A couple of these might work

http://www.rapidonline.com/Electronic-C ... ays-500175

Actually Phil raises a good point

I'm a problem customer. My main requirement is that I want something that's unequivocal in a focused high stress track environment

However most gauges are probably sold to the crowd that think a TV in the boot is somehow a good idea. For them it probably doesn't matter if it's remotely useful as long as there's some sort of disco ball mode that can be activated in the carpark

Agree with the wow factor, especially the dash replacement option. It will be easier to create with the dash replacement unit too IMO.

most people modifying for road use tend towards bling over function, while motorsport is the other way round.

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If at first you don't suck seed, try drier grain.

Wow, this thread has exploded!

I've been around the houses with displays. With my Formula Ford it came with analogue gauges oriented so they are clearly visible in the line of sight and the needles point to 12 o'clock under normal operating conditions. You barely had to look at the gauges to tell everything is OK. Almost a case of the peripheral vision being adequate. BUT this was 25 years ago and things have moved on. Now to be competitive you have to have datalogging.I ended up getting hold of an old Pi system which came with an LED dash display which mounts to the centre of the steering wheel. It's a bit old school but nice and bright and the best thing about it is the lap time display. It also does rpm, LED tacho/shift lights, water temp and oil pressure plus low and high warning but I never look at these on the track or if I do its on the in-lap It did take me a bit of time to get used to after the analogue display and the team owner still hasn't changed.

I know a lot of people will say what has this got to do with a digital dash in a GT-Four but the principles are much the same. As an example I have fitted a Defi DIN analogue triple gauge display in the centre console of my standard(ish) ST205. I tend to avoid taking this on track so am not too fussed about alarms etc. All I want to do is keep an eye on temps so I don't rag the car on boost before everything has warmed up properly and it also gives a rough idea of engine health. Even although the gauges are angled towards the drivier slightly I hardly look at this when I'm driving. I used to have a 1/4 DIN Blitz DSBC boost controller on the steering column binnacle and found that worked well as it was virtually in my line of sight. In addition I had a two 52mm analogue gauges for boost and EGT mounted on the dash at the base of the A pillar. This was almost as good a position as the boost controller to view whilst driving (I think Steve's Defi OLED display is in this location too)

I also had an AIM MXL backlit LCD digital dash operational briefly on my UK ST205. This combined a digi/ana tacho with a user configurable/switchable digital display of six sensor readings at the bottom of the screen. You could cycle through the screens using a button on the side of the display to show a different set of six sensor readings. Like the Pi display you could configure upper and lower warning thresholds on the integral warning lights included on each side of the unit. The backlit LCD isn't as clear as the Pi LED. As mentioned above its only with the advent of the new smartphones that Amoled colour displays are starting to appear on aftermarket colour dash display units.

My preference, it it isn't obvious from the above is for a user configurable backlit LCD display that could be mounted on the centre binnacle. This way you can retain the standard analogue dash and don't have to cut holes anywhere. The concept would be similar to the Defi OLED display that Steve has but using standard sensor outputs and switchable. The Zeitronix (4 parameter sensor display) and perhaps some of the strip type RaceTechnology display options would work in this location. If something was available along those lines I would definitely be interested.

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Don
GT4DC Chairman
1994 Toyota Celica GT-Four ST205WRC JDM 269bhp @ 0.9bar
1994 Toyota Celica GT-Four Special GT 590bhp @ 1.8bar
1989 Van Diemen RF88/89 Formula Ford 1600
2008 Nissan Patrol GU 3.0L ZD30DDTi 154bhp

thanks Steve, that may be worth a look. RS is normally my first port of call as they tend not to sell stuff that goes off the market quickly leaving you with a re-design at regular intervals.

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If at first you don't suck seed, try drier grain.

As a driver, I would prefer to never look at gauges. The car should look after itself, leaving me to get on with driving. This should only change if there's something wrong I need to know about, in which case I would probably need to slow down anyway. This applies to both road and track. Many times on the road, the first I realise about an overheating car is when it sounds or smells odd. Unless a warning light is illuminated, I'm unlikely to notice a gauge moving slowly. The human eye is drawn to rapid change. As Don says, on track, and especially competition, I just don't look at gauges at all. I wouldn't even notice a dash light unless it was a huge bulb mounted on the dash.

My existing warning / display is 80% used for the warning function and 20% used to actually look at values to see what's happening.

For me, the design brief is to produce something that looks as good as possible within a sensible price, particularly important is that it's easy to see at a glance both at night and in sunlight, also important is that it's easy to use and provides the functions that people want.

I think the 'easy to see' bit dictates a large display, so I think the DIN size box is a 'must'. Would this be too large to strap to the top of the steering column ?

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If at first you don't suck seed, try drier grain.

I think DIN would be too big to mount on the binnacle. The Zeitroniz box measuring 120 mm x 51mm x 23mm is probably as big as you'd want to go. The option they do for the ribbon unit 'unboxed' allows for more flexibility in packaging and thus mounting. Personally I wouldn't want to mount it in the centre DIN dash as I'd never look at it. If I am displaying AFR, Lambda and EGT then I want to be able to see this without craning my neck to look over at the centre console.

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Don
GT4DC Chairman
1994 Toyota Celica GT-Four ST205WRC JDM 269bhp @ 0.9bar
1994 Toyota Celica GT-Four Special GT 590bhp @ 1.8bar
1989 Van Diemen RF88/89 Formula Ford 1600
2008 Nissan Patrol GU 3.0L ZD30DDTi 154bhp

RS also has some cute square OLED displays for sensible money

For my personal use a single gauge would be sufficient. Set to the most likely parameter to go out of spec. Or possible a single gauge display with a split dial a-la stack analog gauges. As long as any parameter going out of spec flashes a warning and sounds the klaxon I'd be happy
For example I know the 205 has oil cooling issues on track so I set my defi to display oil temp so I can see when it,s time to back off before I do damage. Since the numbers are 1" high and the display is direct line of sight (base of a pillar)
I totally agree that the car ought to look after itself

I think my ideal would be a single gauge. It would have no numbers just a large coloured circle. A blue circle tells me that something is still to cold. Green light = go. Amber = something getting hot/top of range. Red = stop
This allows me to drive hard but tells me to ease off before something serious happens whilst immediately telling me something bad happened. It's simple and foolproof....until they design a better fool or a colour blind driver

There is a company called 'ZadaTech' http://www.zada-tech.com/

That make a number of different gauges and displays including a single 52mm gauge that can be plumbed into many sensors at one.

The main problem with it imo is that it looks terrible and very amateurish.

If it could be modernised and made less 'spectrum' then it would be great.

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GT4DC Events Co-ordinator
1996 ST205 UK

Are you refering to this one mike ?



To me it looks very 'square peg in a round hole'. If you go circular gauge, you need a circular display (not seen one yet), or smaller circular hole and pad the wasted space with graphics. At a distance it looks good, but closer up I agree the finish isn't good. The quality of any graphics will be limited by the resolution of display. High resolution = expense. I will face the same limitations of course.

I'm now considering the option of a 2 or 3 PCB stack to allow a flat box for surface mounting anywhere on the dash. The same board set could also be fitted into a Din case for mounting in a hole.
This would probably necesitate use of a single 'd' connector for connections so it would need to be supplied with a loom of some description. This could offer the option of a right angle connector coming out of the bottom for flat mounting or coming out of the back for panel mounting.

Display wise, I really want to go for colour for the 'wow factor', particularly as people like to choose illumination colour (green / yellow / blue are all common themes) plus the option of colour change for warning levels. A bit more research needed still. Since the interfaces are pretty staqndard, I would hopefully be able to offer the option of cheap,readable,monochrome or colour.


A quick trawl of RS shows:

http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/hand-held ... s/2072136/ 130x65x25 with a recess for a front membrane.

Something like this for a bit more wow factor:

http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/hand-held ... s/5363328/

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If at first you don't suck seed, try drier grain.

Yep that's the one.

I think part of the problem is that everyone has different styles / modes of driving and requirements from a system. As demonstrated by the responses to the thread, Myself, Steve and Don have essentially just come up with a requirement for 3 different products.

Pinning these down to create a viable product will be challenging. I personally still stand by having something DIN sized in the spare radio slot. I don't need it to be in eye line as I don't care what the reading is, I just want to be told when something is wrong then I can slow down and investigate. The radio slot IMO also makes for the best installation as it doesn't need extra things stuck on the dashboard and is least intrusive.

Something else I have given some thought to is the ability to switch off the screen or cover the display somehow. To get rid of the geekiness factor basically for when your using the car just as a car, rather than a toy.

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GT4DC Events Co-ordinator
1996 ST205 UK

I think I've hopefully come up with something that will cover all options, the only requirement will be different membrane designs for the different boxes.

I was planning to make any lighting dimmable, so off can also be an option. On my current system, the light comes on when there's an alarm, or for a time (30 sec ish) after the user pushing a button.
There's nothing worse than having loads of lights everywhere when driving at night. I often drive so my left arm is in front of the stereo, or have the thing switched off.

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If at first you don't suck seed, try drier grain.

I think my brother would probably be interested in a digital dash for his car as to be honest its more of a race car than a road car now!

I too would have the potential of being interested but then i am a bit of a old man in wanting to keep the car looking as 100% stock whilst being as far from it as possible... if that makes sense. haha

But i do love the digital displays.

Some crappy non artist impressions of what would work for me

Warmup lap


Hot lap


Cooldown Lap


Low loader lap


Hopefully you get the general idea. The main thing (for me) is even if the numbers are unreadable the colour coding makes the intention very clear

Currently looking at these displays, both colour, 1 oled, 1 LCD. At that price it's possible to fit 2 to allow 1 full time gauge plus 1 which can switch to the alarm condition. I would prefer to have 1 wide display but they don't seem available in colour.

http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/lcd-colou ... s/7422191/
http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/oled-displays/0554273/

I'm planning to order a sample of each for evaluation. You can read specs for ever, but you can't beat testing.

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If at first you don't suck seed, try drier grain.