Archives pretty much say stay away from digital boost guages, but with an analog guage, where do I mount it so that it's not so . . . well intrusive? Also, who makes the best guage?

Thanks,

Keith
Silver 99.5 1.8T QSM

shes about 60mm, mounted in a a-pillar pod. ive had autometer, hated it.. it broke, autometer says that it was cuz some foreign particles got into the gauge from the vacuum opening.. wutever..
i then tried an SPI one.. pretty cool, dual illumination, tiny (52mm), i had it mounted to my steering column with a custom modified piece.. basically a RE Ameyama (cant remember how to spell it) piece for the RX7, cut and molded to fit the a4.. it was sweet.. but then after a while i noticed that my boost gauge would stick at certain points..
right now im running the Apex'i EL series gauge in PSI, not Bar.. its a beautiful piece. have you ever driven the lexus gs400? have you seen the gauges for that car? kinda like a white face with indiglo lighting.. well, thats like my Apex gauge. i ordered a a-pillar pod for it.. i still need to paint it or cover it with fabric, but for now, it gets the job done.
I've tried to mount this thing everywhere, and these two locations were the only decent places i could do without going into huge mods..
some other methods i was thinking about while i was trying to figure where to install it was:

* drivers side window air vent. its a small opening, almost perfect for a small 52mm gauge to fit inside.. but this got too hairy, too much cutting, how was i gonna get the gauge to stand up, etc..

* from someone's how-to page - mounting it behind the buttons on the dash.. good idea, but kinda hard for me to do cuz my turbo timer is up there already..

* ashtray - too far down.

anyways, good luck. if you need to know where to get the apex gauge, or even the pod, lettme know..

having a boost gauge is a great way of seeing what your car is actually doing.. especially with a chip. i noticed my garrett chip tops out at 18psi, then goes down to a more conservative 15psi, then to about 12psi.. its pretty cool watching the boost rise, then the delay, and WOOOSH! youre gone!

hope this helps,
brian

Got 'em from TAP. The guage is great. It's VDO so it matches the rest of the instrumentation well, and with a red bulb (from the autoparts store), it's backlit in red, just like the rest of the instruments. It reads from 30 in hg of vacum to 25 psi of boost (boost only comes on when accelerating). Install was very easy, I followed Sean G.'s procedure on his page, except I tapped right off the fuse for the power for the light. Took about 30-45 minutes total. The guage pod is another story. It's not custom for the A4 and it's black. Right now I've got it zip-tied to the A pillar (the double sides tape was not effective on the fabric). It doesn't look as bad as that sounds, but I won't be happy til it looks like it came with the car.

Regards,
Rodney

'99 A4 1.8tqms

you can check his stuff out at www.redlracing.com he's got some pretty cools stuff coming out. If you're just interested in doing a boost gauge he's got a kit which turns the voltmeter into a boost gauge...this is not a cheesy device per his description, he's paid a premium to have nice gauge overlays printed to look just like they're stock...this is in the voltmeter position of course.

If you've got a trip computer look at his TCPM looks pretty nice too.

Regards,

James R.
99 1.8TMS