Performance Meter

[BudW]

I’m making an “inexpensive” portable tachometer (15 posts ago) using alligator clips, so I can calibrate each cars RPM’s range.
Should have that done, tonight – if I can find my electrical tools.

Next, I need to figure out where the cigar lighter wiring went on the wagon - so I can have something to plug into. That might take more than a day or two – for I don’t want to linger under the dash in this heat.

Then the wagon is ready to get tested.

The pickup is getting tested after that (I’m curious) and maybe even the wife’s minivan (which, I’m guessing, is (currently) the quickest vehicle in my fleet (and the smallest engine – 3.8L V6)).


Note: this afternoon, in the 100’+ heat, my (empty) windshield suction cup bracket fell off and I’m not sure why. It’s been in place for almost 4 days, now.

 

[Darth-Car]

That single plug for that lighter I am almost positive is on a purple wire, but most importantly the wire for the lighter has a black, L shaped rubber connector boot on its end that slides onto the center terminal of the lighter.

 

[BudW]

I have worked on hundreds of older Mopars, and I’ve seen the pigtails taped to harness on cars without cigar lighter. The pigtails/connectors are there on pretty much all cars – but left unused if lighter option wasn’t selected when car was assembled.


About two months ago, I put my cell phone charger in the lighter to charge phone on my trip, but nothing. Note: this was the day before a car show I was about to enter car into – so I didn’t have a lot of time to play with. Later that day, I removed the knee booster and both parts of ashtray to see what was up and at that time I didn’t see any lighter wiring – at all. I also noticed the ground strap to radio was missing – which was why the radio has been cutting out randomly when dash lights are on.

I just used an alligator clip jumper wire to fix radio – until I could find a ground strap for a permanent fix – but still found nothing for lighter wiring (either the red power wire (with the black elbow connector) or the female spade ground wire).

This is a picture of the dash (taken just before the car show).


The odd part is lighter element appears used and ashtray appears well used. I can see a well-used ashtray if someone used a regular lighter, but with a used lighter element – tells me someone did something to my baby (before I bought it).


I’ve sense located a radio ground strap – but waiting on temps to drop to a more reasonable number to work on it.
A good thing I don’t smoke, I guess.

This is a picture of dash, just before the car show.

 

[Jack Meoff]

I love that style of steering wheel.

 

[slant6billy]

I got to think the cig lighter wire is in there buried. I found mine was stuck all the way towards the pass side compartment. One thing, my monster tach is getting the pulse wire off the Distributor to ignition box. The sun tach i had was pulsed off the negative of the coil. I use a cheap tach with alligator clips with my vacuum gauge taped to it for engine tuning/ timing set.... One man hand- held tuner "redneck" style

 

[BudW]

The dash hasn’t been taken too far apart, yet.

I suspect the wires were cut sense the existing cigar lighter element appears used.
But
It could be the car came without a lighter from factory – then someone found a used one (with correct knob) and installed it incompletely. Who knows?


I wouldn’t call your portable tuning station “redneck” - I would call it “more efficient”.
The vacuum gauge is a great idea.

My version will be posted here once complete (not there yet).

BudW

 

[Darth-Car]

I am thinking that you may be onto something, believing that the ash tray, and lighter were added by a previous owner. I would be surprised to learn that such a stripper came from the factory with a lighter. I have encountered much more heavily optioned F's that had not factory lighter.

 

[BudW]

A picture of my tachometer and power supply I made for testing purposes.

For those wanting to know:
Red and Black arrows – battery
Yellow arrow – for yellow tracer wire (-) to ignition coil
Green arrow – a cigar lighter / 12 volt power supply to hook up my performance meter up to or whatever else needs a temporary 12 volt plugin.

All I can say is – it works.

The ignition coil needed a bit of cleaning to read.

 

[BudW]

I finally read, and re-read the instructions and found out I was doing it wrong.
The above readings I deleted (were not correct).

These are from my (stock) ’86 5th Ave 318 2-bbl 2.2.

I’m not sure what is up with the HP or torque readings – but they are not important to me anyway.
Note: this is three of several pages it will display – but ones I thought were worth posting here.

 

[BudW]

These are from my (stock) ’77 Volare wagon 318 2-bbl auto 3.2

The only difference between this and above car is vehicle weight (by how much IDK), Lean Burn (in 5th Ave) and gear ratio.

 

[BudW]

I got around to hooking my performance meter on to my ’97 Dodge diesel pickup (mentioned above) and here are its results. Remember this truck is pure stock with 230k miles on it.

Hehe, I may have to give the first person to answer correctly a drink, if they can tell me how to check the RPM’s on my diesel pickup (I know how - but something to think about).
It has no electrical ignition system and a mechanical (not electric) fuel injection pump.

This same truck has an in dash factory tachometer in it. It also has a powertrain computer as well – but the only thing it does sense it is a manual transmission, is:
Control alternator output,
Control the intake heaters for cold starting,
And it takes the crankshaft position sensor and converts it to a signal the tachometer uses.
(A trick question).

I can literally unplug the computer and leave it/drive it that way, until the battery’s drain down from normal operation.
The cold start air intake heaters work but not real useful where I live at.

BudW
(Now to borrow the wife's minivan keys . . . )

 

[7T8 Custom]

Truck seems to put out lots of HP but not much torque. What gives with those readings?

 

[BudW]

I think the HP/Torque readings are haywire.
I was going to take a picture of that screen, but didn't and you will see what I mean.
The engine is rated 215 HP / 440 foot pounds of torque.

 

[kkritsilas]

If the weight input into the performance meter is off, the torque and HP readings will be off.

 

[volareandgtcat]

Very interesting ... so am I to understand this performance meter does not need an obikanobi plug in ... how about newer ones?? Thanks for this thread.

 

[Justwondering]

you are too cute -- okikanobi ... my new word for the day

 

[volareandgtcat]

you are too cute -- okikanobi ... my new word for the day

Naw .. I was just wondering(lol) if they can be used without the plug from underdash ... neither of my cars have it and I am amazed with the info they give.

 

[BudW]

I purchased this meter sense it doesn’t need the OBDII port to be used.

This meter has two plugin’s on it.
A 12 volt cigar lighter port and a serial port (9 pin D) to download data to a desktop computer.


I was wondering about the weight issue as well, but I have a weight stamp ticket (before and after) from our city dump a couple of years back – so know about that one.

The weight readings I entered on the Station Wagon was 3600 pound (a guess) and 5th Ave was 4000 pound (also a guess) – and their HP/torque readings are way off, as well.

Will need to plug it back in and get pics to show.
The HP, torque and RPM readings are nice to know but not critical, as much as the other data is (for testing purposes).