I thought of a way to install some Speedhut gauges in Firebirds that required minimal modifications to the car and gives it a close to stock look. If your into semi stock look to your Firebird but want some extra features this modification might be for you.

Sorry the video is boring / dry but I couldn't think of a way to make it interesting.

 

It is also private.

 

yep, I got:

 

What do you think of the gauges? I would love a short and sweet user review.

Been eyeballing these for a while...

 

Oops my bad should work now. Meant to have the video as unlisted not private. Give it another try.

 

Going to try and finish the wiring this weekend. I'm always very busy with work in spring. I misplaced the GPS sensor spent hours looking for it didn't want to spend another $50 bucks for sensor. I wanted to finish video with 100% installed but I just ran out of time. If I don't finish this weekend my next day off work is 30 to 40 days away.

 

Myself and a few other members have posted numerous reviews and how to installations for these gauges, just do a quick search on here.

 

I only did a quick search on this website before I bought them. The thing is the examples I saw people mounted the gauges flat in the dash. That is a personal pet peeve of mine if it where to be my own car. Being tall I wanted to preserve the tilt of the gauges so I could see them easily so I thought up what I did.

 

Nice job!

So the idea is that the custom ring that you made, pulls in against the taper of the original cluster opening, and the speed hut ring makes it snug?

I really want to switch to these gauges and just re-do my entire dash. After seeing the checkered pattern (didnt know they could do that), Im really sold on these. I miss my stock dash.

Im curious to see how things look after you paint them, and how they look installed. If you already have them wired and installed, can you post some finished pics...esp in lower light with the dash lights on?

You could probably turn an abs ring until it fits tight and make a cover to hide your custom rings. Then you wouldnt see any of it. But Im curious how it looks after you paint things.

Justin

 

[QUOTE=ghettocruiser;5896637]Nice job!

So the idea is that the custom ring that you made, pulls in against the taper of the original cluster opening, and the speed hut ring makes it snug?

NOT EXACTLY.
The threaded ring from Speedhut on the back side pulls the gauge into the taper of the original cluster opening. My custom ring simply holds the clear plastic cover on the face of the gauge in place. Make the ring out of plastic if you wish, plus it will be cheaper. I just had some aluminum pipe left over from something completely unrelated to the car.
The only reason I had to make the custom trim ring is that the trim ring from Speedhut is too large and that too large trim ring from Speedhut prevents the gauge from pulling into the original cluster.

Hope that clarifies things.

As far as getting you pictures of dash in the car... well you're going to have to wait on that one. I'm out of town and won't return for another 30 to 35 days. Then when I get back there is a bunch of work in the shop we already have purchase orders for that are coming in. Our shop is just very busy this year so I have little time for the bird.

 

Ahhh.. ok. I was a little confused there. So your ring literally just holds the lens in place and "finishes" it off. Cool, makes perfect sense.

Im in no hurry to see it...because it'll be a long time before I can completely re-vamp my dash cluster haha. Just had a second kid, so Im scraping pennies just to keep the car right now.

Thanks for the clarification!

Justin

 

I love my speedhuts but damn it I wish I knew I could have gotten that background!

 

You still can. I originally had white background gauges. Once I saw them in hand I didn't care for the look so I sent them back for new faces. I emailed a JPG picture of the bird and shipped them an actual factory dial face and told them make it look like that. A couple of weeks later & some money spent they shipped them back.
You could do the same thing it just takes time & money.

 

Nice setup! Im actually waiting on my speed hut gauges… taking forever! Im going 4.5" on the speedo and tach and 3 3/8" on the other 2. A dual and a quad.

Post a video of the backlighting in a dark room if you can. And if you got them in the car how well does the GPS speedo work?

 

Great video! It gave me an idea to install mine speedhut gauges. But for me it was easier to make spacer from plexiglass.

 

Nice job Saper! That looks OEM which is great! You went with 4" gauges? 1/8" plexiglass? and what is the background lighting color?

I couldn't do that as I reduced the amount of my gauges (had a A pillar and gauges all over). I got a 4 1/2" speedo and tach, 3 3/8" quad and dual, and keeping two (trans temp and another voltmeter) in the vents. I stuck my WB02 in the turn signal slot and made a new ABS overlay. It fits! But you guys look OEM… but Im not worried about that lol.

 

Thanks, 4 inch and ~1/8" plexiglass and red lighting.

Your setup also looks good. How did you cut this overlay? Do you have some closeup pictures of left side?

I will install my Trans temp. and WB02 in pillar


In turn singal slot i'm going to install Digital Shift Indicator

 

I got the ABS off ebay and they offer free cuts, so I had it cut to the overall size in a solid piece, Then I Used a hole saw for all the gauges and then hogged them out more with a dremel as all the gauges are odd hole sizes and I didn't have the exact hole saw size. I rounded the corners and cut out the column half mood and screwed it on top of the OEM gauge panel. Should work just fine. I picked up some screws to put a few more.

The radio bezel will be the same style, ABS overplay over all of it and then Im going to attach the 5" color LCD display from the FAST 2.0 EFI system which has lots of gauge setups and a master screen of like 30+ gauge readouts.

I had a 3 gauge pillar with my WBO2 at the top, then mech oil pressure and water temp as they are the 3 main ones lol… and while easy to see it takes too much viewing room and makes the front of the car look busy and "*****". Plus with my 4" cowl hood, windshield space is at a premium lol. Im less worried about the A/F now as the EFI is controlling everything in self learning so its more of a let me just peak once in a while.

Id be interested in how u do the shift indicator. Make sure you post pics or start a thread and then let me know with a PM and a link.

 

I really want to turn the gauges on… Im worried about the lighting and how they work. I can't seem to get out of my head how they look very much like $hitty glow shift gauges. I also heard the lighting isn't super bright.

 

The lighting on mine is plenty bright... But I have a reverse scheme (white back ground, black numbers)

I always hate seeing when I do things the hard way, that was a nice install.

 

For those of you asking for lighting pictures I will. Since I posted the video I've only had single day off and I've been doing 12 to 14 hour shifts. We are having a record year at work plus they fired 2 people so things have been difficult. It is now looking like my next day off might not come till July 4th.

 

Thanks 383RAT, I couldn't wait but it would be nice if everyone posted pics of the lights on with all the different colors etc.

I finished up my FAST EFI LCD screen mounting and then decided to quickly hook the battery up to test the gauge lighting. Im very displeased by the brightness of the lighting. NOT EVEN CLOSE to the brightness of my OEMs with LED lights or the Stwewart warners they are replacing with LEDs. The dim feature works as stated with there inverter/dimmer but the gauges at full bright are not even close. In the pics that follow you will see the brightness difference from the two Stewart warner gauges with a LED bulb in it compared to the speed huts. I went with the white Background lighting as it looked the brightest from what I saw on the net. But I feel bad for the guys who got colored lights like red and stuff bc its going to be super hard to see unless its pitch black. Batt voltage was about 12.5V and sorry about the red interior lighting on.

Pic of the gauges installed and the FAST EZ EFI LCD Gauge screen.


Before gauges are on (before and after style)


After with gauges on full bright. The camera actually makes the gauges look much brighter than they actually are in person. A good reference is the 2 stewart warner gauges on the side that are so bright they look blurry. They are not blurry and its the camera focusing on the dimness of the speed hut gauges. So scale down the 2 gauges on the right and scale the speed huts down equally to get a more accurate relation.


what a bummer.

 

OK Finally had some time to finish instal. I did a side by side comparison of Speedhut gauges in with factory gauges installed at same time.

 

They are not very bright lol... same on mine. I even called speedhut and asked them if there's a way to make them brighter and they said no. They use a light tube inside and the inverter switches the DC to AC for the light tube... prob a CCFL type. Speedhut did say that white was the brightest of all the colors which is why I got white.

Yours must be dimmer than mine, so I feel for you.

Also u tapped right into the dimmer light by the OEM riastat and it had no I'll affect on the lighting of the speed huts. Even if I use the OEM dimmer to turn it all the way down the speedhut stay thr same brightness, only changing the speedhuts riastat affects the speedhut gauge brightness.

You want bright... swap in some 5 SMD LED 194s in the OEM gauges and then do a comparison.

 

Your english is a bit broken in your above statement if I'm reading meaning correctly NO you are absolutely wrong I did not tap into the variable voltage line. Look at the wiring diagram again also I adjusted the rheostat while measuring voltage on that line there was no changes in voltage (That step is not shown in video).
Thank you but I already know that Speedhut requires their own potentiometer or whatever they use to vary brightness. After watching video again I'm not sure this is very clear I'll add a on screen message to the video.

 

The daytime font color & night font lighting is not a standard offered color combination. Speedhut called me and stated that this combination is not recommended because it is dim. I pretty much told them I don't give a F*** I pretty much turn down every cars gauge lighting to minimum that I drive. I want the color combo I specified. Surprisingly they did what I requested.
I find them just right to slightly bright to my eyes though I understand why some people would like them even brighter.

 

Sorry about the spelling and such... darn autocorrect and using my phone with very little service.

I wasn't saying you tapped into the line after the OEM riastat but that's what I did and found that it had no change in the voltage/brightness of the speedhut gauges even when I adjusted the OEM riastat down.

Main importance is thay you got the gauges how you wanted them and you like them. I personally want and like bright gauges so I'm alittle bummed out on how not bright the speedhuts are. I can see needed a dim gauge if you drive in alot of dark areas with low if any lighting but I drive on well lit roads with lots of people so I need them bright to adjust my eyes.

 

I powered my gauge lights with the illum wire from the harness behind the stock gauge panel... My potentiometer on the dash controls the gauges just fine, from too bright all the way down to nothing. I have the dial for the inverter on my gauges turned up all the way so I can control it all with my dash dial.

 

Thank you WTR388
I might just change that circuit on my car.

 

That looks good Saper. I guess those early year Firebird panel holes a just slightly bigger. Speedhut bezel rings do not fit into my dash panel holes.