If you're going to go to all that effort then do a proper job and stick a proper dash in it rather than using SPA gauges or similar. A good dash will provide data display and logging which will be extremely useful for a track car, for example you could plot and record oil pressure and temperature over the course of a track day allowing you to monitor engine condition and if there is a requirement to look at oiling system modifications to ensure reliability and endurance.
You're also going to want to keep those ABS sensors. They are after all wheelspeed sensors which is exactly the kind of thing you want to log and in some cases utilise for launch and traction control. At the very least plotting post event wheel speed data will allow you to see where you are getting wheel spin and this coupled with an accurate track map will allow you to decide on a course of action to reduce this or live with it in the most lap time friendly way.
The emerald has a CANBus (albeit in the most basic fashion) which will feed an AIM dash. A Pista really is a cheap bit of kit but it'll do for what you want unless you're more serious about running the car than it seems. This is a much lighter, neater and more reliable solution than a bunch of gauges. You can make up a chassis sensor sub loom to carry wheel speed and if required damper pots and feed this into the dash.
An Emerald will run the engine with decent enough accuracy for the most part. You only really need 4 sensors to run an F4R if using cable actuated throttle body and throttle position as primary load, those being throttle position, crank position, ECT and AT. Assuming you want to maintain the VVT then this is a simple digital output which you can base on engine RPM. There is no reason why you can't retain MAP sensing as well though if you are retaining a single throttle body/plenum setup, you could add a BAP as well if you wanted to do a proper job and were planning on racing up some hills ;-) Emerald will do closed loop fueling IIRC so a single wideband will allow you accurate AFR control. I would very much want to keep the DBW throttle body as it allows you to do clever torque reduction and transient control stuff that does have massive uses in a track car.... on an Emerald you're going to have to dump that though.
The biggest potential failure point of any car, be it road or race is the wiring looms. Spend time here getting it correct and it'll pay dividends. I'd want to put a bulkhead connector in for the engine loom to allow rapid engine out if requried and I'd strongly recomend the use of decent spec connectors throughout including potting the TPS, Coil Pack and ECT/ACT sensors and running a sealed connector rather than JT's/T's. Go on AS the lot, a 36 way AS bulk head connector and six or seven four/five ways aren't that much and nothing looks more serious on a track car than Mil-Spec looms
Cheers
M
and sort the cable tb.
last year and when I finally came round to connecting to it via the comms cable - I couldn't! I've sent it to Emerald so I'll keep you updated with the progress and my experiences on this post..
