Monday, 17 May 2010

Tachometers


I installed this tach on a 2007 Toyota Yaris with manual transmission. Connection was simple, involving only 4 wiring connections (red wire to 12 volt "+" at ignition switch, black wire to chassis bolt under dash, white wire to dashboard lighting circuit, and green wire to Tach Signal wire at OBD-II connector). Product does not come with wire taps, you have to buy your own or use wire nuts or solder the splices. The tach mounts via a 1" square, flat pedestal that has holes for three #8 sheet metal screws, or you can use the included double-sided adhesive pad.



The movement of this tach seems to be very smooth and precise. At $68, it is twice as expensive as the equivalent Sunpro tach, but I wanted full scale of 6000 rpm, not the 8000 rpm that was the only type offered by Sunpro, so I went with this unit. Build quality seems very good, consistent with the $68 price.



The instruction booklet for connecting the tach is not very detailed. The instructions suggest that the product can be used on "most" types of electronic and CDI ignitions, and older point-and-coil ignitions. This tach can NOT be used on "magneto" type ignitions, which includes most recip airplane engines and smaller outboard boat motors (typically 25 hp or less). There is a three position switch on the back of the unit for selecting 4, 6 or 8 cylinders. This implies that the tach would probably give an incorrect reading on other engines, for example 3 cylinder Honda Insights, or the new-for-2008 5 cylinder Volkswagen Rabbit.



UPDATE: September 2010

Have now had this tach installed for three years in the Yaris, and it's still functioning perfectly. Auto Meter 2306 Auto Gage Black 2-3/4" 6000 RPM Tachometer Mini Gauge

The tachometer is pretty good. The actual gauge part works flawlessly. It seems accurate and sensitive and responsive. It was fairly easy to wire up. The reason that I gave it 4 stars is because of the mounting setup. There are two small screws that hold the tachometer onto the base. By the time I had the tachometer completely installed, the screws wouldn't hold the tachometer in adjustment. It kept drooping and aiming down. As a temporary fix, I grabbed a napkin from my glove box, wadded it up, and stuffed it between the tachometer and the dash. Now that I can see the tachometer, I love it and have no intentions of replacing the napkin with a more professional fix. Despite this problem, the rest of the tachometer works so well that I still gave it 4 stars.

5/5 stars because it's autometer quality, so it's dependable, accurate and affordable. The sun-pro gauges are cheaper but autometer's quality is far better and I have 4 other autometer gauges between my two vehicles. None have let me down so I'm sticking with this brand. This gauge fit perfect into my pickup that didn't have a tach. Wiring was pretty simple. One wire to ignition (fused), one to dim lights, one to ground, and one to tach signal.



I've had this gauge for about 2 months but have had my other autometer gauges for over 3 years and no problems.'


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