Quote: Originally Posted by kowboy59 yes because weighing 6 pounds wth the gauges in it reallyequals 15 but GOD you would know since you made one right????? actually I have. Not for a camaro but for an old 76 chevy pickup. It was our truck for hauling sh!t so i really did not care how it looked but the dash was basically the same as yours but with cheap a$$ gauges. It wieghed in at a good 16.5lbs or so with 1/16" aluminum sheet without a radio in it (mounted that on the floor). so YES there is NO way that dash you made is only 6lbs sorry but GOD you would know since you know everything I have ever done with a car. Its people like you that make me wish that computers had little hands attached to them so I could hit a button and it would slap you in the face.

Your insane. Weight distribution??? C'mmmon!



Super high tens.....really? 10.71 is super high tens?


Sorry I gave you the oponion you didn't want to hear. That dash looks down right aweful. If I saw that at the track or on the street I would LMAO.

I pulled my dash out and toyed with the idea of a custom dash, but than an image of that mess flashed in my head and I came to my senses in like 4 seconds. Obvioulsy you havn't come to your senses yet.

Let me know when you want to part the car out. I want to down grade my AFR heads to go faster.

Lmao whatever u guys keep ur 1980s
mentality alive I shoul of posted this in th drag racing section

is this thread about your dash or about you trying to make his times look like complete chit?

I cant stand the look of your dash. Props for creativity(kinda) but you shoulda done something with that passenger side to make it not to boring.

Don't worry. There is no danger of that happening.

I hope nobody gets cut on those edges

Lol I saved you some time be posting this
http://www.thirdgen.org/techboard/bo...o-thing-7.html (What is the most ghetto thing you've found done to your car?)

lol!!!

Here's the problem I have with this whole idea. If it was strictly to save weight, then why is a radio installed...that probably weighs about 5 lbs give or take. The gauges weigh a few pounds combined weight. The speakers and wiring weight a few pounds. The aluminum for the dash weighs a few pounds...probably over 5. All that negates any weight savings. The weight being saved is really just in the wiring for the HVAC system, the components for the HVAC, and any harness wiring you removed along with the carpet/interior. Pound for pound, you probably saved maybe 5 pounds from the stock set-up. If it were a race car. you would probably have had a roll cage bar runnign along there some to help break up the straight lines and could have put a couple straight panels for gauges and had some angles. Sicne it's a daily driver though, I imagine there is no cage, stock seats and belts, etc.

I think you wanted to get rid of the stock dash set-up and try something of your own. I applaud your digging in there and removing the old dash and making something up on your own to put back in there, but in my opinion, as well as a few others on this board, it doesn't look good enough to justify what was done. It wouldn't have been posted if you didn't want others to comment on it. As far as weight reduction goes, it would have been easier, cheaper, and more functional to do the standard weight reduction mods of removing interior pieces, carpet/padding, passenger seats/belts, spare tire, etc. You could put the spare back in when street driving as well as passenger seats and belts if you wanted.

THANK YOU!!!!!

its not the worst ive seen, but ill try to sketch up a dash that wouldnt have been horrible to make, and you would have got a ton more respect on here

ill post a pic tomorrow, and remember its gonna be a very rough sketch, i suck at drawing

holy crap................ its his car just let it go we can sit here and rip on anything anyone has done to there car all day


everyone that has seen my car has flipped out and loves it and its only half done but i know if i posted pictures on here people would just run there little mouths to many Nazis i guess

thats the shape i would have went with, keeps the basic shape of the original, adds style to it as well,

it does look like you put a lot of work into your current dash, just looks a little plain to the rest of us lol

well i made it plain. My car is in no way meant to draw attraction. the gauges weigh nothing and a radio is what 3 pounds. alumnium was 3 pounds so 6-7 pounds for a dash? not bad at all. 15 bucks for aluminum? not bad either.. and schmack im glad u like making fun of people. keep sitting behind that keyboard of urs and enjoy the nice indoors

just let it go kowboy, that comment will bring a new wave of fire.

FYI, trying to repair a fragile ego over a message board is completely absurd.

you have a 383, cowl hood, good paint and its not suppose to draw attention?

i agree some comments were out of line, if they didnt like it they should just shut their mouths, i personally dont think its bad, i would have just added some kinda lines in it

I didnt start out making fun of it did i? no i didnt. that only happened after you tried telling me i didnt know what im talking about like im stupid or some sh!t. after that i will make fun of it because to me you ruined the car.

and also i spend about 90% of my time out of the house. my car doesnt get worked on by typing on a keyboard.

i think some pinstripe would do wonders for it

kowboy you dint take my advice so lol

you might even get more respect by posting the finished product, with everything tucked away some carpeting and a center console ect.

if your happy with it then nobody can argue that your not happy, but to the rest of us it needs some kind of style to justify you ripping out the old dash

Hey I like it. Dont get me wrong it is rough, but its 100% functionality (short the radio). I am in the middle of removing my old dash to do the same thing (cant get the damn thing out either, its flipping riveted into the support frame by gm with big steel rivets)

Thumbs up for doing it your way and going for something other than aesthetics

Wow tough crowd... kinda rude at times too. Personally, I don't like it, the dash that is. But if you like it that's all that counts. I'm not sure if it'll do well if you ever try to sell the car with that but if you like it and wanna keep it, it shouldn't be a problem. Just ignore everyone who says otherwise. Sorry but I didn't read the whole thread, so forgive me if this was mentioned lol. Where are the HVAC vents? Or are you going totally raw without em?

I don't think he's using HVAC. When my Camaro was my dd, I didn't have HVAC for a long time, for the same reason as him, to save weight.

i think you should have fitted the dash pad on top, at made the defroster vent functional, that would be sick

I can kinda see what your going for, but to me it just looks rough, plain and unfinished, and like many have said already, that bottom edge is going to cut your legs if you ever get into an accident.

Just because it's a simpel sheet metal dash doesn't mean it has to be plain. Take a page from NASCAR of all places. If I were you I would take the front panel and measure out to about 6 inches from the top and bend it in half so that the front is now only 6 inches tall, angle the front about 10 degrees and fold the excess metal under the dash making a smooth lower edge. You can even make some grouping panels to group the gauges into, breaking up the flat bland look.

Like this

I wouldn't have said anything about a dash similar to that one. Purely functional, but not devoid of any style and still more functional than the original poster's dash.

Looks like a updated version of fred flintstone's dash.

can we get some more pictures i actually like it. i wanna c the finished product.

I dig it

heres a night pic.

You should weigh your car man! Sounds like you've got a serious setup, I'm interested in finding out how much you ended up with.

weighs 2950 pounds without me in it. stock front a arms. three bricks in the back, half a tank of gas, power windows, speakers and stereo

See thats what im talkin about! Now I do admit that his dash does have some rough spots (I personally would cap the ends and finish the wiring), but damn! Everybody who was knocking on this guy as far as im concerned owes him an apology; I mean really. So f-n what if "YOU" think it looks like Fred Flinstones dashboard. The car weighs 2950 because he went out with a goal of a car more oriented towards performance. If he wanted luxury he probably would've just bought a Caddy and called it a day. Dude wanted a fast car and he built it, I say kudos.

I think more people on here need to remember that other people building cars differently than the way they would like it is what building a car is all about.

Oh and just for the record, there is a definitive "WRONG WAY" to build a car. But that has to do with safety, not style.

like i said before, maybe if we see a DAY time pic of the dash and finished product alot of the people who didnt like it will say its not that bad, because a console would break it up a little the steering wheel will change the way you see how plain the driver side was

but for the functionality thing, yes its semi functional, but its about as functional as the stock dash was as well, the stock dash in these things dont weigh much, ive had mine out twice and its not heavy at all, in fact the heaviest part of the whole thing was the radio, which he still has in his, a stock dash weighs maybe 20-25 pounds, i can guarantee this one weighs at least 16(every body knows there's no way in hell it weighs 6-7 pounds) then he put an aftermarket tach mounted under it, which is adding about 2-3 pounds, so maybe he saved 5 pounds by making this dash

he lost weight because he has a lot more taken out of the car then just the stock dash

again i applaud the fact that he actually made a dash that fits good in the car, just way too plain even for a street/strip car

Some people just can't deal with someone wanting to make their car what they want and not what everyone else wants. It is just ignorant, simple minded people. They love conformity.

Yes the dash doesn't look stock. Get over it. It is a daily driven race car.

And if your "woman" likes you for your car then you are doing something wrong.

From what I understand you are (theoretically) supposed to gain .10 seconds in the quarter for every 200lbs. you take off the car. If the dash weighed 20-30lbs., and the other mods he was refering to added together for 50lbs. total weight off of the car, then that sounds pretty accurate to me.

the stock dahs weighs 20 i believe and the dash pad with speakers is 20 theres 40. took 5-10 popunds of wiring out. total of 50. now add the gauges which are stupid light. 2 pounds and 8 pounds AT MOST for this aluminum and the radio. so 10-12 pounds a gain of 38 pounds IMO because I didnt put the front speakers back in. Also the center console was taken out. it works

Nice. It all depends on what you want out of your car. This member wanted to save some weight, and be fast, but doesn't want to sacrifice his tunes. Who does? I am the same way. I don't know about y'all, but when Friday comes and I walk out to my car, I just want to blast some tunes and feel good about myself.

Also, my ultimate goal is a third gen (t-top) that runs in the eights with a full stereo. I mean, how sick would that be? Daily driver of course. I need to shave some seconds.

dash weighs 15-16 with speakers in and dash pad weighs maybe 5 all together 20-25 max no where near 40 pounds, and a pound of wiring is a hell of alot of wiring i work on wiring all day long and auto wiring isnt heavy at all i think the cars entire wiring harness all together would only weigh max 10 pounds and im sure half the wiring is not under the dash

again a finished product pic in the day time would give you a better reaction, seeing as the interior was stripped there was no steering wheel or anything, with it all put back together people would factor in the seats and steering wheel and it wouldn't look as plain

if you didnt put front speakers in then i would have just left the radio out completely and taken the rear speakers out that would have saved you another 4 pounds for the speakers and 5 for the radio a total of 9 extra pounds saved when i had the stock head unit in my car only the rear speakers would work and it sounded absolutely horrible i would rather have no sound system at all and just listen to that bad A** 383 you got

Just take the back seats out and then you will lose the rest of the weight.

hey, i like it! im in the middle of my build, i am removing weight as well, and doing so ounce by ounce.... even going as far as changing fasteners to aluminum from steel, using a zip tie instead of nut and bolt, or even epoxy glue in places.


the below quite is what i am basing my whole build by...

Steve Matchett said,
"I never worked with Chapman at Lotus, but I heard stories...you know, he would say, 'We wouldn't put a washer underneath the head of a bolt, why...wh..what are you going to do that for? Why do you want to take the washer around the track?'"

t

There is a difference between someone not liking it and someone being a complete prick.

This guy did this and he likes it. If you don't like it, that is fine. I don't like it myself, but I am not going to tell him his car is now junk because of it.

I def like......but it needs something.......something like a flat screen. Sweeeeet. No seriously I really like. Just throw a camaro logo or something and call it a day. Oh and the idea about putting the stock dash pad and using the defroster vent would be good. Looks sick at night btw

im sure hes done that if hes that serious about the weight of the car, in fact if he was extremely serious about weight he would get the fiberglass one piece front end with extended hood, fiberglass door skins all lexan windows, put a fiberglass notchback hatch on(because all of us know how heavy those stock hatches are) remove all interior pieces and do as someone above stated and change every single nut and bolt and use epoxy or zip ties(even rivets work wonders), but its a daily driven street car if it was a drag car then it wouldn't look half bad with everything removed like that

The only problem with getting all that stuff is the fact that it costs about $2500...

right, thats why i said if he was that serious about loosing as much weight as possible, taking out the stock dash will not give you enough weight saved to notice any difference in the 1/4 other than maybe .005 of a second, and im not saying he should have left the stock dash in

Great idea that wasnt executed the way ---->I<----- would have done it

if you don't want opinions dont post on a public forum, atleast my opinions were constructive showing how i would have done it, and all he had to say was his car isnt meant to draw attraction, which makes no sense to me seeing as its got a built motor,cowl hood, decent paint and im sure a nice exhaust, im sure alot of people would just ignore it

I like it man no it doesn't look like a bentley dash but who cares while your racing good job.