Revising my dashboard...

[sanj]

When I first purchased my '90 SE back at the end of '98, the dash was one of the poorer features. Evidently the finish on the wood panels had cracked badly, so the previous owner sanded them down and painted them flat black. The results were less than stellar. After a brief period of ownership, I removed them, hoping to have them reproduced in carbon fibre, but never succeeded in doing so. For the past few years I've been driving around with the bare black metal dash -- functional, but not beautiful.

During that period, I replaced all of the small gauges with VDO Vision series gauges, and added a Stack ST600 tach with street-legal speedo and odometer, as well as many other fun features. The needle fell off the factory speedometer in protest, thus it has been sitting there looking stupid for quite some time.

I recently started seeing errratic (high) oil pressure readings, so I have decided to install a mechanical oil pressure gauge. Involving countless hours of making and installing stainless hose from the engine to the dash and ripping apart half my interior, I am finally approaching reassembly.

While I had the dash out, I decided to clean it up a bit. I made a panel to replace the factory speedo, installing the warning lights that were heretofore invisible to me in its place. The tach has a rotary control and switch, which I integrated a little better than I had done before, along with properly mounting my radar detector remote. All of the wiring was neatened up. The dash panels were carefully refinished in a very pleasant textured black. I am quite pleased with the results!

[talon]

Beautiful job! Love the tach

[Esprit Aviation]

Excellent!!

I need to do something w/ my dash, but I can never seem to decide on a layout. Keep the binnacle,....redesign it,....get rid of it altogether and get something in there similar to the Elise,......etc. Then deciding on the type of gauges,... are they accurate,...etc, until my indecision completely stops the process!

I absolutely love the dash you built and your ability make a great decision!

Has anyone else done any serious dash mods??

Regards, Lee

[hilly]

Has anyone else done any serious dash mods??

Lee

I wouldn't say I have done serious dash mods, but I have done some work on mine.

The OEM Lotus dials have been replaced with new custom order units from Green Gauges (Smiths) and I have re-arranged then so I can see them all through the steering wheel without having to move my head. I also recovered it in real Alcantara (due to it's sunlight fading properties) to reduce glare on the windscreen as the previous leather was a nightmare for reflections.

Tnew arrangement for the dials meant that I had to loose the batttery voltage gauge (due to lack of space) so this is now incorperated into a 24x2 alpha-numeric LCD display which will eventually sit in the rectangular hole at the bottom. The LCD also display external temps, alerts and warnings (like low oil pressure etc) and anything else I can think of if I add the sensors and write the software for it.

Here is a pic of the prototype.

I really need to re-fit the steering cowl as it look a right mess in that photo!!!!!!

Hilly

[cweeden]

I modified the dash on my previous V8 to incorporate the display from the Blitz Turbo Timer which monitored boost.

[Esprit Aviation]

Hey,

Thanks for the ideas! They are very creative and may allow me to come to a decision.

Has anyone used Autometer gauges?

Lee

[talon]

I modified the dash on my previous V8 to incorporate the display from the Blitz Turbo Timer which monitored boost.

I would be really interested in getting more details around this modification. What was the process and how big a job was it?

[mike_sekinger]

I replaced all of my standard instruments with a Motec Dash Logger. It is very easy to add and configure engine data and calculations and it has separate standard

Edited September 26, 2007 by mike_sekinger

[cweeden]

I would be really interested in getting more details around this modification. What was the process and how big a job was it?

It wasn't a huge job in the scheme of things. The instrument binacle and facia are simple to remove, just a couple of allen screws under the front lip of the binacle cover and then a few more (was a long time ago now) to remove the facia.

I had to dismantle the Turbo timer to gain access to the display, it is mounted on a pcb which is simple to remove. The difficult part was sourcing a longer ribbon cable with the correct edge connector so that I could position the main TT unit further back behind the instruments while the display was fitted to the facia. I also needed to remove the three function buttons and extend the wires to them. I could have mounted these somewhere accesible but I only wanted the boost display function, so I set this and hid the buttons with the main TT unit.

The last part required care and a steady hand. Using a dremel from behind the facia I cut out the hole required being careful not to let the metal get hot which would have melted the black plastic warning light mask which covers the front of the facia. I may have peeled it away from the facia around this area but I can't remember. Finally I cut this mask from the front with a sharp knife to give the neat square edges around the display.

One thing I didn't realise was that the black plastic mask is like sticky backed plastic and where the facia has a hole for warning lights to shine through the mask the back of the mask is still sticky and now exposed. Some of the filings from using the dremel stuck to the back of the mask in these warning light appertures. It wasn't a huge problem most of the time because it would only really show up when the warning light was lit (but this was the turn indicator mainly so lit quite often!).

I will probably do it again to my current Esprit when I have time but this one has an aluminium mask which might be more tricky, who knows.

cheers

-Chris

Mike,

I would love an intelligent display like your but I am sure that would bust my budget.

cheers

-Chris

[Esprit Aviation]

Mike,

Is that a stock binnacle? Regardless, I like the design and envision something like that in my dash redesign. Where can I obtain one? Anybody??

Thanks in advance.

Lee

[cweeden]

Take a look here, it might help.

http://www.motec.com/products/dash/adl2dash.htm

cheers

-Chris

[Jonathan]

LOL Mike has to go the whole hog

I've got a few plans for the GT2, mainly digital dials, LED rev counter + shift light.

I am sure once I saw a dial that measured tyre pressures - the GT3 dash has a clock in the top middle which is USELESS - love to replace it with something like that if I can find something suitable.

[Esprit Aviation]

Are the carbon binnacle 'covers'/structure available?

Thanks, Lee

[86esprits3]

Isnt the cost of the motec dash something like 7000 dollars u.s. ??

eeks

i am keeping my gauges

[mike_sekinger]

Isnt the cost of the motec dash something like 7000 dollars u.s. ??

eeks

i am keeping my gauges

My Motec ADL came from the

[sanj]

My Motec ADL came from the