Hey guys,

Question I would like to upgrade my dash with an aluminum bezel and some sort of new gauges. What is the difference between mechanical and electrical? Which ones would I want? What brands would you guys recommend? I know everybody is prolly gonna say Autometer, I seen a set of Stewart Warner's from Summit for a good price. Thanks for the help

 

Auto Meter or Sun are both very good. For the bezel, check out Year One or Classic Industries

 

Mechanicaland electrical are in regards to the speedo. With mechanical, you use a speedo cable and tour odometer is analog, but with electrical you dontuse a speedo cable anymore. Instead you have an adapter that plugs into the old speedo gear slot on the side of your tranny and you have wires that run up to your gauges. Electrical allow you to have a digital odometer.

I have Autometer Phantom II'swith an electrical setupin mine. They look and work great. The one good thing about autometer is that they make so many differnet styles, thats why most people go with them.

Hope, that helped.

 

im looking to get some phantom auto meter gauges for my 81 camaro. would they fit in the stock dash? or would i have to get a different "more aftermarket" dash?

 

Actually the mechanical gauges can be for oil and temp (and a few others) also... with a mechanical oil gauge you run a little pressure line to the gauge and attach it with a piping crush sleeve. Some have little plastic lines but I prefer the copper ones just in case they rub against something. Don't want any type of pressure loss or, god forbid, hot oil streaming into the car. Mechanical gauges are also supposed to be more accurate.

I've ran Autometer and Equus and like both. I've gotten two DOA's with Equus though but they fixed that pretty quickly. Their tech support is pretty good and will actually hunt you down and call you to make sure your problem is resolved. In the end though you get what you pay for. I haven't had many problems with my autometer stuff that I couldn't fix myself.

As for the dash I run a Covan Classic Industries dash. Doesn't fit 100% but it works and when I got mine you could see radials from the where the hole cutter rubbed on the surface around the holes for the gauges but that's with my **** eye for details. I was also drunk and emailed them about it and never got a reply back but I'm sure that's because my grammar and attitude were probably that of 4 year old sailor. Drunk emailing apparently doesn't work...

Personally, I like the ultra-light series for look but that's just me.

You can find Equus here. I run the 8000 series.

 

Kypher is absolutely correct.
For maximum accuracy go with mechanical gauges. The plus side for electricals are the easy installation, you pull wires rather than tubes through the firewall.
I would go with Autometer.

 

ok here's my plan, i want to get a autometer speedometer, 10K tach, oil pressure, volt, and gas gauge for dash and then console vacuum and water pressure gauges. can i use my stock dash for the in-dash gauges? and how do i attach the other gauges to my console?

 

Well, the gauges for the stock dash mount to the rear of the instrument bezel. So you'd have to pull the bezel, remove the mounting and then cut the holes to fit. Most aftermarket gauges use a "lip" to hold them in from the front and a mount to the rear that's kind of like a cup that screws around the body. It's a lot of work and I've seen some people do it that way before with pretty good results.

As for the shift indicator in the center if you're running automatics... you can get the Lokar vertical LED shift indicator and hook that up and cut the center section out and have an updated shifter. It's an electronic deal that connects to the side of the tranny. That's one of my 'later on" deals that I plan on doing.

 

so i couldnt use my current dash set up for the 5" speed and tach and 2 1/16" volt, oil temp, and fuel amount gauges? is there a dash i could buy without having to cut anything? i dont wanna screw it up or anything lol..

oh about the LED shift indicator. that would be sweet! what would I do with the hole in the center then?

 

Covan makes dash bezels for autometer, etc.

With the hole in the center you'd have to enlarge it for the Lokar shifter just a tad. It has a lip that covers the edges of the holes.



Looks like that only except in the center of your dash and not around the shift boot.