Electrical or Mechanical Gauges?

[Spot1984]

Hey guys. Might be kind of a stupid question but bare with me. Should I get electrical or mechanical gauges for my 87 GN? I know electrical cost more but are they necessary.

 

[frdstang93]

Depends on where you are putting the gauges, inside the car or outside. You dont want to run a manual fuel pressure or oil pressure gauge inside in the case you break a line. A manual boost gauge wont be a problem if you get where I am going with this.

 

[87gninpa]

The VDO electric gauges (oil & water) are only about $25 a piece from Summit, not expensive at all. Ive had VDO electric in my car for about 6 years and no problems at all. I check them usually once a year against mechanical gauges and they are dead on accurate. I dont think there is any reason to run mechanical inside a car with the quality of electric gauges nowadays. Electric are also pretty simple to install. Hope this helps.

 

[DailyDrifter]

The mechanical gauges I have are oil psi, water temp, boost,and trans temp. For someone on a budget they are cheap. I also have electrical fuel psi, egt, volt, tach. There is no way in hell I'm going to risk 65 psi of fuel spraying in the car.........I don't mind 80psi of oil though,lol.

 

["Turbo-T"]

I concur on not having a mechanical fuel pressure gauge inside the car unless you run an isolator under the hood. As for a mechanical oil pressure gauge inside, I believe a braided line works wonders in keeping oil leakage to a minimum but to each his own.

The nice thing about electrical gauges are ease of install. Mechanical water temp gauges require a big hole for the sending bulb and hardware to pass thru.

 

[turbo nasty]

VDO Electric (oil psi& H2o temp) here for almost 10 years and zero issues. Well except one...the cyberdyne elec fuel psi gauge I have. The cyberdyne fuel sending unit is a lil off now. Thay are sending me a new sender FREE. And I had to send the gauge back once due to it losing a leg of the digital digits on the display but that was free as well.

The VDO stuff has never had a issue..knock on wood