Hi,
I’m a week from my first track day with the car and the temp gauges are not working.
Actually, the dash display is acting weird. Yesterday, the water gauge worked, but not the oil temp until I cycled the power and then both worked. The cooling fan, however, didn’t come on as the water temp rose to 100 degrees. I checked the fan with an alternative power source. It worked. The wires to the temperature sensor on the water reservoir look fine.
So I turned on main power for the first time today. The fan came on for about five seconds and then shut off. No cycling of main power made the fan on at all. And then, the gauges. I made a video:
Hi Larry (@lwsr3), Unfortunately the early “Radical Dash’s” are prone to failure. You can do some troubleshooting for the sensors to make sure they are working and then check the continuity of the wires between the sensor and the gauge (the wiring diagram is in the Registry Resource Library), but I suspect that you will find that the issue is the aging dash is failing. Most people replace the old Radical dashes with Aim Dashes. If you decide to go that way we have a Forum supporting vendor Trailbrake.com (@trailbrake)run by Matt Romanowski. He is a great guy and is very helpful.
Charley
I'm happy to help or answer questions if you consider an AiM dash. Just shoot me an email and I'll answer right away. Matt@TrailBrake.com
Thank you both! I appreciate the guidance. I will email you.
larry
It does sound like you have some strange issues going on but you are aware that the oil and water temp gauges do not read below a certain temperature?
I cannot remember exactly what that is, I think it was 40°C but it maybe 50.
Oh boy do I now have a couple of mixed feelings. First off DUMB ME, once I waited long enough for the engine to get warm, the gauges came on!! It was 57 degrees for both water and oil temp.
So I’m released and embarrassed at the same time....... Thank you all for your advice. I’m a week away from the first track day with the car and I can’t wait.
Oh, btw, The water temperature light came on at 100 degrees, but the fan didn’t come on until 105. I used an infrared temp gun at a bunch of different places and never got a reading about 90, FWIW.
Have a great weekend,
Larry
Glad you are sorted. 57 is higher than I would have thought but if they are both working at that then its all good!
I don't think they are the most accurate and I also think, although happy to be proven wrong, that the temp gauge for ECU reads from a difference sensor for the dash on early cars.
