Here is the layout for the new LED warning lights. I'm not putting any labels on the new face plate identifying the lights. I'm the only one that drives my car, so I know what they are, but it's all simple enough to explain to anyone else.
#1 = Headlight High Beam indicator (Blue LED) #2 = Left turn signal indicator (Green LED) #3 = Right turn signal indicator (Green LED) #4 = Seatbelt warning indicator (Red LED) #5 = VOLTS indicator (Red LED) #6 = DOOR AJAR indicator (Orange LED) #7 = SES indicator (Yellow LED)
I didn't include an e-brake indicator because I've removed the e-brake from the car, (it's an automatic) There is also room left in the panel to add additional LED indicator lights later if I need to. (below the Speedo and Tach) Changing the LED lights is as simple as popping them out of their holders and unplugging them inside the pod. LED light colors and locations can be changed very easily later.
[This message has been edited by randye (edited 04-27-2010).]
Randye You are doing a great job. I wanted to say it was a pleasure talking to you in Daytona, you were very helpfull and answer all my questions. I also want to thank you for taking me for a ride on your car, your workmanship is an inspiration for me.
If you don't mind me asking, what are you panning on doing with the faces for the gauges, the ones that light up blue ? If you are planning on selling them let me know, I really like how they look.
Keep up the great work
Lincoln
Thank You for the compliments and you are most welcome for the ride!
My old gages are going to my son for now. He's bulding an 88 Formula "wide body" and will be joining this forum soon and detailing his build.
Man you are always coming up with something new,..where do you get all your creative ideas from ?
Where do I get these ideas??
Well, sometimes its the voices in my head that just won't SHUT UP!! Other times its from my"friends" who live deep inside the earth. They send me visions while I'm sleeping.
MY new gages are HERE! My new gages are HERE! (Like a kid at Christmas....)
Yep, thats an 8000 RPM Tach and a 160 MPH Speedo with digital odo and trip odo! (I can dream about the RPMs and speed, can't I ???) The fuel gage has a built in programmable "low fuel" light too! SpeedHut gages are THE BEST.
Both the tach and the speedo are also programmable, so if / when I ever swap engines or trannys they'll work just fine.
More later.....
[This message has been edited by randye (edited 04-27-2010).]
OK..I just couldn't wait. Had to at least do a quick "test fit" and see what all this is going to look like..
The new gage bezels and the LED holders look GREAT together and the overall look of the I.P. was just what I was looking for. Yep, I'm thrilled!....now to fire up the soldering iron and *finish* this upgrade!!
The gauges look fantastic. I like the aluminum on black look, and they look well built.
How difficult was it to get the signals from the stock circuit board to work with those gauges, or has that been sorted out yet?
Couldn't be easier. I just followed what others have done to tap into the 4k PPM signal that have swapped in other dashes and clusters. (See the circuitboard pic on pg. 5 of this thread) You can simply solder a wire anywhere along that trace on the board. I haven't tested this yet, but I'm assured it works fine....we shall see.
I'm really excited that all my I.P. gages will now match the center console gages! ...of course now I have 6 different gage program buttons to play with too.....
[This message has been edited by randye (edited 04-27-2010).]
I read this thread from first to last! All I can say is awsome! Im new here and this just makes me want to go out ot my car and do something to it! LOL... PS my wife thought it was an awsome car! Thank you because..... she said "thats what you should do to yours... redo the whole thing inside out!" LOL... For that I thank you!
I have the new face plate for the gages all machined out of 1/4 inch thick clear Lexan and painted satin black using SEM paint. It's VERY solid.
Just wondering...but did you modify my drawing at all, other than the thickness of the material? I haven't gotten a chance to make one yet and I'm rather curious how accurate my drawing was? Looks like a pretty good fit...did I do well, haha?
[This message has been edited by 1986 Fiero GT (edited 04-28-2010).]
Just wondering...but did you modify my drawing at all, other than the thickness of the material? I haven't gotten a chance to make one yet and I'm rather curious how accurate my drawing was? Looks like a pretty good fit...did I do well, haha?
Your CAD file was just fine, but I did end up moving the Speedo and Tach inboard and upward slightly, (approx. .375) and did a layout directly on the Lexan to position & drill holes for the LED holders.
Your CAD file was just fine, but I did end up moving the Speedo and Tach inboard and upward slightly, (approx. .375) and did a layout directly on the Lexan to position & drill holes for the LED holders.
Awesome, haha. That's what I like to hear. I was slightly worried about the gigantic radius at the very top of the panel, but I'm glad to hear it fits well. The fillets on the edge are good too?
Oh, and by the way...that panel and LEDs looks great. The brushed aluminum trim rings and LED holders look amazing against that black panel. Pretty much the same thing I'll be doing with my panel.
The gage upgrade is FINISHED! I think the install looks good, especialy since all my gages now match!
Drivers view:
Outside lookin' in:
Everything works like a charm, except that my seatbelt warning LED seems to stay lit just a wee tiny bit, (like a small pinpoint of yellow light). I might need to add another resistor to that line, but it's barely noticable unless you look for it. The Tach is already calibrated but I still need to drive the car over a measured 2 miles to accurately calibrate the Speedo. The fuel gage has to be calibrated at BOTH completely full and completely empty to work accurately. Not sure how I'm going to do that yet, short of simply running it till empty, calibrating the gage and then filling it up and calibrating at full.... Should work well though with the new Fiero Store sending unit I just put in the tank. It's showing what I assume to be proper Ohms at the dash harness now, so we shall see. Now on to the NEXT upgrade!...What will it be????
[This message has been edited by randye (edited 04-30-2010).]
Originally posted by exoticse: Randye something long overdue is coming your way !
Tony, if you had something to do with my thread getting moved to the "CZ", I thank you and offer you my sincere gratitude! I would have never *asked* to have my build moved here, I just thought it was something that "happened" if it was interesting enough or good enough.
This must be "my day". Attended a local cruise-in / car show today, along with 50 other cars and got a trophy for PEOPLES CHOICE! All the car owners had to vote for a car other than their own and damned if I didn't get the prize! Having won quite a few trophies since we started showing the car and even getting a few "best of show in class" in some large shows, I really treasure this "peoples choice" award because it means that Fieros are getting favorably noticed and are gaining popularity even around some VERY nice street rods and customs.
.....
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[This message has been edited by randye (edited 05-05-2010).]
Tony, if you had something to do with my thread getting moved to the "CZ", I thank you and offer you my sincere gratitude! I would have never *asked* to have my build moved here, I just thought it was something that "happened" if it was interesting enough or good enough.
You are very welcome.
[This message has been edited by exoticse (edited 05-05-2010).]
Well, the next upgrades to "Tangerine Dream" are just starting. Actually, the upgrades never seem to stop!
I'm waiting on a 7730 ECU and adapter harness from "Mulletproofmonk" and a reprogrammed memcal from Ryan at Sinister Performance. Not much to document on that swap that hasn't already been done elsewhere, so I'm just waiting for the parts to arrive and get them installed and wired up.
The other upgrade is my starter....
One of the very few *old* parts that I re-used during the 3.4L engine rebuild was the old original 2.8 starter. We took it to the parts store and tested it and it checked out fine, but I guess it finally has out lived it's time after 23 years of faithful service. The blasted thing has stuck engaged to the flywheel *running* one one occasion, and has disengaged, but kept running on another occasion. The solenoid is my first suspicion, but rather than rebuild that huge old beast, I've opted for THIS:
It's a new gear reduction type starter for a 98' Grand Prix 3.8L
I checked the OEM style starter against this one at the parts store counter and the mounting, nose length and pinion gear all look to be the same. Another thread here on PFF listed all the vehicles that this type of starter is used in and suggested it was a "bolt on" replacement for the OEM 2.8L starter which I used on my 3.4, so I figured I'd give it a try...
These pics give a better idea of how small this thing is:
If time allows, I'll be installing it tomorrow or Friday and hopefully it will fit and work properly. One thing's for certain...I won't have any trouble lifting it into place to bolt it in!
...
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[This message has been edited by randye (edited 05-13-2010).]
At a car show we entered last weekend they were shooting photos of all the cars against a "green screen" back drop on the side of a building. They offered a framed and matted 18 X 24 photo of your car super-imposed onto a variety of backgrounds of your choice for sale. We bought this one:
Hard to shoot a photo of it directly straight on because of the glare from the glass, but you get the idea. It's one of the coolest photos of my car that I've gotten yet, even though it's *phony* as all hell (Only the car, the little gray stone wall and some of the asphalt pavement are real...the rest is photoshopped in, but VERY nicely done.) They even match the color of your car in the border around the matt.
[This message has been edited by randye (edited 06-13-2010).]
I am usually not a big fan of complete guage swaps, but once again your ideas are fresh, and tasteful. I really like the pic from the passenger seat. Really looks like a factory upgrade.
At a car show we enterd last weekend they were shooting photos of all the cars against a "green screen" back drop on the side of a building. They offered a framed and matted 18 X 24 photo of your car super-imposed onto a variety of backgrounds of your choice for sale.
That is pretty neat. Congrats on getting to the CZ! Now I have another thread to follow
Upgraded starter swap DONE! Works great! Plus it shaved about 10 lbs. off the car's weight...(now I can eat a couple more cheeseburgers! ) Complete thread here: https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/108710.html
Could you go into some detail on how you made them? Did you put the plate over the ash tray, or instead of? (I can't tell from the picture)
I'm actually planning on doing a setup just like it.
Not too difficult to make. I cut the bottom out of one of the OEM metal ashtrays with a cut-off wheel on a Dremel and then fabricated an black ABS plastic panel to fit down inside the ashtray snugly. The panel rests on the raised portions inside the ashtray, not all the way at the bottom. The ABS panel was drilled for 2 switches, (Radio Shack) I didn't take any photos of the fabrication, but it's easy to just pull out right now, (nothing wired to the switches), so I'll try to get some pics taken later.
I might mention that the switches from Radio Shack are very nice. They're better made and have higher voltage and amp ratings that anything I've found in the auto parts stores. And they're usually *cheaper* Well worth stopping by a R/S store and browsing through their parts.
[This message has been edited by randye (edited 07-15-2010).]
WOW~! beautiful work where did you get those tail lights how much :O I want i want!~!~
your work is amazinG!
Thank You for the compliment! The taillight panel is from Ken Hines, ("Kahines") website: http://www.kahines.com/ It's a "bolt-in" so you can always go back to stock taillights if you want. I ended up not installing it and instead went with new, (reproduction), OEM taillight lenses from Fiero Store, but re-thinking that now... The round lights are 82' Corvette lights and the Kahines panel is designed to bolt them right in. They're scarce, but you can often fnd the original Corvette lights on Ebay, however there are some nice LED reproduction ones now available, (also Ebay) The original 82' solid red Vette lights are *very* hard to find anymore, but the ones with the clear / white center part in them show up from time to time, it's just hard to find nice unscratched ones.
I may be going back to the Kahines panel and the LED Corvette lights soon.
I had planned on buying one of Amida's new 512 noses for the car, however I just got a very good deal on one of these:
So I will still have an Amida nose on my car soon, just not the new 512 one.
Planning on using the smoked turn signal lights too. I think they will look better with my orange paint than the amber or clear ones.
I also have some very cool and very special new taillights coming soon, but they are currently under "top secret" development I think they will be popular enough that I'm actually planning to offer them for sale.
