Speedhut fuel gauge driving me nuts...anybody else install one of these?

[Konish]

Fellas,

Since my install, my Speedhut fuel gauge simply does not seem to work properly. I'm betting 100% it's the way I'm trying to wire it. Essentially, no matter how many times I calibrate it, it ALWAYS reads "empty" if I have the sensor wire hooked up in any way (more below) and the only way it reads "full" is to totally unplug the sensor wire and let it free hang. Here is what I have tried so far:

 

1. Under dash three wires from original fuel gauge (yellow w/ red stripe, black and yellow). I hooked up the Speedhut gauge sensor wire to the stock harness yellow wire. I made an extension for the stock black wire and ran it to ground. Reads empty even through the tank is full and the gauge calibrated per instrucitons.

 

2. Ran gauge sensor wire to trunk and wired directly to the fuel level sensor plug (yellow wire) and ran a ground from the black wire on plug to the chassis. Reads empty.

 

3. Did the same thing in 1 & 2 only I switched hooking the sensor wire to the black stock wire and the yellow to ground

 

4. Fuel sender plug terminal reads 15 ohms (full tank)

 

5. The yellow with red stripe wire (stock harness) has 12V on it with the key in the acc position...power to the original gauge(?)

 

6. When I hooked up my multimeter in between the sensor wire and stock yellow wire, it read something like 35 Ohms and the gauge moved to the full position...wtf?

 

I measured the sensor wire voltage from my water temp gauge and it was like 5V...the fuel sender is *much* less, although I can't remember it was something in the millivolt range.

 

Now if the sensor wire is unhooked, it will perpetually read full (obviously).

 

Damn, I hope that made sense...anybody else successfully get one of these to work, and if so mind sharing your wiring setup?

 

R/

Dustin

[ktm]

How did you calibrate the gauge? You need an empty gas tank to calibrate "empty".

 

My gauge reads "correctly", though it does swing back and forth over time. I am chalking it up to a sender/stock wiring issue for the time being.

 

I used the yellow wire from the stock harness and connected that to the yellow wire for the gauge. The red wire on the gauge connects to +12 v ignition hot and the black wire is ground.

Edited December 27, 2010 by ktm

[Konish]

I used the existing daisy chain for the backlight and gauge power since I had all the other gauges tied into car power anyway.

 

As per the instructions, I am aware the tank needs to be empty to calibrate empty (or whatever you want to call empty) but when calibrated with a full tank, the needle drops right back to the "E" mark after calibration. However, from what I gather reading the instructions, it should read "full" becuase I established the "F" resistance level. I do understand that the drop to empty is not going to be accurate because the sender resistance when empty has not been set.

 

If my tank sender is showing 15 Ohms of resistance full, the gauge should peg out at F even without calibration since the factory setting 33 Ohms for full. However, the only way my gauge reads correctly is to totally unhook the sensor wire, and if attached to anything, it grounds out and goes right to empty.

[ezzzzzzz]

I use one of these without any problems but don't recall the calibration of it now. Call Speedhut. They are very helpful and will walk you through the process.

[Konish]

I use one of these without any problems but don't recall the calibration of it now. Call Speedhut. They are very helpful and will walk you through the process.

 

You know, I've read that a bunch...about Speedhut being so helpful and having top-notch customer service which is why I popped $600ish for my gauge set, but here's been my experience...

 

I called Speedhut in the past after writing a very clear, detailed e-mail about several issues I've had with their gauges. Funny thing is NOBODY on their staff actually took the time to read it so I had to call and re-explain everything. When I did call, I told them I was calling from Japan and that it was close to 1 am, the receptionist still put me on hold for over 10 minutes and then I got batted around from dept to dept for another 10 minutes before I finally got to talk to someone. Truth be told, they were almost useless in diagnosing the problem and simply opted to replace it. I've had to have the oil pressure gauge replaced 2X before I gave up on the Speedhut Series and paid the difference for the Revolution series. I also had to buy their Rev water temp gauge because the Speedhut water temp was so inconsistent depending on the electrical load on the car it was all but unusable.

 

Even after all the time and money spent on the gauges, the complete redass of getting these shipped back and forth, the best they ever did for me was offer an additional 10% discount on the rev series oil pressure gauge...which after having to send 2 gauges back, basically ended up costing me more in shipping than the additional 10% break they gave me. I would have been better off buying the thing at their normal "15%" sales price in the first place.

 

Having been through all that, I would NEVER buy from them again...in fact Defi was my first choice and easy to get locally although they are a bit more expensive. Speedhut Series gauges have been absolute junk in my opinion. Out of the 4 Speedhut gauges I bought, 2 have been replaced by the Revolution Series, 1 (the fuel gauge) works like crap which only leaves the voltmeter the sole gauge working as advertised. My other 2 originally purchased (Tach and Speedo) gauges work great and the replacement oil press and water temp Rev Series work well too. Oh, and it took over a week after my order for them to get each of my replacement gauges in the mail. Sure they're "custom" but my order was their stock offerings...nothing fancy and it still took much longer than it should have IMHO. It literally took me the better part of 3 months to have a full set of working Speedhut gauges...and even now my fuel gauge is questionable.

 

If i had any advice to give to someone that absolutely had to have these gauges, I would HIGHLY recommend just saving up a bit more for a complete Rev Series set...less headache that way. Oh, and I'm sure that 2-3 others will chime in and speak praises about their Speedhut Series gauges and while that's great, it was not my experience and I stand by what I wrote.

 

R/

D