Liquid Gauge, S3 version review

I have been looking at getting one of these for a while and even setup a group buy. I decided to bite the bullet and just get one anyway...

For those of you who are not aware of this rather impressive gadget should head over to http://www.racediagnostics.com/ and check it out...



Essentially it plugs into the diagnostic port and have a wealth of features (depending on your car, engine code etc) such as the ability to display gauges for the following:

Engine power
Torque
Boost pressure
Cmd pressure
Mass Air Flow
Air Fuel Ratio
Air intake temp
Exhaust temp
Coolant temp
N75 position
Oil temp

...graphs for the following:
Engine power
Torque
Boost pressure
Cmd pressure
Mass Air Flow
Air Fuel Ratio
Air intake temp
Exhaust temp
Coolant temp
N75 position
Missfire
Dyno plot
Timing Correction plot

...and show and clear fault codes etc...


I bought the kit for the facelift S3 as this is what I have.

This is what I got in the box...


Mine came pre-assembled in the nifty vent mount. The front is shaped to fit the drivers side vent and has the display and joystick on view.


The rear has a Cat5 type connector for the right angles OBD lead that comes with the kit.


I test fitted it for a pic in my vent but this is not where I finally used it as I already have a boost gauge fitted in there.


I settled on temporarily fitting the Liquid in the centre vent for now.


Plugging the cable in on my car looks like this


I routed the cable over the steering column and tucked the spare into the little cubby hole just about the plug. As this is only for testing it will do fine... more about my plans on final fitting later...

The Liquid requires a password to be entered whenever you plug it in. This gets remembered while you have the Liquid plugged in but if you unplug it for any reason then next time you plug it in again you will need to re-enter the password.


Once on, the Liquid presents you with a menu system that you navigate using the joystick, it seemed a little temperamental at first but I think it was more me than the system itself as I can now use it with ease.


As my car is going through a mapping stage after my recent BT conversion, I spent a bit of time using gauges that were of use to me for that such as EGT and Lambda. The gauges are very clear and show peak values during the time the gauge is active. In the case of Lambda it shows peak lean and rich values...


EGT gauge has an 'alarm' feature and will flash the screen when a dangerously high value is reached...


The Liquid also displays a real time graph of what it can display as a gauge. This is more useful for diagnostics.


The Liquid will display oil temperature as a gauge but not when using the multi gauge feature due to the way Liquid has to communicate with both the ECU and the dash pod at the same time.


Multi gauge is a nice touch




Liquid also has a natty G-Force gauge


There are so many features to the Liquid I haven't had a chance to go through them all as yet but will update this thread once I have had more time and add more pics too.

I have had a few issues with the Liquid though but to be honest this is more to do with the mods I have done to my car than anything else.

My car runs a stage 3 map for the GT30 I run. My boost is around the 1.7bar mark which is already more than the MAP sensor can read. As Liquid essentially sees what the ECU sees, the boost gauge max's out which is why I still run a mechanical gauge. Another problem I have is that I am also maxing the MAF sensor and its readings are inaccurate in so much as the Liquid correctly reads what the ECU tells it but the mapping isn't scaled for this.

I may need to look at running a larger MAF body to bring it all back in to scale but for now it means I can't reliably use some of the 'boys toys' features of the Liquid such as the 'Dyno Run' feature and power and torque gauges. The Liquid does have a setting for adjusting the scale of the MAF sensor internally, this is to cater for people fitting larger MAF sensor bodies.

Once I have this cracked I will post up the results and some pics.

Plans going forward are to find a more permanent place to fit the Liquid and to wire it in so I can still use the OBD port for VAGCOM etc...

Further reading...
Main website: http://www.racediagnostics.com/
Features: http://racediagnostics.com/cms/index.php?page=products
Cars supported: http://racediagnostics.com/cms/index.php?page=cars-supported
Pricing: http://racediagnostics.com/store/index.php?cPath=1
Documentation: http://racediagnostics.com/cms/index.php?page=documentation

<tuffty/>

That is true... I need to send mine back to you to try that out

<tuffty/>

Small update... Sent my liquid back to Jim to get the latest version of the software flashed on. Asked if he could tweak the multi-gauge a bit too as the gauge that has the EGT's on also has the oil temp which doesn't work that well on the S3 and causes a comms error returning the Liquid back to the menu screen. I asked if I could have the oil temp changed for AFR and he obligingly did... thanks Jim

Got the Liquid back this morning, I have removed it from the vent mount as I want to mount it elsewhere so just stuffed the lead into the centre vent to hold it there while I drove back from work. The new multi-gauge configuration works a treat...

One of the features I hadn't tried yet was the speed timings. The liquid can do 0-60 and 0-100 timings. On a quiet stretch of private road I gave the 0-60 option a go...

Was concious of lunching the clutch so did do the 4/5k and side step the clutch pedal style launch choosing to raise the revs and let the clutch out hoping it would bite and go... caught the haldex out as I lurched forward and then felt the haldex kick the rear wheels in... not the best of starts and it was wet on the ground too... anyhoo... banged through first and second with a more tentative change to third as my syncro is dodgy, kept it in third for a brief while then let off as private or not I could be at a silly speed fairly quickly... the Liquid then draws on screen to show you your 0-60 time...



...need less to say I was quite pleased considering what a crap start I had off the line..

I will have a play further and post more pics. I plan to fit the Liquid properly when I get 5 minutes spare and will post up the 'build' pics of that too.

<tuffty/>

Its pretty intuitive, needs to fitted securely of course and using the vent kit will sort that. I still have to fit mine properly and its looking likely it will end up in the centre vent.

<tuffty/>

Its a communication issue as the oil temp data is derived from the instrument pod while the rest is from the ECU and there is a conflicting delay (IIRC) which causes it to go out of sync and cause the communication error. (Jim, feel free to leap in with the full explaination if this isn't quite right)

The oil temp gauge on its own works fine, its just in multigauge it has an issue on my S3.

<tuffty/>

http://racediagnostics.com/cms/index.php?page=cars-supported

<tuffty/>

NicTobi said:

Hi,

i have an Audi S3 8L AMK 2001 and wont to know if the liquid works correctly and with no missing functions?

On the homepage "cars supported" there are no missing functions, but on ebay there is " no oil temp" ?!?!


Thank you for your help!

Click to expand...

AMK has oil temp but it reads from the instrument cluster... this is fine when its a single gauge on its own but its also a gauge in one of the multigauge layouts and when used here it often resets Liquid due to a communication error... this is due to the different speed of communications between the ECU, instruments and Liquid...

<tuffty/>

kennymeechan said:

Tuffty, sorry to ask a q that's not to do with the gauge but where did you get the 2 trim panels for either side your stereo? I have an alpine fitted but these are missing.

Cheers

Click to expand...

Its an Autoleads fascia adaptor for the A3...

<tuffty/>

knoxie said:

another revive for this thread...

how accurate are these? im very very tempted by this... looks awesome :-D

Click to expand...

In what context?... it uses the same data the ECU gets from sensors and VCDS (tried and trusted diag software) uses...

If you mean in terms of BHP measurements then it uses the same airflow/0.8 or block 120 type calculations as VCDS...

<tuffty/>

knoxie said:

no i mean in boost presure and other figures?

Click to expand...

Boost is read from the MAP sensor (or calculated in AGU mode), AFR from the lambda sensor etc... all the same data the ECU sees and VCDS sees so is as accurate as it can be

<tuffty/>