Driving Red Alert for the First Time

[bigjon88]

its all most done b i bet your feeling great about all of this and your dad got to be feeling a lot better since your not working on your car no one so does this mean i can borrow him now?

[ICEPICK]

I'm using a v6 gauge cluster that's why the tach is that far off. The v6 gauge clusters are known for being way off when switching to a v8. Have a 2000 gauge cluster that I bought on Friday from Trans Am Creations but I don't know if it will work or not till it gets here.

my stock tach dosnt work no matter what i do so i run an aftermarket tach and everything is fine. and i do have the V8 cluster,

[steddy]

There's a thought, B! Just run aftermarket. They got some sweet ones out there, then you don't have to go through the trouble of nailing the right one down.

[meissen]

Yeah, funding has come to a grind. I won't have any extra cash until the end of this semester.

[steddy]

Ah, You think there'd be any way, say through a capacitor or resistor, that you may be able to get the tach to "think" different? I'm not too sure, but I would imagine that tachs use these to "tell" V6 from V8. You know, kind of like a plug in for the time being. Would probably way cheaper than an aftermarket tach.

[meissen]

I've got a v8 gauge cluster that's being delivered today. I'm hoping everything will work or that the Trans Am Creations guy is willing to let me return it for a 1997 if this cluster doesn't work... damned different part numbers.

[steddy]

That's the only thing I hate about GMs. When I put the posi carrier in mr rear, the guy was reluctant after he showed me a list of possible combinations, all with different part numbers and just the most subtle differences between housings. When I worked there, the part number indexes were the worst part of any job and keeping them with each other. 'Course, at the time, GM had something like 42 model lines going on. Well, thought I would throw that idea to you bro, should anything leave you hanging. Where I'm from, we just don't.

[meissen]

Thanks for all the suggestions - I do appreciate it. I'd love to do a custom gauge cluster but last time I priced it out it'd be like 800 for the gauges alone.

[98blackbeauty]

Ah, You think there'd be any way, say through a capacitor or resistor, that you may be able to get the tach to "think" different? I'm not too sure, but I would imagine that tachs use these to "tell" V6 from V8. You know, kind of like a plug in for the time being. Would probably way cheaper than an aftermarket tach.

The tach and speedo count pulses per minute, so for the tach to be acurate you would have to figure out how to change the digital counter to count more pulses for a v8 then convert to analoge signal for gauge. The speedo "should be same for v6, v8 because its getting data from trans by drive shaft.

[steddy]

What ever happened to the good old days of HEI?

[78mali350]

I like my low-tech car

[98blackbeauty]

Thank you guys! Drove it around the block yesterday with FreeScan running on it and it turns out the tachometer is not a flat X amount off - more of a percentage that changes dependent on how high it is. When it's at idle, the tach reads like 1000 but it's really idling around 700-900. What the tachometer reads as 3000 is really only about 1500 So it looks like when I'm driving ~45 mph it's at 1500.

Craig and I both confirmed on Saturday and I reaffirmed it on Sunday - the first shift to 2nd gear it really winds up but once it shifts then the rest of the shifting is OK. Our only issue left that I'd like to figure out before sending it to Steve in case something is wrong is that it doesn't downshift at lights.

the reason your tach speed is different is because your trans shifted and your RPM is lower. That being said you should be able to watch that and tell when your shifting.

[ICEPICK]

sunpro tachs arnt that much and work rather well. just 3 wires, tach, light, ground.