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Guages--mechanical versus electrical

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Well I am a guage hawk, I guess that's the engine builder in me. For those reasons I pride myself in being a great test driver, I normally can shake a car down alot better and quicker than even drivers faster than me. I never liked gauges behind the steering wheel, with bulky driving gloves on it noramlly take extra effort to look at them, for that reason I normally don't put anything behind the steering wheel in any of my cars.
I tell you guys what I tell folks when I instruct driver schools, you must be able to process information very quickly to be a good driver, in a a mere second you should be able to check the mirrors, make a shift, scan the gauges and still be in the middle of a battle, if you can master this, you will be the complete driver. I can not tell you how many non-gauge watching drivers I worked with over the years, it's hard for me to fix the problem when the driver gives me zero information.
 
That's OK........

I still get more grief over my "Nino Farina" driving position. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Hap wrote: [ QUOTE ]
I can not tell you how many non-gauge watching drivers I worked with over the years, it's hard for me to fix the problem when the driver gives me zero information.

[/ QUOTE ]

Amen!
 
GAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!! Something else!!
 
Speaking of guage watchers - Gordon Smiley liked to tell the story of the professional Porsche driver at LeMans.

Late in the night a driver brings in his Porsche 956 for a scheduled pit stop and driver change. Since the radio is out on the race car, he walks over to the team manager and tells him the oil pressure is fine but the guage is leaking. The team manager tells a mechanic to crimp the line to stop the leak.

After completion of the pit stop, the new driver for the car fires and procedes down pit road. The team manager asks the driver that had just been relived "Did you tell the new driver about the crimping of the guage line?" The driver says, "No, didn't you?" The manager says, "Don't worry he will notice there is no oil pressure and reduce speed back to the pits."

As you know, a lap LeMans takes about 4 minutes. The car screams by at full song, right on time. The team manager looks at driver number one and says that the new driver must have figured it out. About 4 minutes later it screams by again. In another 4 minutes, they hear the car coming but then silence.

The car comes coasting in with the engine not running. The team manager sticks his head in the door and the new driver says, "It loss oil pressure but I caught it right away".
 
[ QUOTE ]
GAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!! Something else!!

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't worry Tony, we going to have David bugging the heck out of you for gauge readings after every session, after awhile you'll get it, just to keep him off your back /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Some guys just can't handle alot of stuff while driving, I know alot of fast drivers who are bad at watching the gauges. The funniest thing I ever saw was a beginner who wouldn't change gears once he got to fourth gear on the track, he said there was just too much to concentrate on to shift gears, needless to say they took his novice permit back, which was the right thing to do, he was just too panic stricken to ever drive a race car. Heck, I'm more intimdated by normal street driving than I am on the race track, most drivers on the track have some talent and aren't talking on a cell phone /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
I'll let my dash speak for itself. You can see it here.
They are all electrical gauges and they are very accurate, very responsive and very reliable. It should also be noted that they all fit into the stock gauge locations. However, because it is hard to find a combo temp/oil press., you will likely have to find a spot to stash that extra gauge. The voltmeter to the left replaced the heat knob and the temp on the upper right was cut in. I also have an air/fuel ratio gauge that I intend to get in there one of these days. The only one that hasn't been swithched (yet) is the speedo... those sucker's are S-P-E-N-D-Y!!!

JACK
 
Jack, that's a nice layout for a street car. On a race car, a dash is a good place to save weight as well, the dash I pictured above is made out of .030" aluminum, it a feather, it floppy as a piece of raw bacon until it it mounted, all the bracing is aluminum as well, once mounted though, it quite stiff. I probably save 10-15 pounds by not work with a stock dash and using the thinnest aluminum I could get by with and mounted it in a fashion that would bring back rigidity.
 
We finished cutting the dash today along the lines of the pattern I posted a few days back. We used .050 aluminum with a U-channel bent into the bottom and an L turned on each end for stiffness and appearance . I'm going to finish it in a nice black crackle paint and will post a picture in a couple of days when done.
 
I wasn't happy with the way the crackle paint came out--the texture seemed to vary from spot to spot--so I wound up covering the dash panel in black vinyl. Attached see a photo--the empty hole is for a voltmeter which should arrive tomorrow. The switch panel is Moroso and the gauges Auto Meter mechanical.

Thanks to all for the advice and tips.

Best--Michael Oritt, Elva Courier
 

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The secret to the wrinkle paint is heat. On a 90 degree up day nothing more than the power of the sun is needed but any other time I use a heat gun. The secret is to preheated what you going to spray and then keep the heat to after you spray it until you see the wrinkle come up on the surface. I used this method many times with great results.
 
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