air/fuel gauge issue

[Nrage33]

Hey all,

A while back i had an a-pillar with a pair of autometer gauges installed in my car. Everything worked and still does, great little gauges. But ever since the day they were installed, the boost gauge lights up at night like normal, but the air/fuel gauge does not.

I've never really thought about having it checked out, but now i'm just beginning to wonder whether it actually does light up at night. Basically I can only tell what is being shown on the gauge by the colour of the LED's between 'lean', 'stoich' and 'rich'. everything else is dark.

My question is: Does the gauge actually light up from behind, or is it just like it is now...dark. ?

[09ONE_32]

Nah man the gauge should be illuminated from behind, all the other A/F gauges I have seen at night have had the rear illumination hooked up. How else are you supposed to see the rich/lean (apart from the colour) if only the leds light up? hope this helps

[the phantom]

I used to have a pillar mounted autometer a/f ratio gauge as well. And I thought the exact same thing. It had a spot for a bulb, so naturally I tried putting one in but the internal circuit board seemed to foul any such attempt. I was left thinking that it was just a case of autometer reusing an existing guage cup assembly. There didn't appear to be any form of light guide either.

[Guest INASNT]

Those autometer a/f ratio gauges dont have any backlit, just the red, yellow and green leds. Anyway they are a waste of time and dont indicate anything as you cant calibrate them for your car and autometer doesent say in the instructions what a.f ratio is considered lean or rich!!

If you are gonna get a gauge get one tat actually tells you something usefull like an oil temp/pressure gauge.

[Nrage33]

yea i might as well change it ey?

been meaning to get an exhaust temp. meter, hope they have it in that size.

thanks for the info guys. i figured something was up with that damn gauge.

[skylineakt]

Most autometer a/f gauges don't have a backlight except for the Cobalt series. They have a blue glow backlight that you can see the measurements at night.

Autometer a/f gauges uses some theoritical calculation to measure the a/f. But as it says in the manual there is never a perfect measurement just theory.

I got one too, but got is as a present so can't complain and it looks good at night!! hehe

[BHDave]

It just works on 0 volts is full rich and 0.5 volt (i think) is full lean.

They are also designed to tap into the factory wire and take the signal from there. I was a little dubious about this so when i installed my guage i installed a second lamda sensor. This caused the gauge to only read the rich half of the spectrum.

That is the sensor puts out the full range signal, 0-1 volt, but the gauge, being calibrated to share a signal, can't get the top half.

Makes you wonder what having an AF meter is doing to the signal your computer sees!

BTW. On my old RX7 i used the same type of sensor and the microtech and af gauge shared the signal. The AF gauge worked perfectly but the microtech didn't seem quite right, it was fairly close though. As the microtech didn't use the signal for anything i wasn't too concerned