145 speedo

whos got this mod in their car? how much of a pain was it to calibrate? i found a lead on one of these speedos through work but im unsure of committing to it yet, or should i just go for it and hold on to it til im ready to mod?:confused:
 
I have this mod on my car. Its a bit time consuming but pretty cool. Only problem is that the aftermarget gauge faces you buy do not let light in as well as the factory gauge faces so they look a couple shades dimmer at night. My goal was to have as close to factory look as possible. I have 160mph gauges. You change the resistance in a wire in order to calibrate your speedo with a gps. I calibrated mine at 80 mph, and bought several different resistors to get it calibrated correctly.
chris

P.S.
Heres a post of my thread back then
http://www.sccoa.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97336
 
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yeah the one i have available to me is an OEM complete cluster, think i should shoot for it? is it an absolute matter of doing all the calibration work, or would i just be able to wire in the proper ohm resistors as listed in the writeup, im capable of doing either, im just curious as to the necessity of calibrating the stock 120 unit first
 
come to think of it, recallibration might be the way to go in either case considering i just swapped in a 3.27 pumpkin(with the proper speedo gear) and 255/50R17s are going to be going on soon as well, might be a good idea to make everything proper with the mods considered, yes?
 
If you grab up a 145 speedo out of a 94-95 car there is not need for recalibration. You will just need to pull the speedo unit out of the cluster and install it in your cluster. Do not switch the whole 94-95 cluster into your car though, it wont work. If you switched rear end gears you will need to switch plastic gears on the tranny output sensor to accomodate.

Now....if you decide to install gauge faces on your original cluster gauges you will need to recalibrate the speedo if you use 140mph face 160, 180 etc.

chris
 
GOTCHA, so the SPEEDOMETER portion of the 94 CLUSTER will pop into MY 89 CLUSTER and work, is what youre saying? only when swapping GAUGE FACES is the need for recalibration a necessity.
 
when i get ready to put the new unit in, i can take the mileage counter apart and adjust it to my vehicle's proper mileage right?
 
Lycaon1349 said:
when i get ready to put the new unit in, i can take the mileage counter apart and adjust it to my vehicle's proper mileage right?
Click to expand...

Yes. It's a pain if you've never done it before, but you can do it. Note that spinning the gear by hand takes forever. You have to take the speedo just about entirely apart to access the internals.
 
Hardest part for me is getting the needle off if it's on their tight. Once you get past that point It's easy. Pay attention to where the needle is stopped at before you take it off. It doesn't typically touch the stopper. I would at least install it on the car and drive enough to make sure the odometer works. Chances are it will need odometer gears or is close to it. They are a very common problem. Your 89 speedo gears are a different design and don't ever seem to fail.

Chris
 
I have done this mod..............but the car hasn't been back on the road yet. Instead of swapping resistors, I used a trim pot and mounted behind the speedo plate and drilled a hole to use a tweeker from the front. Put a new set of Scott's faces on while I was at it. :) and yes a new set of gears :(
But it's a good thing I have 2 cluster sets. When I get the car back on the road, I can put the original 120 in and calibrate the transmission output (T56 has a higher rate than ours). Then install the 145 unit and tweek the pot to cal the speedo (predetermined gear and RPM)
While I was in there I did the oil pressure gage resistor delete also.
MikeH
 
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NorthrnSCownr said:
I never heard of that. What is the benefit?
Click to expand...

From the factory, the "oil pressure gauge" is basically an idiot light - the sending unit is a switch ("More than 7 PSI? Turn on! Less than 7 PSI? Turn off!"), and the resistor sets where the needle settles when the switch turns on.

By changing to the proper sending unit, and bypassing the resistor on the back of the instrument cluster, your gauge now becomes a gauge.

Strangely enough, the anti-slosh board works perfectly well with a sending unit (it monitors the oil pressure signal, amongst others, to light/not light the "Check Gauges" light on the instrument cluster.)

More info can be had over on the "wrong side of the track", at TCCoA's forum ( http://forums.tccoa.com/showthread.php?t=75977 )

RwP
 
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