Elec. water temp guage ?s
 

I have used an autometer elec. water temp guage now for about 3 months. Always when I'm driving the guage read around 230°. Now I know that is too high but my stock gauge sits around the upper part of the "R". When I use my fan switch (high setting) the temp drops to 192° and the stocker sits at upper part of "N".

My question is, is my car really running that hot without the fan switch or is this autometer guage messed. I installed the sender in the waterneck. If any of you are familiar with the FMS chrome waterneck, it has a 1/4" threaded opening in it. Is that a good place to put it. Also, the Autometer instructions say to ground the guage close to the sender, but mine are grounded far apart. Could this be affecting anything?

Heres a rundown of what I know about my car:
-Running 6° timing
-Headers do not glow hot after a drive
-The engine seems hot after a drive, but I dont know how hot "really hot" is
-2 heat range cooler plugs
-Just flushed the coolant and replaced w/ 50/50
-180° thermo
-I live in Florida
-A/C on brings the temp to around 240° so needless to say I dont use the A/C :mad:

Please Help!

I run the autometer electirc gauge too, and don;t have the problem. However I did put the sending unit in the stock sending units spot. I just have a "dead gauge" on the dash. No biggie to me. Just for grins, hook your wire up to your stock sending unit, and disconnect the stock wire. See what that does. Maybe its just the sending unit thats bad. Has this been going on since the day you installed the gauge? Also, to the best of my knowledge, a ground is a ground, shouldn't matter how far it is from the sending unit.

Chris

Chris, are you sure the stock sending unit and autometer's one will produce the same readings for same temp range? I mean they ARE two different senders? Have you tried this yourself? If so then I will do it and see. But yeah, the guage has been like this since day 1. If the case really is that im running hot, then I guess some water wetter would be in order. How about an 80/20 mix (80 water/20 coolant)? Would that help some? Eventually im going to get an elec. water pump and alum radiator.

To tell you the truth, I am not sure if the sending units will be the same or not. I know one is bigger than the other, but not sure which one. I know this doesn't help much, but its been about 2 yrs since I put mine in. I know the autometer one is a different size though because I had to go buy an adaptor so that it would fit into the stock sending units port. I'd say give it a try anyway with the stock unit, with the stock wire disconnected of course, and see how that goes. Maybe even buy a new sending unit from autometer, or a local store, and see if that helps. Just trying to throw out some suggestions here. Hope they help.

Chris

Unfortunately, it seems like you have too many variables to be sure what temp you are really at. The stock gauge is notoriously inaccurate, there is no way you can use it to tell if you are really at 200 or 210...then, with the Autometer gauge, you have placed the sender in a diffferent location than the stock sender, so the temps will vary from that (probably not too much though 0 once the coolant has started circulating). My suggestions would be:

1. Move the Autometer sender to the stock location and see what it reads.

2. Swap senders with someone to see if the gauge still reads the same.

3. Check your temp with a mechanical gauge and compare it to what you are seeing.

Does the gauge read low temps when the engine is cold, and then increase steadily as the engine warms up? If so, I would think your gauge is fine, and maybe you really are running that hot.