What happened to the tire pressure gauge and speedo in the middle gauge cluster?
 

It seems as if they cut one feature out with 370Z that was really usefull on the 350Z. Why did they remove the universal gauge in the center gauge cluster that could show, tire pressure, speed, lap times, etc? I found the speed and tire pressure extremely useful at the track. I liked capability of seeing what my tire pressure was after I got the tires heated up.

Does anyone know of a way to add this feature? Oil temperature and a clock is great, but I really don't need to know what voltage my altenator is producing.

Sorry...I can't tell you (don't know) the reasoning behind the change.

The 370 doesn't have TPMS...funny, though, I don't remember being able to monitor TP from the center gauge cluster and I had TPMS on both my '07 Grand Touring Coupe and on my '08 Grand Touring Roadster...maybe that was something offered on the track and/or enthusiast models before they discontinued them???

I miss the digital speed readout but am slowloy getting used to using the analog speedomoter again. :)

I would say that trying to add those features yourself would be a lot of work...I also would say, as an advid autocrosser, that I wouldn't trust the TPMS readout to know what my pressure was during an event; I'd always use a very good hand-held unit for that.

My guess on the TPMS was too many problems for people trying to swap rims. I remember that being the problem on my 03. As for the speedometer, I'll miss it too. I think the clock is worthless.

I don't mind the clock being there but it is pretty un-needed - I think they could have found a better use for that gauge area.

Wouldn't it great if the area was used as the warning/display area for a really great traffic radar/laser detection system!!!

Or better yet...a readout for traffic radar/laser countermeasure system. :)

US Law requires that all new cars sold have a TPMS system.

The 370 does have TPMS. Nissan stopped providing displays for PSI reading in each tire in the 2007 model year.

All we get now is an indicator light on the dash if the pressure in any tire drips significantly lower than the other tires.

I am assuning this is a liability thing. In the cars that said what the tire pressure is in each tire, people would get confused about which tire was low and air up the wrong one (idiots!). Also, people should not rely on TPMS to determine the amount of air in the tires, but they were so Nissan eliminated it.

I really miss having that data, but TPMS is still there.

You can also tell that it has TPMS by the bolt-on, rigid valve stem...

Great idea! I've been debating about where to have the display installed. I think the 9500CI display module might actually fit. I guess I'll have to wait until I have my hands on both the car and the detector.

Wow...I can learn something...who would have thought it!!! :)

Actually, I was thinking that the requirement was "coming" but not actually required yet...my bad. But yes, what you related makes perfect sense.

It also explains why I wasn't familiar with the "readout"...my '04 didn't have TPMS at all and by the time I got my '07 and '08 the readout was already gone!

Thanks for the info.

Do u guys think we can take the multi function gauge from a 350 and install it in the 370? If we can then ill definately use the one from my car. Also I heard that the gauge which shows the fuel/temp levels has a screen similar to the multi function gauge of the 350 and shows different functions. 370 owners please chime in.

The multi-function gauge on the left does have a lot of different data on it but I haven't looked specifically for tire pressure.

I doubt the old gauge from the 350 will fit as I don't believe the openings are quite the same size or shape...not to mention the ability to hook it up and actually get good readings/info.

Nevermine lol. I searched. My bad.

Ok but is there a digital speedo function on the 370? What other features does it show?

No...no digital speed on the 370...you have to use the speedometer.

I'm going from memory here...

Top of the gauge shows Gasoline tank level; bottom shows water temp.

The digital readout will show...

continuous MPG (in the form of a bar graph)
Average MPG and DTE
Outside Temp
Travel elapsed time and Avg speed (since last reset)
Brightness of the gauges (when you make a change to the level)
then it has the settings for maint, clock, different settings for alerts, etc.

Thanks for the info. I saw this thing in a magazine that shows a picture that shows a pressing a clutch and it says "clutch". Does the digital readout tell u to press the clutch everytime u need to shift?

That clock is staying right where it is on my car. However, it will be slightly modified.

Ever heard of a BLINDER X-TREME? I'll be putting my warning light in that gauge right under the digital display. :) Nobody but me will know what it is.

What is it lol?:confused:

That is what you see when you first get in, before you start the car. You have to depress the clutch before hitting the start button. With an automatic is says "brake" instead.

Don't bother, it isn't there. Trust me, I looked and looked, started cursing, and looked some more to no avail. The TPMS is good for one thing only -- warning you if the pressure is low. Want to make sure the pressures in all your tires are even? You'll need to get out of the car and use a pressure gauge. Of course, if you accidentally let out a bunch of nitrogen and need a fill, you'll have to take it back to the dealership or some other place with nitrogen. What a pain in the @ss. I don't suppose anyone makes a home-friendly nitrogen filling machine, do they? I have a portable air compressor, but it won't do me any good for nitrogen.

You can run up to 78.09% nitrogen from your portable air compressor.

Do any of the available tires on the 370Z come with and/or require Nitrogen???

If so, I haven't read that anywhere yet.

All my tires came filled with Nitrogen. Not sure if it's done at the factory or at the dealership, though.

At least one of the optional tires for the GT-R require nitrogen but as far as I know, none of the tires offered on the 370 do.

I like nitrogen for an everyday car/daily driver that doesn't see a track or an autocross event but for something I'm going to compete in, even just now and then, being able to adjust tire pressure is important.

Nitrogen inflation is one of those topics that gets discussed in car circles a lot. Some people swear by it, whilst others consider it to be an expensive rip off. So what's the big idea? Well there are two common theories on this.

Theory 1: nitrogen molecules are larger than oxygen molecules so they won't permeate through the rubber of the tyre like oxygen will, and thus you'll never lose pressure over time due to leakage. The fact is any gas will leak out of a tyre if its at a higher pressure than the ambient pressure outside. The only way to stop it is a non-gas-permeable membrane lining the inside of the tyre.
The science bit: Water is about half the size of either nitrogen or oxygen, so it might diffuse out of the tyre faster, but it would have to be much, much faster to make a difference. Tyres can leak 1-2 psi a month at the extreme end of the scale although it's not clear how much of that is by permeation through the rubber, and how much is through microscopic leaks of various sorts. For a racing tyre to lose significant water during its racing lifetime (maybe an hour or so for Formula 1), the permeation rate would have to be hundreds of times faster than oxygen or nitrogen, so that pretty much cancels out the idea that it's the molecule size that makes the difference.

Theory 2: Nitrogen means less water vapour. This is more to do with the thermal properties than anything else. Nitrogen is an inert gas; it doesn't combust or oxidise. The process used to compress nitrogen eliminates water vapor and that's the key to this particular theory. When a tyre heats up under normal use, any water vapour inside it also heats up which causes an increase in tyre pressure. By removing water vapor with a pure nitrogen fill, you're basically going to allow the tyre to stay at a more constant pressure irrespective of temperature over the life of the tyre. In other words, your tyre pressures won't change as you drive.
The science bit: The van der Waals gas equation provides a good estimate for comparing the expansions of oxygen and nitrogen to water. If you compare moist air (20°C, 80% RH) to nitrogen, you'll find that going up as far as 80°C results in the moist air increasing in pressure by about 0.01 psi less per litre volume than nitrogen. Moist air will increase in pressure by 7.253psi whereas nitrogen will increase in pressure by 7.263psi. Even humid air has only a small amount of water in it (about 2 mole % which means about 2% by volume), so that all puts a bit of a blunt tip on the theory that it's the differences in thermal expansion rates that give nitrogen an advantage. In fact it would seem to suggest that damp air is marginally better than nitrogen. Go figure.

So which option is right - smaller molecules, or less water vapour? It would seem neither. A reader of this site had a good thought on the whole nitrogen inflation thing. He wrote: Some racer who did not know the details of chemistry and physics thought that nitrogen would be better because (insert plausible but incorrect science here) and he started using nitrogen. He won some races and word got out that he was using nitrogen in his tires. Well, it is not expensive to use nitrogen in place of air, so pretty soon everyone was doing it. Hey, until I hear a reason that makes good scientific sense, this explanation seems just as good.

Nitrogen inflation is nothing new - the aerospace world has been doing it for years in aircraft tyres. Racing teams will also often use nitrogen inflation, but largely out of conveience rather than due to any specific performance benefit, which would tend to fit with the armchair science outlined above. Nitrogen is supplied in pressurised tanks, so no other equipment is needed to inflate the tyres - no compressors or generators or anything.

So does it make a difference to drivers in the real world? Well consider this; The air you breathe is already made up of 78% nitrogen. The composition is completed by 21% oxygen and tiny percentages of argon, carbon dioxide, neon, methane, helium, krypton, hydrogen and xenon. The kit that is used to generate nitrogen for road tyres typically only gets to about 95% purity. To get close to that in your tyres, you'd need to inflate and deflate them several times to purge any remaining oxygen and even then you're only likely to get about 90% pure nitrogen. So under ideal conditions, you're increasing the nitrogen content of the gas in the tyre from 78% to 90%. Given that nitrogen inflation from the average tyre workshop is a one-shot deal (no purging involved) you're more likely to be driving around with 80% pure nitrogen than 90%. That's a 2% difference from bog standard air. On top of that, nitrogen inflation doesn't make your tyres any less prone to damage from road debris and punctures and such. It doesn't make them any stronger, and if you need to top them up and use a regular garage air-line to do it, you've diluted whatever purity of nitrogen was in the tyres right there. For $30 a tyre for nitrogen inflation, do you think that's worth it? For all the alleged benefits of a nitrogen fill, you'd be far better off finding a tyre change place that has a vapour-elimination system in their air compressor. If they can pump up your tyres with dry air, you'll get about the same benefits as you would with a nitrogen inflation but for free.

Nismo, Laser Jammer. Makes it so cops can't use Laser to get your speed. Blinder-Xtreme <--- Youtube has a bunch of test videos.

Yeah...but be careful; some systems work far better than others. :)

Also keep in mind that laser jamming systems can't do anything about an officers eyesight and common sense...if you are doing near/over double-digits he can still arrest you no matter what his laser unit says or doesn't say!!!

I know.. I'm worried about when I'm doing 79 in a 65.

This is completely OT, but I've been using K40 for the past 10 years on all my cars. Utterly reliable. I actually enjoy getting painted with laser now, because it's fun to watch the confused looks on cops' faces as they repeatedly hit my car and can't figure why they can't get a reading.

Yeah, I was going to get the K40 as well, but I saw the Blinder and was like, WHOA! However, I like that the K40 has the license plate bracket... I can't figure out how to get the back of the Z with the blinder.

Hey CRASH .....Ever hear of the Valentine V-1 ? I have never had a speeding ticket.....Never

Valentine picks up laser too late if you're pretty much the only one on the road. Laser will get you before you can slow down. So, the best protection is a Valentine+Laser Jammer.

The Valentine 1 was a very good unit 10 years ago but it hasn't fared well in tests again much of anything for the past 5 years or so...it's far too expensive for its limited abilities.

think $399.00 is expensive.....?
 

You must not know that you can send it back to Valentine and get it updated FREE..........Do you know of any other detector you can do that with?????? That is why there have been no new versions........and what other detector shows you how many "COPS" are shooting at you? and which direction they are coming from? They update the software at least once a year.......

Updates (hardware or software) are great but since brand new units aren't doing all that well in tests; updates to make your "old" unit like "new" still leaves you with a unit that has competition doing better.

Yes...$399 is pricey...not outlandish but hardly cheap.

I'm not really trying to put the Valentine down...I still have one and I believe when I bought it that it was the best out there. But, over the past 5-6 years, it seems as if everybody not only caught up to the Valentine but has since surpassed it...it's big..it's heavy...it doesn't have GPS capability and is prone to false alarms plus test after test shows it's overall performance is just not as good as its competition any more.

OH BOY.... Guys, regardless, the point was that I'm putting the LED indecator in the clock-gauge to make it useful. I suggest you open a radar/laser detector thread and keep this one on topic.