My car is going back to my cage fabricator for a dash bar, switch panel, and a small gauge panel. The stock dash is gone completely. I'd love to see some pics of custom setups to give me some ideas.

Thanks

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Steve91 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The stock dash is gone completely.
Thanks</TD></TR></TABLE>

So you'll be mounting these to the dash bar? Here's a neat little device, albeit expensive (as most long acre products are):



It doesn't have to be used with any of the longacre panels. You could just cut your own panel and drill your holes the proper distance. If you're handy, you could make these mounts.

 

Mine is not a small guage panel but a full custom dash to house the guages (tach, oil press., oil temp., water temp., air/fuel meter), idiot lights, and also the fire system release. The whole thing weighs about 4-5 lbs. The middle of the dash projects out as a semi wrap around. My electric switches and fuses will be on the floor next to the driver by the hand brake.

 

Thanks Lee. I dropped the car off today and my cage guy is building and angled panel kind of like what you have. I like your setup.

 

mine, simple...

 

i went autox for the first time today (so much fun ), and i realized i never looked down at my gauges once. i was considering getting an aftermarket tach but i don't think i'll use it.

do you guys actually look at these gauges at all when racing?

 

You have a little more time on the track to look at your gauges than you do when you autox.

Certain gauges are a must in a track car.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jwn7 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i went autox for the first time today (so much fun ), and i realized i never looked down at my gauges once. i was considering getting an aftermarket tach but i don't think i'll use it.

do you guys actually look at these gauges at all when racing?</TD></TR></TABLE>

In road racing, you may spend 15-20 seconds on a straight away which is plenty of time to breathe (a good thing to remember), look at guages, relax your finger grip, drink from a tube, etc. In autocross , even 5 seconds of the same activity is rare and you just don't have much time although as you gain experience the whole event will slow down in your own head. In road racing, a session maybe be 20-90 minutes of the car working hard vs. about a minute in autocross so there is more opportunity for an engine to have problems in roadracing. Much less heat and it's effects in autocross as well.

I don't do a lot of guage watching in autocross either as if you know the car well, you can hear your revs for shifting the two or three times you do in a run and modern engines are normally protected with a rev limiter anyway. If you have a race engine for autocross, bright idiot lights on the dash will tell you fast if you lost oil pressure, etc.

 

http://members.***.net/kimini2...1.jpg

 

Wow, that is a lot of effort and quite successful to get many guages visible through a performance steering wheel. Does the driver sit and see at the angle the photo was taken? Good job!

I moved all guages out of steering wheel and hand path zone because I can't see squat through my small race wheel.

 

Yeah in fact I clamped a piece of cardboard in place of the dash first and carefully traced the area I could see through the spokes. And yes the camera is exactly at "eye location."

What the others said is true though, in general you don't have time to look at all the guages during an event. In my case though it's such a goofy project I wanted to know the status of everything at anytime. I accepted the weight handicap in order to know what's going on right now rather then pulling out a bunch of test gear.

 

wow can you even see over that ?? looks like it'll get in the way of your vision.

 

The top of the dash lines up with the front top edge of the Mini's hood, so no problem. Seeing every guage through the steering wheel spokes makes me wonder why others don't it too...

 

See this post made me think of a question. Does ITA allow the dash to be removed and something more custom setup?

Sorry for the post hijack.

 

just a suggestion, but if you turn your gauges so that the needles point straight up during operation you don't actually have to read your gauges. Just glance at them, and see if any of the needles aren't straight up. If you see one off a bit, you can look closer, and see what.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by keithv &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> Does ITA allow the dash to be removed and something more custom setup?
</TD></TR></TABLE>

No, ITA does not allow a full replacement, my custom dash shown is in F Production. The Dash that Driven shows is ITA legal and nicely incorporates real guages into the stock dash basics needed for ITA. I am likely to build another ITA car this SPring and will do something like he has done.

 

That is a great idea. Thanks for the tip.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by kb58 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Seeing every guage through the steering wheel spokes makes me wonder why others don't it too...</TD></TR></TABLE>

My racing steering wheel is is an 11 diameter on center with a big round grip. I was sitting in the racecar last night looking at putting my ignition switch panel with a row of fuses and switches and I can barely see them through the center. If I put a medium sized tach in front of my wheel, I would only be able to see part of it and nothing else.

My wheel is smaller than a lot of folks use but I've had it since 1987 on several street cars and about four racecars and I really like it. It is small so it doesn't require a lot of turning on track although cranking the the wheel when the car isn't moving takes some arm muscle and it has a really large grip diameter that fits big hands well.