If any of you guys have a 5" tach w/shift lite, where did you mount it? Thanks for any help.

 

in the left corner of the dash --fits perfect

 

i mounted mine right underneathe the center heating vents. i try to keep as much hidden as not to draw to much attention to myself.

 

When you guys say "shift light", are you referring to the idiot light that tells you when to shift gears? If so, why would you want one? Is there some advantage to it that I'm not aware of?

Mathius

 

no chief. A shift light on a tach is set to turn on at a specific rpm so that you get a sunburn every time you need to shift. It allows you to concentrate on your driving instead of staring at the tach. I always considered having a giant tach pretty pointless if all you're going to do is wait for the light to come on anyway. When I get my car done I'm just going to build a shift light and install it into the area currently occupied by my cig plug. No need for a giant tach when the one in the dash is fairly accurate, and I'm shifting from the light anyway.

 

Ok, so it basically serves the same purpose as what I said, right? So what's the advantage? Is it giving you better gas mileage, less wear on the engine, what? I hope I didn't come off sounding like a jerk with the "idiot light" reference, it's simply slang, I'm genuinely curious. I don't have a manual in my camaro, but I've got an old Ranger, and I get by just fine without the shift light and hardly look at my rpm's at all.

Mathius

 

It has nothing to do with what you said. Its for DRAG RACING. When you've got your foot through the floor boards, chances are you're going to be a little too busy to stare at your tach (unless you've got a TBI car, then you've got plenty of time), so the shift light, which will illuminate at a pre-selected (by you) RPM so that you'll know when you need to shift into the next gear for optimum acceleration.

 

Jim85Iroc said if before I did. but you think the dash tach is fairly accurate? I hooked my tach up through the MSD box, which is coming straight off the ignition, so it shows the true rpm. I have my shift light set to 5400 rpm, and if I watch to stock tach, it is just about to cross 6000 rpm when the light blinds me and makes me turn away. the stock tach is off by more than you think.

 

It depends on the tach. My first tach was off by about 500 rpm at 5,500. My new one seems to be dead-on, unless my auto x-ray is off too.

 

Heres where mine is.

 

damn john, that looks sweet, I never thought about putting the small guages like that under the vents. good job with the shift light too. I guess putting the guages there makes it easier to make a new guage panel. by the way, what did you make your panel out of? it looks like the textured plastic, but is that what it is?

 

The panel is made of 20 gauge steel. I wanted to use some sort of ABS plastic, but b/c the tach is a pedistal mount, I had to have something that I could weld on. I welded an "L" bracket on the back, and all is well. A word of warning to anyone wanting to do this, the 20g steel is real flimsy. I would go with at least 18, or get some aluminum.

 

well, Ive been working on a panel layout, and Im thinking about using some brushed aluminum (I think thats what its called). did you use the pedestal mount tach so that you would have the shift light and controls for it? thats a good way of doing it, just extend the shift light wires I guess and put it anywhere you want it. Im trying to figure out a way to put some kind of light bar or something that would have all of the factory indicator lights in one place, kind of like the annunciator panels they have on aircraft. Im still working on that though.

oh yeah, I forgot to ask, what guages do you have where? which one is in the middle between the tach and speedo?

one more thing, sorry man, just realized your name was joshua, not john