure number is okay. Even if I forget to look (very easy to do) it will be positioned in my peripheral vision so that as soon as the pressure and temperature get out of the limits set the thing will start flashing and I will notice straight away and not half a lap later. I guess that is the main idea of digital gauges...you dont NEED to look at it because it will get your attention if things go wrong rather than relying on me having to search for and look at gauges.

Hi.
Hardiman in Sydney are ( or were)the distributor for the dual smiths gauges. Worth a try to see if they have them.

Smith still make them in their vintage series based on the Web, but only mechanical. I'll try the suggested place though.

The innovate is reasonably cheap compared to the opposition.

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I would say 20 PSI as low oil and try 100 PSI as max for a starting point.

Oil temp, well oils have an operating range of for arguments sake 40 to 100c so I would say go for 40 to 140 (and adjust it when you get some data). 40-80 green 80-110 yellow 110-140 red? Just my thoughts

Okay my car has a Works Engineering remote filter kit on it. The remote block has two ports for sensors.

Problem is the temp sensor supplied by Innovate is to long; it hits something inside the remote block before being able to get any thread screwed in.

Is there another convenient 1/8 npt hole I can screw in to for temperature?

Drill deeper into the filter block?

Dann

Right a bit of an update on this.

Yes Dann I was able to drill out a bit more space for the temp sensor so that got sorted okay.

I ran with the idea that Magpie had just to set a base level. Turns out that MX5's run at about 110c cruising on the freeway and take just 2 laps to go over 120c...Unfortunately that is as far as I got with testing this out. I had taken a guess at setting the over temp warning to 120 so the gauge would just start flashing pretty quickly and I could not tell just how hot it was getting.

Oil pressures remained stable the entire time, it is interesting seeing the pressures change and the Mazda gauge not budging one mm left or right!

I suspect an oil cooler may be in order anyway, I am running the car very hard on track and the tarmac rally series I will be running in is all low gear and hard acceleration.

What model mx5? Only na8 or early na8 and below had working oil pressure gauges? The others were just idiot lights with a gauge output.

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NB8B...Even the pressure gauge in an NA can not be trusted. There was a chap there with an AIM dash and full data logging, his logs show pressures from 30-75psi but the factory gauge only moves a few mm either way.

deviant wrote:... 2 laps to go over 120c....

Have you calibrated the guage? Unless it was a turbo car on a hot day, 120 sounds too high for two laps. In fact, 120 is probably as high as you want to go, it is the limit for the oil I run, you should calibrate your guage, check the recommended operating range, and if near the upper limit fit a cooler with thermostat, or a heat exchanger.

I am not sure how the gauge works exactly but you tell it the temperature range you want the LED's to work over. It wont light its first light until it gets to 35c and it will light the last one at 150 or so.

For all I know the temperature could be 125 and totally stable, it is just that once it goes over the temp limit I have set (120) the display flashes all its lights so you no longer see what temp you are actually on.

Does it seem wrong that freeway cruising is around 110c?

It takes two cool down laps to bring it back below the over temp warning point.

The car is barely modified in the engine bay. A full exhaust system, pod filter, radiator and remote oil filter. I use Castrol Edge 5/30.