to rip or not to rip thats the question...

[wezeles]

ive been very tempted lately to rip out my stock instrument panel... for one the speedo is off because of my 4.10 gears really bad... and i dont really think the stock speedo works that great to begin with... it jumps every now and again... and also the tach which is still stock and i know a pos... now the oil and temp i have the factory and a set near the stereo... and soon i will have to put in this fuel air ratio gauge and boost meter... so i was thinking of just ripping out the entire thing making up a nice clean custom dash... shouldnt cost to much gauges are fairly cheep these days... the only thing pricey might be the tach and speedo... ive seen a few nice jobs and im thinking i might try it...

[wezeles]

here is what i like so far

a nice job i saw in a lt1 conversion 3rd gen... i should be able to make it a cleaner than that and i will have to adjust for 6 guages on the side ont 4... but with everythign at work... im sure i can get it to look nice... i think i migfht still have some plastic pellets in my pocket actually...lol

[SS4Matt]

i would say go for it....take a nice chunk of aluminum and fit all the gauges in nice so it still sits in the stock instrument pod....that would look sweet. then take the gauges out and polish up the aluminum...that with some white or silver...shit black even autometer gauges that all match would look very very nice and clean...with a little bit of chip foose kinda "custom" look to it.....my vote is YES!...plus even a good working stock gauge still isn't as accurate as aftermarket ones!

[greenmachine]

yes yes yes yes yes yes

DO IT definitely DO IT

dont leve any screws or anything showing if you do it like he did tho, get some kind of bondo or something and make it look factory.

[wezeles]

well i went and looked up all the gauges i will need same style as the picture above.. the sport comp... with all 8 guages its still under 500 bucks shipped... thats speedo 160mph would be nice, tach 10,000 rpm, no2 psi,
oil psi, water temp, fuel level, volt, air fuel ratio... not a bad price for 8 aftermarket guages... specailly nice ones.. im sure i could go cheeper proabably get the hole thing for like 250 if i go with like sunpro or some other cheeper name...

[SS4Matt]

go with the autometer...they are a good brand, with very nice looking products!

[97rs4life]

what kind of autometer are you looking at? Also you looking at 2 1/16 size along with 5" speedo and tach?

[wezeles]

yea 2 1/16 or close to that for the smaller gauges and the 5 inch for the tach and speedo...

[DETROITMUSCLE]

Do it hands down, but like everyone said do it right.

[97rs4life]

Yea def. do it. A nice custom job will look sweet

[wezeles]

well im going to go rip the dash cover and cluster out of my 84 parts car so i can get started on it... im just going to smooth the whole thing out keep the dash and tach in the same spot and then like the picture except it will be 3 accross by 2 high...and im going to try my acrylic fill at work... pretty much plastic bondo... sand that smooth and see how it looks if not ill just use fiberglass bondo like i did on my grand prix dash and sand that down to fit...

[meissen]

I envy you; I wanted to invest in Autometer's carbon fiber gauges to go with the rest of my interior when it's finished, but they're damned too expensive for me.

[wezeles]

ya i noticed the carbon fiber of the same exact gauges i already picked 730 bucks for the 8 of them... ouch just for the carbon fiber... i dont mind to much i hate double gauges and when i do have them they all atleast have to work... right now the only thing accurate on my stock panel is probably the volt meter...lol the oil bounces the temp is off by almost 30 degress compared to my aftermarket one... the fuel i guess is ok but the speedo is way off and bouces same as the tach... and i dont really like the look of 30 pods all over the car... if they are spread out all over the place whats the point... id rather it be clean in the dash and accurate... so im going to have to get them anyway might as well mod them to fit right in my dash... besides the gray and black will go nice with the rest of the car...

[97rs4life]

you bought them already? I could have saved you probably 20-30 bucks

[wezeles]

oh no not yet... i was still planning on shopping around... but i i was looking at this for parts the 5 inch mech speedo 0-160mph, 10,000 rpm tach 5 inch no light.. 2 1/16 inch for all of these fuel air ratio, nitrous psi gauge, 0-60 ohms fuel gauge, volt meter, 100-250 water temp, and 0-100 psi oil pressure gauge... see what you can get me for a price on thouse... id much rather buy from a local person let alone a sponsor...