I HATE the big v6 gas gauge, it sucks. Does anyone have a different one? thanks

 

Does it not work properly? I have the big one too and it works very well (knocks on wood). Well, it works nice unless you go around tight corners or brake quickly, then it fluctuates a lot. Not very many baffles in the gas tank, I suppose.

I've seen different, smaller ones in Camaros with factory tachometers. I have no idea how well they work though.

 

yeah it works fine i just dont like it. Since i have the standard firebird dash with all the little round holes it in without anything really in them i was thinking of replacing the round holes with a piece of black plexiglass with a smaller gas gauge, batt, and oil pressure gauge, then put a tach in the stock gas gauge location.

I've seen pics of this done but i was wondering if anyone did it what gauge they used.

 

You could replace the idiot light cluster with a v6 gauge cluster.. instant solution to the giant gas gauge...

 

anyone have a pic of this giant gas gauge. I don't think i've seen one.

 

I have a v6 cluster dont i? Do you mean a v8 one?

 

There's 3 clusters for any given F-body per year... sometimes 4.. in the case of '85 firebirds, there's the idiot light cluster (AKA the cluster with the giant gas gauge, what you have), the v6 gauge cluster (80psi oil pressure gauge, V6 tach), and the v8 gauge cluster (60psi oil pressure gauge, V8 tach) (I don't know of any firebird digital dash options in '85)

 

That's my plan, but it's hard to find the V6 cluster in km instead of miles... I'll keep looking.

 

in regards to the camaro one it works great, i love mine nice and small yet gives me all the info i need

 

You know, you *can* (and should, legally/morally) remove the speedometer from your old cluster and put it in the new cluster... instant solution to that problem.

 

Well I was hoping to get a speedo with a higher speed. I know in the US there is the 115mph/180kph speedo, and hopefully there is a 180kph/115mph speedo up here. Frankly I'm not into changing the odometer anyways. I'm proud of the kms (miles) on my car. I just have to figure out how to get the odometer legally changed. Not sure if you can. I have a pic of the odometer reading all 2s 222 222 2. I'll have to dig it out and post it one day.

Also, my car doesn't have a trip which would be nice.

 

Well, I can't argue the trip, but a speedo reading over 85... eh... seriously, when you're going that fast, it really doesn't matter.. you DON'T need to be glancing at your speedo

Also, all V6 speedos are 85 mph units, to my knowledge... so expect to get the speedo from a different car than the rest of the gauge cluster anyway.

 

Personally, I am a real speedo watcher even when I am going that fast. Are you sure no V6s came with the 115mph/180kph, because I saw some gauge clusters on ebay with the 6k redline and 115mph speedo. Maybe it's from a 3.1?

 

Well I found this one (nice shape) but apparently it is from an RS/Z28 so maybe I am confused and some of the V8s had a 6k redline.

 

That appears to be a V6 cluster. Looks like an 80 psi oil pressure gauge. Also, the third gen RS are just glorified base models (i.e. in 89, there was no SC.. the RS was the base)

 

Well, there were SCs and RSs with V8s, but that is irrelevant I guess.

 

Here are some Firebird clusters.

The top one is my old 85, Ked has it now.
The bottom one is an 88/89 now in the car.

 

mine sucks, i have two large gauges, ones a speedo and ones a gas gauge.

 

can you take a picture of that? I have never seen this gigantic fuel gauge... seems kinda strange that this would even exist...

 

this isnt a pic of mine but i have this same gauge cluster if you wanna call it that

 

heres one i found on here someone did home made

 

Yep, I've got the same idiot-light panel. Chicks always thought the little circles (the idiot lights) were cool... don't know why! But hey, I never argued!

 

a buddy of mine was atthe yards and found a set of idiot lights, he thought it was cool and damn near purchased themfor me....he was like "john, i found the upgraded guages" i laughed, and was like , don't want em. Then explained the difference, and mine were considered "upgraded". He was also able to find a 140mph cluster from a GTA, and a set of digital Guages (the real digital ones, from a different GTA).

 

LOL! One day I'll convert the "upshift" idiot light into a real redline shift light... but that's a project I've been kicking around for what, 10 years?

 

I was thinking of doing that too Tom. lol. The only ones that light up on mine are the check engine light and oil pressure at idle. I dont have a oil pressure gauge but one time while i had the vc's off and the car running the oil pressure light lit up and oil was shooting from the rocker arms so im guessing oil pressure is ok and something else is just messed up.

 

Ya, how come my upshift light doesn't work? I was beginning to think it was just an option that wasn't included with my car. I seem to remember replacing the bulb with no effect.

 

my car only has a check engine light... it seems... I've been low on water... not light... been low on oil... no light.... hrm

all bulbs light up with key.

 

Yes thats the same style cluster I had in my Z28. Ive seen a Few different clusters in RS's but I have seen that one in them as well.

 

Actually that bulb doesn't light up when you turn the key on! That's tied into an automatic tranny'd car's TCC (Torque convertor clutch)- thanks to RBob for pointing that one out to us! Right now, there shouldn't be a bulb in there. If one is put in, everytime the auto tranny would go into lockup, the Upshift light would come on and stay on, until the tranny disengaged from lockup.

The bulb was used for the 4cyl cars with manual tranny's to show "optimum fuel mileage" shift points. The last 4cyl 2.5 was in '85, and I think GM just didn't bother to redesign the dash for later years.

To make that into a shift light, I'll either be modifying the circuit board (cutting the wire traces or otherwise taking the bulb out of the TCC circuit), or, running a new bulb into that hole. A new bulb would definately be easier to run... and I can't really think of a reason against running a new bulb... In fact, I wonder if 3 red super-bright LED's krazy-glued together would be brighter than a regular 195 bulb would. (Are those dash bulbs part # 195? I forget...)

 

guys...referring to one of the few original posts on this thread...

Is there anyway to get rid of the fluctuation in the gas guage when braking hard or turning hard other than installing baffles?

Just an issue thats been ticking me off every time I come to a red light.

My guage can fluctuate up to 1/2 tank on hard stops and especially on hard right handed corners that require hard braking. Is this normal?

 

i think so

 

Yes it's normal, and no you can't get rid of it short of installing baffles. My idea was to install a 3D accelerometer, and whenever the accelerometer exceeded some value, the gauge would just hold the last value. But it's not really worth the trouble.

 

maybe get a TT/A gas tank, but don't knoiw if all teh other gas tanks after it had the baffleing too, or if the baffling was just for latteral sloshing

 

Ya know if you keep the tank full you wouldent have that problem

A 4th gen tank is a direct swap of course pump need to be changed to your application. The latter 4th gens GM added a few extra baffles compared to our cars.

 

my 1990 bird must have lots of baffles... because not once have I ever seen my gauge affected by turning or braking... and I think its a stock tank, cuz its starting to leak gas somewhere.... plus it looks stock as far as I can tell...

now on every other car from the same time period is crazy, like if you are at half a tank, it can go almost to the E, and then bounce back to the F... (my moms 1990 buick century does this) -- I might also add that somehow this car kicks my cars *** power-wise... damn those 3.3 buick motors... but I guess the fact the car weighing 2750lbs doesn't matter, right?

 

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now on every other car from the same time period is crazy, like if you are at half a tank, it can go almost to the E, and then bounce back to the F... (my moms 1990 buick century does this) -- I might also add that somehow this car kicks my cars *** power-wise... damn those 3.3 buick motors... but I guess the fact the car weighing 2750lbs doesn't matter, right? [/B][/QUOTE]

Oh shet, you mentioned the 60* lack of power. You just pissed someone off! Yeah 3rd gens are pretty heavy for the 6. I think thats one of the reasons the 6's got the gears they did.

 

what do the 6's have in them compared to the 8's?

 

go to the main tgo page, it has a list someplace there.