It's almost finished just need to finish wiring up the guages and mounting the fuse box, cut a hole for the stock headlight switches, etc. I mounted the oil, temp, and speedo on the left because I feel they are the most important things to keep an eye on. Mounting the guages in the middle and angled towards the drivers seat should make it easier to view, I'd rather move just my eyes than crane my neck around the steering wheel to see what's going on. The guages are auto meter ultra lite with electrical senders, except for the tach which is a sunpro with shift light mounted on the steering column. There's also room for a couple more guages on the plate behind the steering wheel in the stock location, might come in handy for an O2 meter, fuel pressure, boost, or whatever.

 

Well, before anyone else jumps in and bashes you, I wanna appreciate the fact that I finally looked at a thread that said "custom dash", and found someone with a scratch-built dash, instead of a 4th gen conversion, or a few autometer pods.

It's still very very rough, but if you're going for a sport look, you could fiberglass and smooth and paint it. Or for a more classic look, you should cover it with vinyl.

Mathius

 

good point mathias. most of those other threads would be better stated "modified dash" or costomised dash" this one realy is an almost ground up build (from the looks).

i am not a huge fan of that look. but it looks like it was done well. what was your goal. (looks, visability, maximum amount of shininess)?

i would also be interested in seeing some progress pics.

all in all top notch work.

 

Thanks for the compliments guys. None of the original dash was used, the frame work is thin wall 1x1" square tube. I think it turned out pretty good. Some things I still need to add is cupholders, turnsignal lamps, and a high beam indicator.

I'd rather have used carbon cloth and rounded the dash more. Could have laid the cloth over a furnace duct or something to get a nice contour, I'm in a mad rush to get the car back together for power tour though so I went with sheet metal and aluminum.

I'll have some updated pic's in a couple days when I can get to the computer with the digital camera dock..

When I put the roll cage in I knew the bars would be going right through the stock dash and that stock dash weighs quite a bit, I also planned on putting different guages in from the start of this project. Those are the main reasons for building the dash. In the second picture the dash is painted and windshield installed (first time installing a windshield-fun stuff*) The dash, interior, and underhood color is rustoleum "hammered" black, it dries to a nice grey color. I like the hammered finish because it looks like a marble table top when it dries and also covers small imperfections like grinded weld seems, etc. I highly reccommend trying the stuff. I also used some body filler to smooth things out a bit on the top of the dash.