So I received my Ultragauge on Monday night and installed it on Tuesday. For the past 4 days, I have been using it and with that, I had some thoughts to share and some questions to ask. I figured I would start a new thread, because I'm sure I will have more questions as time goes on, sorry if these have been asked and answered in the past. First the thoughts:
1. The gauges are really jumpy. For example, the RPMs will jump all over the place, so at idle, it will be 750, then 780 then 765, so on and so on. I don't know if the engine is really changing that quickly or if it is the UG or the OBDII protocol like the UG instructions claim. It's not just RPM, but pretty much every other gauge as well (RPM, MPH, instant MPG, instant GPH, etc.).
2. The overall size of the UG is small! That's not necessarily a bad thing, just an observation. The website makes it look big, but when I ordered it, I stumbled upon the size and sure enough it is small like the measurements say, but the website photo kinda doesn't do it justice.
3. I realized during the week, of the people who change their habits using any gauge (UG/SG), I will probably be one who will benefit the least, at least in terms of MPG increase. I already drive pretty conservatively, rarely slamming the accelerator, using cruise control almost every chance I get (yes, even to go a few hundred feet!
), rarely speed over 65 on the highway, etc. All this (I think) is stuff people realize they need to do after they install a gauge, but since I already do it, I won't see much gain. Only time will tell...
3. I love when I am at highway speed, if I see I have to slow down, I put the trans in neutral and my MPG jumps up to 300+MPG! I've got no problem cruising in neutral at 60 MPH, getting 300+MPG!
If only I could always get that kind of performance!
Questions:
1. What is causing the jumpiness of the gauges? It makes it really hard to determine what speed is most efficient for this vehicle, because I can't get the gauge to stay at one number for long enough. I can use some intuition that if I see the same # or similar multiple times, that it's a pretty good idea of what I am getting, but that is not accurate enough to know if 40 MPH or 45 MPH is better (or any other speed).
2. At idle, my throttle position is at ~10%. Is that pretty standard? What do you guys have at idle? I've never known what the throttle position is at before, so now I just want to know if it is in the "acceptable" range.
3. When idling at a light, if I put the trans in neutral, the RPMs go up, so I would imagine gas usage would go up with it, but using the GPH gauge, the gas usage goes down about .01-.02 GPH. It's not a whole lot, but I am just confused about that, because according to *my* theory, gas usage should go up with an increase in RPM. What is better, higher RPM and lower GPH or lower RPM and slightly higher GPH?
4. If I set the cruise control right at the 65 line, my UG will show my speed as 63.4 MPH. I don't know which one I should use. I would think they would be the same since they are both running off of the ECM (I think?) What's causing the difference? If they are indeed different and the UG is correct, I wonder if taller tires would make up the 1.5-2 MPH difference?
5. My GPH at idle is ~.20 and ~.18 at idle in neutral. I would like to get this down to .1 someday. I wonder what I could do to make that happen. Maybe one day I will take off the A/C belt and see how much vampire energy that takes and if it alone could get me down to that threshold (I would like to know that just for knowledge's sake, too!). Any other ideas on how to lower that number? I assume fixing that number at idle will also translate into gas savings at a given speed. I know that it's a small fish to fry, but it is now on my bucket list, so just thinking about it and trying to come up with some ideas...
6. Is there a gauge option to know the engine temp.? I see the option for coolant temp., but I would like to know what the temp. of the engine block is, so I know how long it takes to get to operating temp. If not, I can rig up a thermometer sensor to know the temp of the engine (which would lead me to ask where I should install the sensor...).
Sorry for the long post and thanks in advance for the help!