I bought a 3 gage windshield pillar post for my '84 truck. Two of the gages will be the usual suspects, water temp and oil pressure.

I'm considering putting a fuel injection exhaust manifold with the stock screw in O2 sensor on the engine I'm building. The engine I've got is a "bowtie block", i.e., 85 and later. I'm looking at an autometer air/fuel narrow ratio gage. see here I'm thinking that it could be a useful tuning tool.

Anyone done this? Would it be useful, or just an instrument of self torture? <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/scared.gif" alt="" />

Any other ideas on what to fill the third hole with? Ammeter, oil temp, cylinder head temp?

Thanks

Seems like a waste of $, there isn't a whole lot of tuning to be done with the carb. To me a ammeter or vacuum gauge would be more useful, and cheaper.

just my .02

I like 'em.
Just so you understand - a narrow band really has three positions: rich, stoich, and lean. That's all it's really going to tell you. Peak power is around 13.3-13.8 AFR, which is rich... I find them to be reasonably useful tools when tuning if you're not school.

A wideband o2 sensor would be nice but you probably dont want to spend that kind of money.
I'd install a vacuum gauge...

Thanks for the replies. I'm not too familiar with the vacuum gage concept. What is telling me and why is it useful?

Here's a 4crawler link, get used to them (lol)
Gauge pod

A quick web search will find lots of vacuum gauge information:
http://www.centuryperformance.com/vacuum.asp

Never had an A/F meter on a carbed engine but do have one on my 22RE. I find it rather handy for monitoring engine operation and finding optimal operating conditions. For example nice to find out if the ECU is running in open or closed loop mode in different gears up a grade.

I have had vacuum gauges on most every vehicle I have owned over the years. Good thing to check for a feeling of how hard the engine is working and if you have any extra power in reserve, like when pulling out to pass someone. If the gauge is down under 5" Hg, not much is going to happen when you mash the gas pedal down. The vacuum readings (and engine power) will vary with elevation and the gauge can help you see that power drop-off and you can adjust your driving accordingly.

X2

The cheaper A/F gauge will only tell you if you are running rich or lean at any position, otherwise it will cycle between lean and rich in its normal operation. I imagine if the carb was running rich/lean at idle you could use the meter to tune the carb until the meter cycled between lean/rich.

I find mine usefull to keep from wasting fuel when taking off or climbing a hill and I don't need to have the throttle down, i.e., using just enough gas to accelerate w/o pegging the meter in the rich.

Just to note.. a "good" wideband will run you between $175-$200, you don't need a $350-$400 unit.

The LC-1 works great and can be hooked up to a narrowband gauge (programmable output) - the narrowband guage can then give you REAL air/fuel ratio.