Who has installed the newer Defi single DIN triple gauge setup?

[VespaGTS]

Hi everyone, 

I saw that Defi has released a single DIN triple gauge pack again. It has two temp gauges and a pressure gauge. 

I don't need a boost gauge since my phone tells me most of what I need to know via OBDLink. 

Upside is it tells me what I do need to know, Oil Temp, Water Temp, and Oil Pressure. 

Downside is that it is RHD focused and I am not sure how that looks from a LHD perspective? Maybe I could flip it? 

Anyway I am curious if anyone has this setup or a RHD in an LHD car and what that's like? 

Here is a link to the gauge pack on Negun. Also, its on sale for $422 which is way way less than the STi packs I have seen listed for $1500 if you can find one. 

https://www.nengun.com/defi/din-gauge-rhd

[Febreze Mee]

I've seen this and will be ordering either one of these or USDM equivalent sooner than later for my wagon. Thanks in advance for any feedback. Subbed.  

[Pleides]

I'll sub! Curious as well.

[shralp]

We can get water temp readout on the AccessPort so that’s nice. Sure wish we could get Oil Temp

[seanyb505]

Do we even have that info in the ecu? I thought worthwhile oil stats required additional hardware. At least that's what I had to do to get oil pressure on btssm. But even then I'm have to use a tgv channel that uh, isn't being used. Then write a formula for the app to translate volts to a meaningful value. But without a place for the signal to land in the ecu even btssm couldn't display that info. 

 

Looking at the rhd unit, it hopefully looks simple enough to rotate the gauges upside down, flip the angled bit and see if you can keep the din mounting brackets in the same orientation. 

Edited February 3, 2023 by seanyb505

[VespaGTS]

48 minutes ago, shralp said:

We can get water temp readout on the AccessPort so that’s nice. Sure wish we could get Oil Temp

Oil pressure and oil temp is where COBB should have made sensor adaptors. 

[VespaGTS]

9 minutes ago, seanyb505 said:

Do we even have that info in the ecu? I thought worthwhile oil stats required additional hardware. At least that's what I had to do to get oil pressure on btssm. But even then I'm have to use a tgv channel that uh, isn't being used. Then write a formula for the app to translate volts to a meaningful value. But without a place for the signal to land in the ecu even btssm couldn't display that info. 

 

Looking at the rhd unit, it hopefully looks simple enough to rotate the gauges upside down, flip the angled bit and see if you can keep the din mounting brackets in the same orientation. 

Yeah, that's my plan. I have seen it done with RHD STi gauges. Check YouTube maybe?

 

[Febreze Mee]

Is it not as simple as hooking sensors up to an oil sandwich plate, and receiving data through the Defi gauges? Please say yes. 

[seanyb505]

For this standalone system I believe so 

[VespaGTS]

You will need the sandwich plate and a water temp connection point. It includes all sensors. 

[VespaGTS]

Going to need this too. If anyone has found one of these for less than $95 please let me know. 

https://avojdm.com/single-din-console-panel-adapter-H0017AG920/ 

[Infosecdad]

Just now, Febreze Mee said:

Is it not as simple as hooking sensors up to an oil sandwich plate, and receiving data through the Defi gauges? Please say yes. 

It should be as long as the sensor's output range and values match what the gauge is programmed to accept and display.

[Febreze Mee]

25 minutes ago, VespaGTS said:

Going to need this too. If anyone has found one of these for less than $95 please let me know. 

https://avojdm.com/single-din-console-panel-adapter-H0017AG920/ 

I've been looking around for the past couple months, and haven't been able to find anything. Checking buyee.jp auctions now...

[seanyb505]

Why is $95 a bad price? Are they usually less? I feel like most Legacy specific stuff has such a small market that higher prices make sense. 

 

Having said that, yeah I'm still not going to pay for all the parts and pieces for something like this lol

Edited February 3, 2023 by seanyb505

[VespaGTS]

Found one on eBay for $75. 

[Febreze Mee]

Yeah, but is it the one seller that is "unavailable until 2030" and won't ship to the US from Russia?

[VespaGTS]

8 hours ago, Febreze Mee said:

Yeah, but is it the one seller that is "unavailable until 2030" and won't ship to the US from Russia?

Ha! That’s funny. I didn’t buy it yet. 
$95 isn’t bad. 

 

[DoctorDaveLGT]

The angle of the gauges on the single DIN pack should be able to be adjusted, but will most likely take some hands on work. I found an old thread I remembered where another user did it on a JDM STI gauge pack and I can't imagine the new DEFI one is that much different from the old ones. I didn't take the time to check their post history to see if they ever did the write-up on how to do it per his post.

 

Buyee or Japan auctions is the go-to for the single DIN adaptor. There's one currently on there that comes with everything you'd need plus an extra set of the vent panel. Current price is $40. 

https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/q1078097027?conversionType=search_suggest_buyee_top 

 

[KZJonny]

4 hours ago, DoctorDaveLGT said:

Buyee or Japan auctions is the go-to for the single DIN adaptor. There's one currently on there that comes with everything you'd need plus an extra set of the vent panel. Current price is $40. 

https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/q1078097027?conversionType=search_suggest_buyee_top 

 

Oh man. I really hadn’t spent any time looking around on buyee until now….

Like I needed another way to empty my wallet…

Some nice looking lightly used gear there…

[Febreze Mee]

Ordered and ordered. Defi DIN Gauge DF14403 and H0017AG920 have been ordered. Now it's just time to finalize mounting locations.

Water temp: I plan on mounting this to the factory coolant crossover pipe just beneath the intake manifold. Any one have fitment issues with theirs mounted here? Will the indicators on the dash illuminate if I remove the factory sensor?

Oil pressure: My plan of attack is to mount under the alternator above the pump. Any adapters/fittings/kits I should be made aware of? Or can I mount directly to? Will the indicators on the dash illuminate if I remove the factory sensor?

Oil temp: Still having a hard time with this one. I kept looking at the Chase Bays thermostatic sandwich plate (thanks Ethan), but was concerned about fitment of the plate, fitment of the sensor to the plate, and fitment of both sensor in the plate and any interference while mounted between exhaust manifold and oil pan. For now, I'd like to drill/tap into the factory oil pan (PN# 11109AA150) and add the sensor in a separate location than my drain plug.

Thoughts, questions, concerns?

 

[m sprank]

Why do you need this?  If you spend your driving time looking at gauges, AP's,  phones. etc. you are obviously NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO THE ROAD.  Do you think race cars have all these gauges?  LOL. 

You have a coolant temp gauge on the cluster.  You have an oil pressure light on the cluster.  If your coolant temp is up, your oil temp is up too. 

This is all "Fast and the Furious" BULL SHIT that no car needs.  It is also dangerous to the general public if you are looking at gauges driving instead of the road.  A REAL race car does not have gauges.  They have dummy lights.  Dummy light comes on, shut it down.  Data logger tells what happened later. 

 

My two cents.  Its your money, spend it as you wish. 

[Pleides]

59 minutes ago, m sprank said:

Why do you need this?  If you spend your driving time looking at gauges, AP's,  phones. etc. you are obviously NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO THE ROAD.  Do you think race cars have all these gauges?  LOL. 

You have a coolant temp gauge on the cluster.  You have an oil pressure light on the cluster.  If your coolant temp is up, your oil temp is up too. 

This is all "Fast and the Furious" BULL SHIT that no car needs.  It is also dangerous to the general public if you are looking at gauges driving instead of the road.  A REAL race car does not have gauges.  They have dummy lights.  Dummy light comes on, shut it down.  Data logger tells what happened later. 

 

My two cents.  Its your money, spend it as you wish. 

For me I just wish we had a boost gauge and oil temperature sensor. Former for troubleshooting and the latter for knowing when I can step on it. The Audis I drive at work almost all have oil temp sensors and it takes far longer than the coolant getting up to temp for those to even register the minimum temp on that gauge of I think 140(?) F, like roughly twice as long in the winter. That's with 0W-20. Not sure how a modern engine with such thin oil gets up to temperature compared to our old EJs but just food for thought. I always wait until the coolant has been up to temp for at least a couple minutes before I seriously flog the car. 

Edited March 8, 2023 by Pleides

[shralp]

32 minutes ago, Pleides said:

For me I just wish we had a boost gauge and oil temperature sensor. Former for troubleshooting and the latter for knowing when I can step on it. The Audis I drive at work almost all have oil temp sensors and it takes far longer than the coolant getting up to temp for those to even register the minimum temp on that gauge of I think 140(?) F, like roughly twice as long in the winter. That's with 0W-20. Not sure how a modern engine with such thin oil gets up to temperature compared to our old EJs but just food for thought. I always wait until the coolant has been up to temp for at least a couple minutes before I seriously flog the car. 

Why not just monitor boost and water temp with your AP?  

[KZJonny]

I would definitely not spend $550 + tax and shipping for the Defi gauge cluster either, but I think there are is a good case for having some diagnostic info readily available.

1 hour ago, m sprank said:

Why do you need this?  If you spend your driving time looking at gauges, AP's,  phones. etc. you are obviously NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO THE ROAD.  Do you think race cars have all these gauges?  LOL. 

You have a coolant temp gauge on the cluster.  You have an oil pressure light on the cluster.  If your coolant temp is up, your oil temp is up too. 

This is all "Fast and the Furious" BULL SHIT that no car needs.  It is also dangerous to the general public if you are looking at gauges driving instead of the road.  A REAL race car does not have gauges.  They have dummy lights.  Dummy light comes on, shut it down.  Data logger tells what happened later. 

 

My two cents.  Its your money, spend it as you wish. 

 

Putting aside the cost of Defi gauges...

- it's cheap. My boost + oil press gauges were like $80/each from Autometer, So $160. That gives me some bare bones information wherever I go. VS. Having to buy/borrrow a laptop + a tactrix cable ~$1200-1400 for both. Money I do not have right now, and really would be a waste since I have no other use for a laptop aside from maybe logging my car. (Probably a good reason to stick with COBB, for me)

- maybe I'm wrong here, but I am under the impression that by the time the dash oil pressure light comes up, you're already boned. Seems to me that if you see a gradual decrease in realtime, it would hopefully lead you to address the problem before you hit the ?50? psi that triggers the idiot light.

 

I don't think you should be spending time while driving with your eyes off the road, at all.

 

But I think given the choice of travelling alongside another car with

- all sorts of cameras displays turning on and off + infotainment touchscreen + computer lane departure babysitting some idiot driver who is using their cellphone to watch porn on their way to Walmart

VS.

-a person with a couple of gauges to monitor engine health etc.... (therefore, likely a car person and probably a better driver than the idiots who are cruising past me at 130-140 in their minivans every morning)

 

I would far rather share the road with the latter. Everyone I know with a couple of gauges in their car is a better driver than everyone I know who has a cell phone holder in their air vent. Full stop.

[Pleides]

30 minutes ago, shralp said:

Why not just monitor boost and water temp with your AP?  

It's something that is a potential theft magnet being stuck on the dash or wherever and the coolant temp isn't super important to me as the dummy gauge does a good enough job of letting me know when things are working as intended. I leave the AP in the armrest. If it did oil temp I might consider it but the hardware isn't there for the AP to read.