MercMonitor fits in a 3 3/8" hole. It can display a ton of information on the screen (different models of MercMonitor have different amounts of data, I think I have level 2 which does everything I need: fuel flow, MPG, RPM, speed, trim, and a lot more), but to be honest it's pretty hard to read in daylight, so I use my Garmin to display the information I'm most interested in.

thks tlr,

My boat from the factory came with a 7.4L MPI, and it was changed out to a Carb engine, now i''m looking to go back to an EFI, like the 496HO, can the merc monitor work simaltaneouly, withh the analog guages, or is the merc monitor set up to replace all guages..

I have analog gauges which still work fine with the MercMonitor installed.

The only thing is the MercMonitor doesn't get fuel tank level data because they use analog senders that connect directly to the gauges rather than through the engine. I don't care about that because my fuel tanks gauges aren't very accurate anyway, but if you do you could replace just your fuel tank gauge with a SmartCraft one I think.

I think I get data for all the other gauges, even water speed, which was surprising.

That said, I'm not an expert on this stuff, I'm just giving you my experience.

thats all i wanted, just some general info about it..and i guess my last question lol for now would be..do u fiid function useful, which i'm pretty sure i know what the answer would be, but just asking...lol i guess the more info the better..

i new i had another one...sorry for the questions...and thks for the quick responses...do u have a pic of your dash set up...

Yeah definitely. It's nice being able to track fuel consumption. It tells you your current MPG, as well as how much fuel you've burned, which you can reset whenever you like. Hopefully it will pay for itself over time.

It's not a great pic, but the MercMonitor is under the white cover in the center between the speedo and tach, and the Garmin mounts on the left where those cables are sticking out.

http://i.imgur.com/UucZ1l.jpg

thks a million...you've been a grear help...so basically, the the merc monitor guage, is just a smaller version to the display unit limiting you to: three visual data displays at a time.. and lastly..lol i've been looking for the price of one of these units, the level 2 version....

Yeah, MercMonitor is basically two things:

• a SmartCraft gauge that can display various data, up to 3 or 4 pieces of data at a time depending on what it is and the screen layout
• a SmartCraft -> NMEA 2000 bridge which can send SmartCraft engine data to NMEA 2000 devices like chartplotters, etc.

Note that MercMonitor needs to get GPS data via NMEA in order to show MPG, GPS speed, etc.

The Level 2 kit I got, which included a 20' cable, termination resistors, etc, was $700. I don't know how much the unit itself would be but probably around $650.

so i would need to get the GPS device as well?

Yes, if you want MPG, distance traveled, etc. I think they're $100-200 for a marine antenna with NMEA output.

If you have room/money for a chartplotter I'd just get that for a couple hundred more (GPSMAP 400 series is like $400)