I have the AE and love it. It was a lifesaver for the 6.0 truck

 

Thanks for the additional info Mark, point taken. And that's a good point about setting up a bunch of manual gauges, they aren't cheap when you're done buying fittings and accessories. I'm sure they considered that when they came up with that price point.

 

Mark is correct with regard to depending on what you want to use each one for, but with budget factored in that might limit you to what you would really need.

There are 3 things that the DashDAQ does that is different from AE and it does them well:

1. Portable
2. Expansion Ability for Non-OBD sensors
3. Global Sensors

Tuner, GPS, and/or Custom GUI are determined on the individual basis, I'm talking more broad general scenerios here.

#3 is where I think it shines. Global sensors are sensors that you want to datalog when you hit the datalog button, but you don't have to have them on your view screen. Most others(including AE, what you see is what you datalog).

Now to counter that, AE does offer the ability to start datalogging when you hit a certain parameter on a sensor(s) that you have setup to monitor and to datalog. Let's say you have it set to start datalogging when you hit 120 on TFT. You hit 120 on TFT and it starts, it won't stop until you get below that setting or until you stop it. It also has the audible and visual alarms when you hit user defined settings for the sensors.

If it was me, I would suggest getting both as they both supplement each other and since portability is on the DashDAQ's side, it makes it easier to have that in the vehicle 24/7, but bring in the big guns when you need more "tools".

With budget constraints, I would still say it's cheaper and in the long run better to go with AE and get an external EGT and Fuel PSI gauge to go on the pillar, setup a netbook to ride shotgun and you'll still come out cheaper(depending on how you shop around though). This way, you are also setup for monitoring for a tuner if you want to go down that road later on. This is, of course, assuming that you don't mind having the computer while you drive. This is one reason why I also got the DashDAQ along with AE, but AE can do it as well by itself. It just depends on how much you are willing to do and/or put up with to get it done. I see a lot of people with computers in vehicles though, so it isn't remotely beyond feasibility here.

I would just make sure that you have either the DashDAQ and/or the netbook hidden when you aren't in the vehicle(or taken out) as some people might confuse the DashDAQ as a pure GPS device(which it also does, but I don't have that feature on either one of mine) or the netbook for obvious reasons.

 

Excellent post Tex, thank you! I think to start I will get the AE setup and regular fuel pressure and EGT gauges. As I said before a laptop rides shotgun in all of my cars anyway so that doesn't bother me. If I find down the road that I would enjoy the convenience of the DD, I'll add it on then. That seems like the most logical course of action at this point.

The only problem now is that I'm tempted to drop the cash on the AE today so I can play with it on my upcoming trip to OH.

 

We all have our problems... LOL