I recently bought a HKS electronic boost gauge off of ebay. The gauge is a discontinued model, and I bought it because it matched the interior light color of my FC. I spent a few hours over 2 days installing the thing.

First off was determining where to mount the gauge itself. I could not do an A pillar install, as I didn't have the gauge pod. I didn't want to do a triple gauge pod deal on the dash either, as it would cover my warning lights and be out of my field of view. In the end, I decided on the steering column cover, so it would be right in front of me.

The column cover presented some problems, since it's made of really shitty 80s plastic. I took it off, and upon drilling holes, stress cracks started appearing. I decided the only way to mount the gauge without it breaking off on a speedbump was to create a sort of brace. I bought a bit of sheetmetal , screws, and washers, and finally mounted the gauge. It is ghetto to the extreme.

Bottom of steering cover:



Gauge on the top. I cut off the little part sticking out with tin snips. It's still ghetto, but oh well, I'm not that patient:



Next I needed to do the wiring for the illumination and power. But first, I needed to take out the instrument cluster to get to the harnesses:



We tapped into the harness to get all of the illumination and dimmer controls, and also to get power to the lights and the gauge. After a bit of stripping and tapping, we hooked up the gauge and it worked fine.

After that, I needed to find out where to get vacuum/boost readings, etc.

This is the sender included with the gauge. The "HKS" is like +3 to JDM level:



I ended up plugging it into a little nipple on the intake manifold, as you can see in this picture:



After that, I needed to run the wiring from the sender through the firewall. So I decided to route it around the AC lines, and down through the rubber grommet where the main engine harness is. I cut out a bit of the rubber and forced the wire through.



Now I could finally put the dash back together. After struggling a bit with the speedo cable, I finally got everything back into place and fired it up. I took it on the highway a few times, doing a couple of 2nd and 3rd gear pulls to make sure the gauge was working correctly. Everything was PERFECT. Boosted ALL the way to 0.4kg/cm2. That's like...7 psi! Anyway, here are a couple shots of the final product. I'm pretty happy with my work, despite the ghettoness:

 

looks awesome man, id say.

 

looks great man, I wonder if they have any left?

 

Looks good! However, if you decide to add another electronic gauge I would suggest wiring it to the cig. lighter/light bulb. Your ignition wire will go to the cig. lighter power wire, illumination will go to the power wire for the cig. lighter light bulb, 12v constant to the battery with a fuse inline, and ground to any ground source. This will be much easier as you will not have to take the gauge cluster out, and the new gauges will dim with the factory gauge cluster.

 

Ahh thanks a lot for that. We were actually debating whether or not we could use it, but we already had the cluster out so we figured we might as well use it.

 

I had my gauge mounted in that same spot. Instead of drilling holes, I used double sided tape which held the gauge in place very well. If I find a picture, I'll post if up.

 

Oh and I have a spare trim piece you broke...

 

Looks good even if it is blocking 90% of the tach.

One thing you might want to consider is to mount the sender solidly to the firewall or engine. If it is just sitting on the engine, vibration will kill it.

 

Looks great, but if was me I wouldnt be able to handle that slight tilt to it

 

You were probably the one that outbid me on that. Thats ok. I got a mechanical one for $45. HAHA

 

nah, that's actually just the camera angle. If the picture was taken from the position of my eyes, none of the numbers on the tach would be blocked.

edit: Hmmm, maybe i'll find a more solid place for it.

 

Figured I'd post up some of the pics that I finally got around to taking of my gauge as well. It happens to be mechanical but HKS none the less.

 

do you know where i could get one ????
i have the same gauge for a while, but never got to switch my apex one,
but now i realized that i dont have the sender !!!

 

i got my gauge and stuff from rhdjapan.com

It seems like they sell a bit of used stuff too. Might as well give it a shot. If that doesn't work, ebay should.

 

yeah i do a LOT of business with Patrick from RHDJapan as well....
ebay theres nothing at all for the sender unit....

can i take any sender from any brand or, exclusivelly HKS ????

 

i'm not sure, but if the harness is standard, I don't see why it wouldn't work