A brief review of third gen Camaro speedos:

1982
Dual pointer 85-mph speedo with unique font (making it a one-year only) and tapered speedo needle. Trip odometer reset at ~9pm on face.

1983-84
Dual pointer 85-mph speedo with tapered speedo needle. Trip odometer reset at ~9pm on face.

1985 (Single pointer from here on)
85-mph with "stepped" speedo needle. Trip odometer reset at 6pm on face.

1986
Same as 1985, except late year Z28's (with & without the IROC-Z option) with TPI got the 145-mph speedo with stepped needle.

1987
85-mph speedo on all except with TPI (145-mph speedo).

1988-92
115-mph speedo replaced the 85-mph unit. Same condition as above for the 145-mph speedo.


So, has anyone ever seen this speedo?

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I have never seen a 160-mph speedo nor have I never heard of it until I saw this pic. It is in Tim Burgess' neighbors' 1986 IROC-Z. This car also has the 5000 rpm redline tach (as all 1986 TPI cars got). The needle is definitely an '85 or newer, as is the trip reset button location. Anyone know anything about this speedo?

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Willie

Supercharged 1987 305 IROC-Z, Daily-Driver, Emissions-Legal.
Paxton (6-psig): 12.57 @ 111 mph.
Paxton (6-psig) & 50-hp nitrous: 12.04 @ 114 mph.
ATI D1SC (10-psig): ?

http://willie.camaro-firebird.org/

1987 "20th Anniversary Commemorative Edition" Z28 Convertible -- Super Chevy Show Class Winner, 1998.

[This message has been edited by Willie (edited March 20, 2001).]

 

willie.. that is NOT factory someone has replaced it. i just got done looking through all my books. and NO WHERE does it say 160mph speedo. i am thinking about calling the guy at GM(he is real helpful, he has an IROC also) and asking him to look it up. but i am for sure that that was not an original speedo.
hope i could help

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Jarrad
1990 IROC-Z L98 350 TPI
TH-700R4
G92- 7.5" 10 Bolt 3.23gears
Bright Red Hardtop/ Grey Custom Interior
5,507 IROC's Hardtops/Ttops; 2,415 5.7L IROC's Produced in 1990

DAILY DRIVER: 1991 S10 2.5L/5SPD WITH CAMARO RIMS

 

i'm guessin that is a rare aftermarket face that not many of us know about. it looks like the letter style in my dad's '79 Z-28. i'm guessin it is just an add on face, or possibly a whole reworked speedo. i would take it out and look at it and look for a part number somewhere. is it accurate??? that is the strangest thing i have ever seen!!

 

Are you sure about this? All the ones I've seen have the trip odometer reset at the usual 6 o'clock position where it doesn't interfere with the sweep of the dual needles.

 

And here I thought it was a recalibrated 16 mph speedo with the decimal points blacked out - you know, the speedos that came in the Iron Duke 4 banger third gens.......

If I recall correctly, my neighbor mentioned that it may have been purchased in Europe before he owned it.

Tim

 

Its an aftermarket... I was about to say Classic Industries has one buy it only goes to 140 and has a Z28 on it... Its easy enough to take apart an aftermarket speedo from automater or something and custom wire your own gauge cluster though, so it could be a lot of things...

But its also possible it was from europe like tim said..

 

If it's European, why is it in mph?

 

The font doesn't match any Camaro I know of. I don't think it's factory. It looks like Letraset Helvetica to me.

I used to work in a meter lab, and I made one of that same sort of thing once for somebody. He wanted a 8000 RPM tach for his 68 Firebird... you know, the one that's on the hood. With Letraset rub-on and some Day-Glo paint, I made him one that was so close to factory it was astounding, and recalibrated the tach. Had a 6000 yellow and 6500 red line IIRC.

Speedos are easy to change the sensitivity of. And numbers are easy to rub on. I'll bet if you pull it out and look at it, you'll find that the black paint has been redone too.

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"So many Mustangs, so little time..."
ICON Motorsports

 

I'd say its been replaced. I saw a pristine 85TA with a 160 speedo in it. Of course no 85's had anything that read past 85, so it was some sort of aftermarket deal too. A friend of mine remembers some being available in the aftermarket for the TA, so maybe there was one for the Camaros too.

 

I would definetly say aftermarket. But the numbers on the mileage spools are GM. It looks like it's from an '85?

 

Oh and to add to this...
The speedo in my dads car (which read to 85 before) now has numbers up to 160. I know what it looked like before, so I could tell a very slight difference in the tint of the colors, but its very minimal. It looks completely stock. We had this done to it about 6 months ago.

 

almost looks like my 1970 firebird's speedo...

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Cole Strausser
91 Pontiac Firebird
305 TBI - auto
no mods yet...
2 Hollywood 12's
http://firebircl.virtualave.net

 

If you check out the digits you will see that it only goes to 99999.9. On my 82 there is an extra digit. I would suggest that it is at lest per 82.

 

I have an 87 speedo in my 83 right now. It is identical to Willie's modified unit. It has a 5.1 digit odometer. The original 83 one did as well.

------------------
"So many Mustangs, so little time..."
ICON Motorsports

 

In 1982, the speedo reads to 999,999.9 miles. Then for some unknown reason, GM decided to drop one digit, 99,999.9 from 1983 thru 1989. The newer 1990 - 1992 speedos again read to 999,999.9.

Willie

 

Yup, I have three speedos from 1984 Z28s exactly like this.

What I think happened (and I believe is definate) is that on the OEM 85 MPH speedo, the K/ph were erased and substitued with MPH progressing after 85. Also the type face was redone in a bigger font, while adding the metric measurement inside the American so to appear as factory OEM. This is easily done as explained in the tech article here on making your own white face guages.

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George P. Lara
1984 "L69 A4"
Soon to be 357, T5, 3.70
1994 LT1 M6
SCCA, SCFB, SC3GFB

 

This is the original speedometer in my 84. If you look closely, you can see the reset button at the bottom, not in the 9 o'clock position.

 

a dual pointer 140mph speedo?? i have never seen one before!!

 

That's not a 140 MPH speedo, it's a 140 kPH one. That pic is a Canadian or other export speedo... notice that the orange side goes to 85, that's the MPH side instead of the white side...

------------------
"So many Mustangs, so little time..."
ICON Motorsports

 

It's metric. If it was 140mph instead of km/h it would still be in the car.

 

oh duh my bad.

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86 IROC-Z
40,000 miles!!
305 TPI
gutted maf/airbox
k&n filters
manual cooling fan switch
headers, no cat, cat back flowmaster
700R4 tranny
shift kit
manual converter switch
BF Goodrich radial TAs
3.23 gears
georgous car repainted by my dad and assembled by me

FASTER THAN YOU THINK FOR A "STOCK" 305 hehe.

 

The temp and oil press gauge are in metric too, and the fuel gauge is also "international" with no E or F, unless that is an early 3rd gen thing.

Jay



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My 1989 Trans Am-Origional 5.7L TPI, 4-Wheel Discs, 16" Diamond Spoke Rims, T-Tops.A very rare car. See my Window Sticker
1995 GMC Sonoma Window Sticker
Friends DON'T let friends drive rice
Kills:94 Talon TSi AWD, 94 5.0L Mustang GT, 2000 Xtreme 4.3L, 93 Talon,87 Buick T-Type 3.8L SPFI Turbo
Member WWW.TRANSAMGTA.COM

 

Back in the mid 80's my local dealership had 160 mph replacement speedos, but I decided to get a used 145 instead as it was a lot cheaper and I didn't like the narrower swing of the needle on the 160 quite as well.

I don't know if this is one of those or not, but at the time I was attending the University of Arizona in Tucson, which is where Tim Burgess and Willie both live, so we are talking about the same town. The dealership was O'Reilly Chevrolet in case you are interested.

[This message has been edited by Blue502 (edited April 07, 2001).]

 

This is interesting because I was gonna make a post about the 160 mph speedo. I found an article in an early 80's issue of Hot Rod magazine that offered the 160-mph speedos. The company was Corvette Clinic Inc. The address is Dept. HR09, 2870 Skokie Valley Hwy, Highland Park, Ill. 60035. The number was (312) 433-6610. Don't know if any of the info is still valid.

 

MrZ28HO....you beat me to it. As I was reading down the posts I was thinking the exact same thing. We have a wrecked 84 Z that I was going to see if I could get a 160mph whiteface guage overlay for it and put it in my Iroc. Since it is calibrated already for it all I would have to do is swap needles and put on an overlay.

Chris

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1986 305 TPI
8.0 @88 in the 1/8
**Soon to be 355

 

Willie:

Its funny, because that has a VERY '80s BMW like font....obviously it can't be because the odometer probably wouldn't line up.

My buddy used to have an '84 Z28, and he swapped a 100-something MPH speedo out of a '70 Chevelle into it. It looked EXACTLY like this one...I wish I could remember if it was a 140 or 160 MPH speedo though...my guess is that they swapped the face off of an old Chevelle speedo...then again, a Chevelle speedo may not have had a trip odometer. Ok, I'm stumped

[This message has been edited by Jason E (edited April 10, 2001).]

 

Hey Willie.. why is my car a 1992 with carbs but still has the 145 speedo?? And it's still stock from the factory?



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Hey feel free to chat with me on AOL IM if you wanna.. Darkhal2000! Also if you wanna join my webring gimmie a yell at my email addy. I'm always looking for third gen's to add.
My site, http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/j/m/jmj211/index.htm

 

 

Red Demon,

Sorry to tell ya, but no '92 had carbs from the factory (I am going on the assumption thats what you were stating!). The last carbed cars were '87s.

------------------
Jason E

'89 Camaro RS 2.8
A few mods....2.8 automatic with t-tops

'97 Z28 30th Anniversary
White with orange stripes (factory)
6 speed, t-tops

Long Live #3...

 

Sorry I didn't mean carbs.. I ment the very very very primative TPI.. should I still only have the 115 gauge or what?
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Hey feel free to chat with me on AOL IM if you wanna.. Darkhal2000! Also if you wanna join my webring gimmie a yell at my email addy. I'm always looking for third gen's to add.
My site, http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/j/m/jmj211/index.htm

[This message has been edited by Red Demon (edited April 16, 2001).]

 

The font on the speedo looks a lot like the second gen and the fact that it goes up to 160 makes me think that too.

 

There was a company in the early eighties that provided 50% reduction speedo cables for second generation camaros. They also had new 160 mph speedo faces.

 

pardon me?

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Hey feel free to chat with me on AOL IM if you wanna.. Darkhal2000! Also if you wanna join my webring gimmie a yell at my email addy. I'm always looking for third gen's to add.
My site, http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/j/m/jmj211/index.htm