Anyone running a custom autometer gauge setup in a 90-92 car? Any pictures?

Im going to need better gauges for the new motor and i cant rely on stock gauges. Stock tach and oil pressure will be worthless and i hate the look of 2 tachs in a car or other repeat gauges. So im contemplating a whole new cluster and looking for some ideas. I like my 90-92 style dash but dont mind swapping out the whole gauge section. As far as im aware they only make 82-89 aftermarket gauge clusters?

Thanks.

 

What engine are you putting in? I thought my gauges were accurate until just within the last week or so if I'm sitting around 3500 RPM the needle will jump around a little bit. My speedo is also off by ~5mph but I don't know if that's a problem with the gauges or if I didn't put the needle back on properly.

 

mw66nova made a custom setup in his 90 RS, I know there's a thread somewhere with pics. dennisbernal91z did the same as well, both setups looked nice..

 

Based on my experience with my 1992 Z28, I'll tell you that you DO NOT want to trust your stock gauges.

I was doing some tuning work with the Osterich and when I was shifting at 6,500 rpm as indicated by the stock tach, the laptop was showing 5,990. So, instead of a second tach, I installed a shift light from Autometer. I was showing 3,500 rpm on the tach to trip a 3,000 rpm test chip in the shift light. When I shift at 6,400 rpm (when the light comes on), the tach is bouncing off of 7,000 rpm. It's not even close enough to be useful.

The temp gauge. When I start the car, it runs for a few minutes and the gauge hops up to the first "bar" on the dial. Meanwhile, my Autometer Ultra Lite mechanical is still showing 140 degrees. By the time my autometer is showing anything over 140 (that's the start of the gauge), the stock gauge is getting close to 210-220 degrees. When my autometer shows 240 (I was having some cooling issues at Nashville Superspeedway), the stock gauge is pretty well buried at something past 260.

Oil pressure isn't any better. I installed a mechanical Autometer Ultra Lite oil pressure gauge. At idle, I'm showing 58 psi on my Autometer and the stock gauge shows about 52 psi. If I blip the throttle (with the oil cold, and blip, not "rev the snot out of it") the autometer shows nearly 80 psi and the stock gauge moves up to about 55 psi. In a corner, I was seeing 19-25 psi on the Autometer gauge (oil starvation in corners on track, I have an accusump in the car now and that fixed that problem) and the stock gauge was showing about 48-50 psi. That is a huge difference. My stock gauge cluster will be coming out completely in the near future (as soon as I get that far down the list) because it's completely worthless. I only use the fuel gauge, and I don't trust that.

Buy some real gauges if you're spending any money at all on an engine and install them pronto. Don't trust your engine to the stock stuff, you'll just find yourself wondering why it blew up since it wasn't overheating and had "good" oil pressure the whole time it was running (if you ask the stock dash that is).

 

Are the 4th gen gauges more accurate than the third gen gauges?

 

Enough of a motor that will make the oil pressure gauge and tach worthless and i should say expensive of enough motor to make me want to rely on better gauges.

Thanks i will have to get in contact with them.

Thanks for the info, these are some of the exact reasons why i want better gauges. I also just dont like duplicate gauges though cheaper i dont like the look. Like a monster tach mounted by the center console and a second oil pressure gauge on the a-pillar ect.

 

Since we are on the topic...does anyone know of a place to have their stock gauges calibrated?

 

I was originally just going to install an oil temp gauge and a low oil pressure warning light (get one, it's cheap and you'll be amazed when you see it come on). The warning light uses an Autometer switch and comes on when the oil pressure is below 30 psi. Since my car idles at nearly 50 psi (hot) I should never see it right? Wrong... Even autocrossing on street tires (160 treadwear Sumitomos...we were shaking down the car looking for problems before a track day) I was seeing the light blink in corners. One of those corners was the 180 to come back to the paddock after the end of the course and the braking zone (you're just "driving" at that point). I turned the car and POOF, the light came on??? The stock gauge looked "fine", so I added an oil pressure gauge. Then, we added the water temp gauge "on a hunch". All of this was done in a 2 week build up to make a track day. So, I didn't get time to pull the stock cluster, I just added the gauges under the AC vents in the center (for now) and stuck the wideband O2 sensor display in one of the vents. I also added a water pressure warning light. If I lose a freeze plug (we've had that happen on the AV8SS car on track) or a radiator hose blows off, the light comes on. It comes on when you start the car, but only for a few minutes (until it warms up) and after losing two engines due to cooling system failures (one was a freeze plug in a cylinder head, it was a Ford with Canfield heads and one was due to a water neck cracking and the radiator hose coming off, both were on track and some expensive engines were basically "melted"), it's well worth the investment.

I'll redo the dash soon and pull the stock stuff, I really wanted the duplicates for the sake of comparison. If they were close, I'd just pull the extras and leave the stock stuff. However, that didn't prove to be the case.

Good luck!

 

How difficult is it to wire up the gauges? I would just want what I have from the factory. Even when I put an LS1 in, I'm not making it a 600hp beast or a track car. Is it as "simple" as connecting the gauges to the factory wiring (I have a 91, so I have the electric cluster) or does new wiring need to be run? What about calibration?

 

speedo is an easy hookup and should be dead accurate.

tach, is an easy hookup, and will not be accurate. they're never accurate, and they get less accurate over time... however, you can re-set the LS1s tach output to a "4cyl" or "6cyl" output, and that will "dial it back" closer to real... but all you need is a shiftlight anyway.. you can set the LS1s fuel cut for your real redline limit... btw, the LS1s PCM has a built in shiftlight too.. you just need HPtuners or EFI live to set it.

you can use the LS1s oil pressure gauge sending unit, or the thirdgens.. your choice. i run the stock LS1 one. still a simple one wire hookup like the rest

you can screw in a 98 or other temp sensor in the passenger head, and that works for your temp gauge.








key thing to remember is, all the bitching above doesnt mean anything. your gauges are useful even if they had zero numbers on them. lol.
you just need to know where they "should be"..

as far as the response time on the oil pressure gauge, like i said, im running the LS1 sending unit, so that may be the diff, but mine is fast and accurate.

 

I have to disagree with you somewhat on that one. When the stock oil pressure gauge is showing 45 psi and the autometer is showing 19 and the engine is wide open at 5,400 rpm and climbing, it's time to shut it off/lift/shift. If I believed the stock oil pressure gauge, I'd have just stayed in it. Otherwise, you are mostly correct, but the oil pressure gauge can be a critical one that can cost you an engine and quickly.

 

like i said... the diff is probably oil pressure sending units.

i can tell you, if yours is operating properly, it should move quickly and reliably.. the gauge itself is almost impossible to "partway break" but the sending unit is susceptible to going bad.... if you're still running off your stock one, try changing it and seeing how it behaves then.

 

I was talking about if I went ahead and put new gauges in now. The LS1 probably won't happen for at least a year unless I happen to come accross a hell of a deal on a donor car. That's why I was asking if doing this would be as "simple" as hooking up the gauges to the stock wiring. I'm not going with the 4th gen dash, so I don't even know how much of the 3rd gen wiring I'll actually be keeping. I'm sure it would be easier to make aftermarket gauges work properly with my current engine and the LS1 over these gauges I already have (my speedo is off right now and my tach needle jumps around sometimes).

Is there an odometer on the Autometer speedomete or is it just a trip odometer? If so, it is programmable to whatever mileage you need? My car has to pass emissions and they take note of the milage, so it suddenly going from 128k to 0 would raise some red flags.

The autometer site says the water temp gauge comes with a sender, is that just in case or would I actually need to use it?

 

well if it helps I actually started my 90 and up camaro gauge panel project today. if it comes out as well as I want it to I still have them made for whoever wants them. I have so far made the template and as far as I can tell I can house all 6 gauges in the cluster and still even retain the glass piece that covers it. However doing this mod I will have to butcher the hell out of a cluster...so if it comes out and anyone wants me to do it, then say good bye to your cluster or get a second one. so far the project entails cutting all of the plastic trim around the gauges except for a 1/4in lip that will hold the plate. I made the template and i will fabricate the plate probably tomorrow. then slots will have to be made in the top of the plastic piece so that the tasbs from the plate will be able to line up and be bolted down. i will post some pics when i get it done. then only part it I don't have gauges to put it in yet since i haven't bought them. If anyone local wants to have this done and has all the gauges they need...hit me up and I'll do the wh9ole swap for you if i can use your car and gauges as a guinea pig.

 

Are you going to take pictures of your progress for us?

 

Looks like it should be simple enough. I will just end up replacing the whole section with a flat piece of thick cardboard/wood or sheetmetal and cut holes for the gauges. Seems easy enough and thats what others seem to be doing. Though it would nice to just be able to buy a piece already made and pop the autometers in.

 

I tried to replace the entire cluster, but found that you could see through the sides of the cluster without the stock plastic peice in there (you might notice this when you fit yours up). What I did was remove all the old gauges from the housing, remove the clear plastic, and cut out a peice of plexi the exact shape as the plastic housing. Glued it in the housing and drilled for my gauges. Then just bolted it in like stock. If you really wanted you could probably even use the clear cover on your custom one.

Pic, but not a close up. Ill have to see what others I have.

 

If I did this, I was hoping to lay out the gauges just like the stock ones, but from your picture it doesn't look like there would be near enough room.

 

I will have some progress pics in the next day or so. the project i am working on will hold four 2 1/16 gauges and 2 3 3/8 speedo and tach. it will also use the clear plastic piece and trim on the inside. If it works the way i want it to, it will be a full drop in piece. All that will be needed to install it is to tap into the factory wiring with the one side of the harness Iam making and then after that the cluster is completely plug and play. all the wiring will be done using facrotry style GM metripack connectors and will be prewired into the the cluster. So stay tuned, I'll have some pics and what not. If all goes well I'll have the machining company that my job works with make these panels up so everyone can just get one.Would anyone like to see a single 5in speedo and the other four gauges in the cluster for people with monster tachs on the side?? or try to get it all in one? Also do you guys think i should put the leds in for check engine, and air bag or just for highbeam and turn signals?? let me know what you think

 

Hey onesickss,

I would be interested for sure. I have been researching options for my 82 Indy 500 Pace Car. I am working on a scaled layout with placement for led's for turn, hi-beam, brake and fog lights. Are you going to get these made out of aluminum? I think 2 3/8 speedo & tach followed by 4 2 1/16 battery, fuel, oil & temp. Another though is using a 2 1/16 digital tach/shift light by S/W and one or two more openings for other 2 1/16 gauges. I.E. tranny oil temp, vacume/boost, oil temp, A/F ratio.

Looking forward to seeing the panel.

 

I used 2 5/8 gauges and 5" speedo. There is enough room if you use smaller gauges.

Another exemple:

 

so i got a question here. How or where is the cable to hook up a fuel pressure gauge. Im assuming it s one of the wires where the cable is to connect to the computer. i need to know which one on a 87 trans am 305 tpi. cobalt gauges and a air/fuel ratio. thx

 

You guys with custom clusters, what do you do about odometers? Just do without?

 

Speedometers normally come with odometers.

 

I have a full custom panel in my 91. works great. All autometer phantoms. I love the 5" tach and speedo. And yeah I have an odometer. I intalled a new motor too, so the new odometer shows my new motors miles.

I can post pics but I am at work and busy. Just go to my CD site. I am installing my last gauge today, so i will take a fresh pic tonight and post. Later.

-Dennis

 

do the new speedos work with the stock speed sensors on the tranny.

 

onesickss
Ilike tommyz28 dash,on the white one. maybe smaller gauges to the center and memory tach speedo to the outside. Personally id skip the airbag and engine lights. Any thought abought putting in a shift light. Ill definatly be watching for pics..

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spetroff/1415801144/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spetroff/1414920663/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spetroff/1414921197/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spetroff

 

holy crap man your car looks bad *** i love the carbon fiber look

 

i did a custom radio console from a firebird to my 90 roc. was wondering how you did it, as i have the mounting bolts showing on top, need to make a cover or something

 

I did these back in 2004 on my last carbureted camaro, but now that i have my new EFI one, I need to get an electric speedo and oil-press gauge.

The panel was initially made with a Coors Box (LOL), transferred to more stiff cardboard. I then went to plexiglass to see everything, and once i got the plexi fitting well, I went to a 1/8" sheet of aluminum and then painted it up with SEMI-FLAT black.

The biggets problem I had was behind the speedometer. The A/C duct comes right behind the stock panel, and wouldn't allow the speedo to go all the way back. I ended up cutting into it quite a bit and fabricating a new plactic piece to fill the hold to keep the air going to my drivers window duct.
The panel also had a LONG screw with a ton of spacers to make the panel sit out a bit at the bottom so it wouldn't touch the existing wiring harness/connectors (which I kept for when I sold the vehicle, and it still worked after I sold it.)

I think it took me 3 days to get the fabrication correct, and about 7 hours to get it all wired and completely in. It doesn't have high-beam/turn signals, but looked well enough for putting around town.

 

Sweet look bro. Are those pedal covers or actual pedals?

 

i just got a 91 z28 vert w/ the 305 tpi and 5 speed ..

my speedo and tach never worked .. so i take it to the dealer after hours of troubleshooting and couldnt find anything .. and they wanted $610 to "fix" the guage cluster .. not "new" but "fix" .. which to me means .. we can fix the speedo but the other crap might go out soon ..

so i told them to shove it .. and searched around and found that nordskog makes a "direct replacement" .. there digital and all led's .. with a LIFETIME WARRANTY .. which boldly says "will replace if ANYTHING stops working on the cluster" ..

i just ordered a red panel .. and they said that nordskog only makes a few a year b/c of the low demand (that dash only covers 91/92) ..

it was $462 w/ shipping .. and ill have it in mid december ..

ill let yall know how it turns out ..

 

Where did you get it for that price?

 

I'm curious to see what you've managed to make...

 

im selling my nordskog digital gauges and goin all autometer. my cluster is shot but the gauges work great tho.

 

here's one that i did earlier this year. It's on an 84.
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/fabr...rn-signal.html

 

my hunk of junk

old center console:

 

i dont know why but i cant seem to leave well enough alone.

youre all very smart for making your lives simple and just putting a plate behind the stock trim.

My idea that probably wont happen until early next summer unfortunatly. Already have the trim piece out, the area that houses the buttons on either side of the gauges im going to cut out completly, and find a way to mount a plate that covers the entire area, i hope to be able to fit 8 or 9 gauges in it.

only thing im not sure on is how im going to finish off the thin edge youll be able to see through between the panel and the dash. And the important buttons will be relocated to a custom panel.

not having fun unless im using a cutting wheel

 

I used an entire new panel.

I omitted the trim piece entirely.

I covered my dash in fabrbic for now to hid the seams. People love it, but I want to do a better job over the winter.

I will redo it all in a nice dark charcoal tweed this time, and REALLY glue it down. This will make the car look much more pro.

If you use some sort of cover like I am it makes everything a lot easier. If you want, stay tunned to my CD site over the next couple months, thats when the trnaformation will be happening. For now I am dealing with engine stuff.

 

thats what i plan on doing only a little differently, cool to see someone had the same idea as me

two questions

first of all are your smaller gauges are they the 2 1/16th or 2 5/8th?

also what did you do about the headlight switch? its a massive mechanism, not sure how im going to relocate that, is there a smaller mechanism you can buy for it? or i guess maybe just relocate the whole thing into the panel.

 

thought id post my progress for fun. the areas marked in red are to be cut out with a dremel in the very near future and all switches relocated, going to put a big flat sheet in there hoping to fit 7-9 gauges depending on sizes i choose



will be affixed to the two screws top, and two of the 4 in the bottom. The plastic in the lower portion near where it will screw in is super flimsy but iirc it was supported by the interior plastic below it, so ill either have to encorporate that back into it, or come up with some way to brace it

 

i'm very interested to see how this turns out for you...if it looks good enough, i may copy when i redo mine (i gotta get some larger vital guages, take the speedo out completely and go to a smaller tach...)

 

coming from you thats a huge compliment in its self.

i have no experience with building anything custom really. The hardest part is going to be being very careful as to where i cut the dash and that i dont cut anything more then i need to. Realized theres some areas near the bottom that if you cut youll lose all the lower bracing and make more work for yourself by havign to fab up bracing.

other then that it should give you at least a good idea of what it could look like when im done, i doubt my first version will be dead on perfect and i will probably have to make a few tries for the actual cluster.

the only thing i havent figured out is no matter how perfect i get my metal plate to the shape of the opening i will have, there will still be a thin thin gap between the dash and the new cluster. Not sure if it will be so thin it wont look bad, or if it will be a major eye sore and if ill have to think up some sort of solution

as im writing this if you folded a tab backwards from the edge into the dash, that should probably suck up that little gap so its not noticeable, hard part about that solution is the new cluster panel wont exactly be square, be hard to have a 1/2" lip the whole way around, i wouldnt have any idea how to build that, thats just one idea

 

I used all 2 5/8" gauges. With a 5" speedo and a 5" tach.

Then I have 2 1/16" pillar gauges and 2 other pods that hold 2 5/8" gauges for my fuel and N20 pressure off to the right.

This was taken last winter, some stuff has been changed like door panels and another gauge got added but you get the idea.

The light switch is zip tied to some brakets under the panel. Works great. Then on the pull ****, I attached a disk of AL. I found at work.

 

im also debating wether i want to have a speedo. Such a waste of space but i feel guilty not putting one in on a street car. Speedo hasnt worked anyways but have a dakota digital box now so i can hook it up if i want to.

drove an entire summer without a speedo, no issue at all, if i do run itll be a 190km/h (in canada) 3 x/x whatever size it is, if im going more then 200k i dont care how fast im going

 

im also debating wether i want to have a speedo. Such a waste of space but i feel guilty not putting one in on a street car. Speedo hasnt worked anyways but have a dakota digital box now so i can hook it up if i want to.

drove an entire summer without a speedo, no issue at all, if i do run itll be a 190km/h (in canada) 3 x/x whatever size it is, if im going more then 200k i dont care how fast im going. and the computer can log it if i do

 

mines a pretty well dedicated drag car now that sees street time a few times a month. i've got a dakota digital 2 1/16th digital gauge that was pretty expensive, and it looks great in the car, but i'm wanting the space to do other things now...know anyone that wants a dakota digital speedo for their ride?

 

not at the moment
i think ill probably put it in just so i dont have to try to explain to a cop one day whoss being a **** why i dont have any speedo lol.

i dont know if hed buy me pulling out the sheet of paper that says how fast im goign at every rpm in each gear. i prefer just memorizing points for that then i dont even have to look down, know how fast im going all the time, i dunno ill make up my mind at the last minute

 

No thanks, got one already