Gauge Placement Ideas?
 

Alright so call me crazy because, well, I probably am crazy, but I had an idea today while reading up on Sharka's (I'm sure we all, if not most of us, know of Sharka) build thread.

Now, looking at the gauges in the crash pad looks really good, am I right? What if we did something similar with an NA8 dash?

Now, as said in my sig, I own a '90 but swapped in a '95 dash because why not? Now as for my plans of F/I in the future, you're gonna need to monitor the car.

Personally, I don't like the idea of a pillar pod because they just look really ricey to me. So here comes my crazy idea... Since the '90 didn't come with passenger airbags, and well the passenger airbag is already removed from my dash, now there's just a big open hole where it should be. What if we made something similar to the crash-pad gauges, but used that cover for the airbag?

Of course it's not as easy as "Oh let's take a hole saw to the cover and throw some gauges in there," because that's not how angles and field of view work, but it's doable, no?

Anybody do this before? Or ever have the idea? I'd like to hear people's thoughts. If I'm feeling adventurous I may delve into the idea a little deeper myself, but I would enjoy some input beforehand.

PS: I just picked the category that sounded correct. If there's another place for this, please move it. I don't want to be another annoying noob.:noob:

what is a crash pad?

I'm referring to the little piece in the very front of the NA6 dashboard. Almost looks like a little foam pad?

It depends on whether you actually want to see your gauges if something is going wrong. If they aren't directly in your line of sight, they aren't much good IMO. I hated the aesthetic of the triple A-pillar pod I had in my black turbo car, but when it comes to critical engine monitoring, functionality is key.

If you can't quickly glance at them on a straight and determine everything's normal, then they aren't useful.

The gauges in my center stack are out of my line of sight but have programmable alarms, which is nice. They are still close enough to read easily if glancing down. I wish there was an elegant solution for placing them to the right of the main gauge hood. I may need to build something.

I know I've seen a single pod before, that attaches straight to the hood. I may have to find it again. However, it was only a single pod, and I'm sure that would also look really terrible if there were just gauges across the entire top of your gauge hood

Either mount them around the steering wheel or on the pillar. Lets be honest though on any normal pull your be watching the road anyways not the gauges as its cheap to replace a motor but you killing your self because your more worried about your wideband cost a bit more to fix this is where a fail safe type AFR gauge is useful.

My oil pressure and wideband are currently where the radio used to be, and I consider them useless. This is why I'm going with a Racepak iq3. You get all the necessary gauges and ability to display anything from Megasquirt for under a grand.

Any gauge that's not directly in front of you can't be seen/read quickly.

If you're going to do what you're planning, or installing gauges in the centre console, make sure they have peak recall buttons so that you can see what the peak WAS later - you don't want to be focused on reading a gauge when your focus SHOULD be on the road ahead.

I didn't make this, the previous owner did. It may look weird at first but placement is excellent and you get used to it very quickly...
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1459465984

The cups have been fibreglassed onto the binnacle and then painted so it now has a different texture, but it is formed nicely with curves so looks pretty good.

The thing I do need to do with it though is put connectors for those two temp gauges in the wiring underneath the binnacle, because you can't actually remove the binnacle entirely out of the way now, which made for trickiness installing the KG Works guff.

I did this;

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1459513612

The picture is from early in my build. The pod is angled more towards the driver and the bottom has been sculpted so that t fits tight to the dash. There are also different gauges in there now, but you get the idea. It might seem like it interferes with visibility, but it doesn't. It's not intrusive (to me) at all.

The pod was from Summit.

I'm really a fan of both those placements. May have to look into that later down the road. Again, this is just ideas for later in my build. But I appreciate all the help and ideas