Dash panel

kellydsmith

New Member
Howdy,

I am new to the forum but have been quietly stalking for awhile.

I know it is easier to use the stock dash for gauges etc. but I was wondering how difficult would it be to use stand alone gauges like Auto meter?

I would rather set up a dash like you would see in one of the older cars from NASCAR, with a speedometer of course.
 

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JSATX

Goblin Guru
It can certainly be done. The main issues is all those signals in the car are electronic, they can be difficult to transmit using a universal gauge.

The better bet, and the one I’m currently working on, is using an LCD with custom software to display the data. They are expensive, but the system I’m working on now will be cheaper than a full set of auto meter gauges. I priced out getting speed, rpm, oil, water, boost and it was like $1000.
 

Brian74

Goblin Guru
Racepak, AiM and a few others also make some nice modular displays that are plug & play, but you’re going to pay good $$ for them. The main reason people buy those though, is to capture telemetry data at the race track.
 
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Nate

Member
I actually just ordered an AutoMeter Dashlink which works really well. It connects to the OBD2 connector and displays a number of guages that are completely customizable. Pair it with any number of tablets (I purchased an iPad mini) and you have a lot of screen real estate that you can put stuff on. It also allows for telemetry data (like Brian was mentioning above) if you were planning to do autocross events like I intend on doing. It is a pretty cheap alternative around 150 dollars as well as however much you want to spend on a tablet. I have probably another 120 in the tablet plus a waterproof case. Here are some examples of what you can do on the iPad. I like that you can have 2 separate screens so readings you use more often (speedometer, tac, fuel, etc.) can be larger and other guages can be put on a second frame so that they aren't there constantly taking up space but are still easily accessible.
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kellydsmith

New Member
The Autometer dash link looks pretty cool, would be even better if it would run multiple screens.

I am just concerened about electronics (original dash, tablets, etc) because herein florida it rains every afternoon. Whatever I build would have to be 100% water proof.

Thanks for the replys
 
In the beginning I planned on making my goblin water resistant. You will definitely want to run with body panels. If you do, the gauge area is relatively protected, especially with a windscreen.

The cobalt may use a 10.4k communication line (green wire, low speed can) that not all dashes may be able to hook up to.
A warning against generic OBD2 pid polling is that it can be SUPER SLOW compared to vehicle-specific monitors.

I'm curious about the dashlink myself.
 

Nate

Member
I'll have more feedback once my car gets on the road but I have used it on my daily driver a couple times and it seems to work really well. It's very simple to sync and install. I know a large reason I didn't want to have hardwire guages is because I didn't want extra cables and wires up by the dash. I have heard about the lag in connection with other OBD2 connectors but I believe the dash link syncs to the make and model of your car and even without it running it does give me a lot of feedback. Also having a system in place to automatically check codes if something were to go wrong is a nice peace of mind.
 
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