I am thinking about doing some road racing and want to see if I should add some gauges to monitor a few things while on the track.

Up until now the car has been mostly a street/drag car with boost and fuel gauges (besides the stock stuff). I don't intend to r/r to extent that I want to set the car up just for road racing but it already has a decent suspension and brakes. We've lost our local drag strip and I've always loved driving fast in the mountains so I thought this would be something I would enjoy.

I was initially concerned about monitoring IAT's since I'm FI but a friend suggested that it may be more important to monitor oil temp and/or exhaust temp.

What do you guys think are the most valuable? and maybe the ... "if I could only monitor one thing" item.

TIA

 

Definite:
Oil temp
Oil pressure
Water temp

Optional:
everything else

Hopefully (heh) you'll be spending more time driving than reading gauges - so you'll want the critical ones.

Bring the car out to California Speedway March 10/11/12 and sign up for HPDE. 150+ going into the oval turn 1 will make you forget your local 1/4 closing.

 

That sounds reasonable. oil temp is easy enough. I may also look into an EGT gauge.

I couldn't find the info one the HPDE at either the CMC site or California Speedway's site?

 

Info at www.nasaproracing.com, or more specifically, HERE.

Registration should be up in a couple of weeks, but basically, you'll get 3-4 1/2 hour sessions per day (Sat/Sun), or roughly 4 hours of track time for (usually) a little over $200.

 

BTW, here's a 1st lap video of our CA Speedway race in 2003, and a few pics:

 

wow! 4 wide..

thats an actual race, not a simple hpde right?

 

Yeah, that's a race. Passing is a little more restricted in HPDE.

BUT, HPDE 4 is 'open passing' so it's possible!

 

EGT is a good diagnostic tool but not much use while driving. Although you can set up eight readouts on one gage with a selector switch. Temps. are alway nice to know. Trans. temps., differential temps., tire temps., brakes. You get the idea. Just have to deside what you want while racing and what can wait until you stop. Get a data logger.