Since my engine is done and I will be driving the car in a few weeks when I got new rear end in i'm looking at doing a custom dash. Here's my idea so far. Any suggestion will be appreciated. Seems I have a large hole to fill on the dash with nothing to put in it...lol

Rob...

 

i like that, always room for more switches. you never know. how did you make that picture?

 

About 3 hours of photoshop and a lot of easurements on my stock dash..lol

 

maybe the space below the 3 guages could have a switch panel. you've gotta have some stuff you can move to some toggle switches or something. even little stuff like the dome light could be wired to a toggle switch.

 

You can always add more gauges

Shift light... Air-Fuel ratio... Vacuum... Hmmm, I'm starting to sound like myself lol

 

hmm, more gauges could work. I was thinking about putting a head unit up there..lol

 

Not uncommon to have a 2nd set of gauges for the navigator to watch.

 

maybe one of them 3 or 4 stage shift lights?

 

My first thought was Vacuum and Air-Fuel Ratio gauges. I think its a little too far from your normal line of sight for a shift light to be useful.

I like the idea of a few switches. Rocker or pushbutton though, I don't really care for a row of toggle switches personally. Maybe move the hatch release and window switches up there?

 

Didn't realize you have an auto when I posted that... But man, I love my shift light with my manual tranny. An AFR and vacuum gauge are also great tuning tools, and can give you a heads up if something isn't right, I love mine.

You could put a trannsmission temp gauge in there maybe?

Or if you lowered the 3 gauges on the right, the "gap" might not look so big or bad? Just thinking out loud here

 

maybe this is better?

 

I think that looks pretty good, but it's your car. You're the one who really needs to like it

 

how about doing the small guages on a 2x2 design on the right side? It'd be similar to the stock layout, but with 4 small circular guages instead of 2 large circular openings with two guages in each circle.

 

Yeah i'd do that but i've got a base model idiot light dash, and it sucks..lol

 

I don't understand... I just suggested another layout for the new guages you're installing. It wouldn't be any more or less work than the layouts you drew up above.

 

It may work. I was sitting in the car today and I noticed that its going to be hard to see the gauges on the right due to them pretty much being out of sight line, so i'm wondering if I should tilt them to the drivers side. I made an illistration....

 

I like the Idea of the tilted guages, the ones in my Trans Am are a little hard to see.

 

Okay what about this, instead of 5" speedo and tach, replace it with 3-3/8" gauges with smaller 2-1/16 gauges...

 

of these two, I like the first pic best the second looks to much like a camaro dash to me.

 

But I've thought of putting a 4th gen dash in my T/A. Although that 1st pic looks promissing

 

More ideas. Think that the last one I did was too camaro. How about this one? Used the same large tach and speedo, with the other gauges to the right and cent, but instead of angling them in front to the dash making it look kind of odd, I put then behind the dash, and maybe do like a black out plexi panel in front. I could use night shade paint and some LED strip light, to illuminate the inside of the gauge area that recessed in the dash, then turn that off at night when the gauges turn on all you see is lighted gauges behind the panel?

 

I like the cluster in my 91 with the 4 big circles, 2 of them having 2 gauges in them. That cluster is one of my favorite things about the interior of the car. I didn't know that earlier Firebirds had a different cluster... I say just swap in a newer one

 

Yeah, my car would have had those gauges if it was a Trans Am. This car was a base model v6 car so i got suck with the idiot light dash that looks like this.

 

Hmm, mines a V6 too but came with the good pannel, must be because it's newer. But yeah, my advice would be to get a dash out of a newer car with the 4 big circles.
BTW, what's the meaning of the firebird light? lol.

 

No idea with the firebird light. It has a bulb in it that never lights up. Maye it turns on when the car knows its "firebirding"...lol

 

It isn't because it's newer. The 82-84 cars were more commonly equiped with the 4 large guages also and had the same layout as the 85-92 cars. I've seen the "idiot lights" in 85 and newer cars several times too.

 

I like the idiot light dash, its different, just it sucks it dosent have any useful gauges.

 

maybe change the idiot lights (rectangle sections) into LED readouts?

 

cant, the color of the lights are molded into the indicator backing on that side.

 

he meant that you can cut out the entire lens for the lights and install digital guages in that region that would say, for example, 182*F or 13.6V. I think that's a pretty cool idea.

 

 

oh, yeah, i'm a moron. YOu know whats funny that was one of my first ideas, to semi leave the stock face plate in tacked...lol

 

OK takin care of.

 

Hows this?

 

Sooooo!! When ya buildin mine.

 

I really like how that looks, with the digital readouts (as long as you have the budget for that sorta thing?)

 

I found that I can get Cyberdyne gauges for $40 each on summit, thats cheaper then most of the Auto meter stuff

 

that looks friggin sweet! do it! It looks like you can use the original trim piece by cutting a spot for the small fuel guage and putting in LEDs for the turn signals and high beam indicator. That'd be really cool.

 

Yeah I think i'm going to go with that one. I may not put the analog fuel gauge in the center, I may just leave the old hole for the indicators and put them back up there. I'm still deciding on what to do with them. I want to keep the indicators small so i'm going to use these LEDs from radio shack.



http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...uctId=3104292#

 

Umm can we say bright!

 

You'll need to use resistors with those LED's, they're a 2.4 volt max

 

Oh! I thought he was going for the flashbulb effect.

 

Very cool

 

just an idea, you can also throw in a oil pressure sensor that sends a current when below a certain threshold, and wire it to a dummy light. Also can be done with engine temp, etc. so you dont necessarily have to watch the gauges, the dummy lights will help alert you to dangerous conditions as well.

 

After month of deciding i've decided to go with the first idea I had. I've also choosen Autometer Phantom gauges because they work so well with the white paint. I'll be making a full write up about how to go and make this yourselves. I've also picked up some pretty cool tools for the project also. What do you think???

 

Radio Shack LED's are overpriced. I would suggest buying LED's from digikey.com. Huge selection, can find about any kind of LED there, and there are probably 1000's of different kinds.

 

Looks sweet, great choice on the gauges. Thanks for not getting ones with a chrome bezel.


New steering wheel in the background? And shame on you for looking at harbor freight coupons

 

Thanks for all the compliments everyone. Here's what the final sketch looks like so far.

 

That's a nice looking layout. What's the rectangular section under the three small guages for?

 

I like the 2x2 idea myself. Also like you said......Far right ones are out of the line of sight if they are straight across.

If you do them straight across, I'd put stuff like the gas gauge over there.