OK I have intentionally deleted half the image, this was by request of the person that created the file.

       He did the photo edits to get the spacing just perfect for a stock looking 240kph gauge face.   He also has figured out what electronic parts are needed to recalibrate the Fiero speedo right on the board, so it would be a plug and play to install a modified speedo into any Fiero.   

                  The catch is finding a way to get it printed on the same style as the stock face.    Is there anyone out there that

A. Knows how the stock one is done.

B. Can get the new faces printed.  I can supply an extra gauge face to show to a printer, or anyone that thinks they know of a way to get it done.   I can also supply macro high definition photos of the stock setup.    

                 Now I know there are a few people on this forum that are good at photo shop and might be able extrapolate the image from the 1/2 that I am posting, but this is just to show what it looks like.

Just what I need for driving to SuperStore to pick up groceries.

           I know not everyone will actually use a speedo that goes over 180, but for the few that actually have setup GPS tracking units their car so they have an idea of how fast they are going even for testing purposes, or maybe they just want a higher speedo for the style of it.  It would sure be nice.

      One of my goals with my V8 is to get a GPS tracked, Video Documented 150mph run with it.     120mph is the fastest stable speed for a stock Fiero, over that, you almost need hood vents, over 140mph you need DO hood vents, pushing past that mark, proper rear deck venting, rear spoiler to aid in removing the vacuum pocket behind the car.  (Rear spoiler DOES NOT create down force)   I am really going to be interested in seeing how the Car2Lo's Tall Stanchion's affect air flow on my 857GT.    Oh. P.S. thats the new name for my 85/87GT combo build car.  I couldn't bring myself to call it my 87GT, and calling it my 85GT just didn't sound right either, so its now my 857GT  pronounced eight fifty seven GT.    

Speedhut is the one that does the Indiglo gauges (relatively) cheap. Dunno if that's what you were thinking or not.

Aside from that, I almost had the gauges created. We were only one step away from having it done. In order for the company to recreate them properly, they wanted a vector-based image of everything, which was a little beyond me. I had someone that was making them for me, but other things got in the way, so it got side-tracked.

As for which company, it was a place in Coquitlam, near the United Overpass that was going to make them. I think it would have cost roughly $40-50 for a full set of die-cut replacement gauges in any colour combination I wanted (assuming an order of at least 10 sets, I think) They could be black on white, white on black, red numbers, white face, orange numbers, black face, etc.

If enough people are interested, I could possibly try to revive the project, or if someone else is adept enough at it, I could pass along what I've done so far. (Realistically, it took me probably 30+ hours to get this far, including lots of messing around)

Cheers,

Kris

Yes, the image is what messed me over when I was trying to make my gauges (As the "white" background on the Fiero Pegasus is in fact, off-white. That meant the little program was loading a massive custom image that went way beyond the borders, rather than the much more acceptable shield-shape.

Anyways, Kris, if by vectors it means the vectors used in Adobe Illustrator, I could do that for you, or I'm sure Enochie has some experience in the area, as Photoshop and Illustrator are very similar to one another.

Well, I'll see if people are interested again. Since it's in KM's, it's only for the Canadian Market basically, thus there's a much smaller market to sell them possibly.

Regards,

Kris

PS. There's an M and an E in team.

Not a bad idea.../2 with a counter or pic. Simple fix eh???

Maybe the trans am dash swap can wait...

Chay

er... counter or pic? for what?

You confused me, Chay.  :)

Aw, but I like my comically low speedo.

And yes, 7000RPM tach was what I meant. lol

Well, I'm pretty sure I still have my original hand-made copy of the 240 face. The one Dave posted was from a pre-vectored image that someone had made me. We were working on doing all the gauges but neither of us are sure exactly where it stopped, so it never got finished. I tried to get a copy of the vectored file, but he couldn't find it. I can email him again assuming he's still around and see if he can get me it.

Otherwise, I can dig out what I've got for you to start over with. If nothing else, that image I sent Dave is pretty close.

Also, regarding the crystal, IIRC when I looked into this, the crystal values I found were really close to commercially available ones. Like, maybe half to one percent off or something. Maybe not even that much. Seems like way more work to make up a pic to do what a crystal can do.

Anyway, happy to help if people are interested. In fact, I can even go back and get the actual units produced if someone wants to supply the vector. I've studied the gauge pretty well so I know what's needed to reproduce it.

Cheers,

Kris

Side note, this all originally started because I wanted to make myself some white-face gauges. I scanned ALL my gauge faces, spent HOURS in photoshop inverting them and redoing the faces, then tried printing them to some white plastic and cutting them out. When I finally trial-fit them in the car, they looked HORRIBLE. The backlighting isn't even close to even, so the whole face lit up uneven and blotchy. That's when I realized how the automakers do white-face gauges yet make only the numbers light up at night. Looks WAY better that way.

Anyway, we'll see how it goes.

Kris

Just for fun, here's a small-rez copy of my almost-finished project at the time. It was just what *I* wanted, so the style may not have appealed to everyone. /shrug

Another possible issue with the home-made ones (like I had originally done) was cutting them all to the exact size. Like the holes at the bottom for the odometer and stuff. The place I was going to use makes a die cutter so they'll all turn out the same size. It's only the initial setup that's expensive, then it'd be quite cheap to make lots. Perhaps if we revived my old thread on Pennocks, it might get some interest.  /shrug

Also, I could fairly easily modify the tach too, but the setup would make doing it by hand more worthwhile, I think. Not TOO many people want a 7k tach. IIRC, I made one using the Sunbird turbo tach a while ago. Not sure what the guy used to actually MAKE it, but I photoshopped one for him and sent it to him. I'm pretty sure it was 7k.

Does this take into account there are 2 or 3 different VSS units depending on the tire size of the car?  All I can remember about the VSS signal is that it was measured in pulses per mile.  When my ECM chip was re calibrated he had to change the pulse per mile reading.  (ECM needs to know what speed the car is going to adjust for some tings)  However I don't think the ECM would NEED to know the exact speed, so even if your changes only reflect the speedo dial as long as the ECM understands that you are moving it should be fine.

Oh man I made this post about as confusing as possible didn't I.  

Ok lets try and simplify.

VSS sends out signal is Pulses per Mile.

Yes the ECM needs to know the vehicle speed.

No I don't think it really matters if the speed is dead on perfect.  However with automatic cars some changes might need to be made.

  Err wait, maybe not.  If you don't change the VSS signal all you will need to do is re-route the ECM signal to read direct from the VSS instead of reading from the speedo.

Oh who the heck knows.   I just know there is something that needs to be known, I just don't know what that is.

If I remember correctly the signal goes, VSS to Speedo and the Speedo supplies the signal to the ECM,

Now if I am wrong and it goes VSS to ECM and the ECM supplies the signal to the Speedo you may have a totally different set of  problems.  However I know that normal they are tied together.

Now in my V8 car,   We got mad at the whole thing, and simply T'ed off the VSS signal and ran one pair of wires from the VSS to the ECM and one pair of wires from the VSS to the Speedo.  Forwatever reason it worked.  The ECM was reading the correct speed and the Speedo matched what the ECM said and GPS matched them both.

Regardless of my rambling, I love what you are doing and think if you can do this for a reasonable price, you are going to have a lot of interested buyers on both here and PFF.  Then we/you can hit you uo on the BIG Fiero list.  Several thousand members all the messages going directly into there in boxes.  Especially the guys on the racing list.

I think you and I are going to have to sit down with a list of your products, with Photo's and prices and make you a simple site with everything then as you come up with a new item, you can add it.  Hell you may be the next Dickman.  Who Knows?

I would if you could add something "custom" to it, are these faces going to be made in batches or by order?  If they were made in batches you could do some sort of Generic thing like "Fiero SS" I know that is a Chevy thing, or just plain "Fiero" but in a different font.  Now if they were on a piece by piece basis, maybe 857 Cadero for mine or Cadero for all the Cadero owners.    Maybe even just a Fiero Logo someplace on the face.  

P.S. also the another option is leave the 240 numbering and simply tweak your little signal output to read 240mph for the US guys wanting a "show piece" for there car.   Archie might buy a few from you just to stock them with his kits.

       P.P.S Whoever asked earlier, yes the later CDN Metric speedo's have MPH on the inside, same with the USA version they got Metric on the inside.  When I first brought my 85GT to Canada it was a US 85MPH speedo without the Metric so I had to get real good quickly with doing the math in my head.    

Oh did you ever think of a white face option?

I have a white face guage set (Volts and Oil Pressure) here and would love to have a matching speedo for it.  I can offer it up for you to copy and add to your stock of images.

Hey all, haven't been around for a while, but I have some input on this....

I did a bit of research on the speedo back a while. From what I remember it's a stepper motor drive circuit which accepts the 4000ppm and converts it to deflection.

This means it would be way simpler to modify the input signal than the internals of the speedo. The speedo buffer drives the speedo itself and the ecm, so fix the input signal, and the ecm sees the right speed as well.

So, we need a circuit which can read a frequency, multiply it by a factor which is externally adjustable, then output a new frequency...solution...pic (Programmable integrated controller). It would be an external device requiring power, ground, frequency in and frequency out. Pretty simple hook up. Then, adjust the frequency out with a potentiometer.

There is another way with f to v convertors....run a f to v, then run a v to f which is adjustable. It's simpler and more complex at the same time....less engineering because the ciruits are already worked out for you, but higher parts count means building them is harder and more costly. The device name is LM331N.

If anyone wants to experiment I have a bunch here and could mail them off.

Chay

I'm still confused why you guys are spending so much time when an XTAL just needs to be replaced. If I remember correctly, I found the right crystal available. I'm pretty sure if someone needed a different speedo (it took me a lot to come up with that magic 240km/h number), it wouldn't be too hard to find a different crystal, rather than going with some custom programming etc.

Whatever floats your boat though.

Cheers,

Kris

I apologize...air core meter is entirely correct. Still, it has a driver which I found difficult to engineer a variable element in.

Modifying the external signal...if your intention is to change the ful scale deflection of the meter I guess you are right. The ecm would end up seeing a lower value than is correct, because the buffer output gets modified.

One easy way I found is to run an external buffer, like all the other cars did from this era...basically they took the buffer out of the speedo and had it externally done. It's a little yellow plastic box, with a couple of transistor buffers in it. I had a couple for my 3.4 swap, and of course I ended up not needing them.

So, you could build a box which takes in power, ground, vss, and outputs buffered speed to the ecm, modified speed to the speedo.

This has to be easier than trying to fit something in the speedo/modifying the air core driver.

Also, it's plug and play and if the speedo dies, just plug in another one.

The odometer would still need the corect signal...the fly in the ointment. I don't think it would be too bad though...cut a trace and insert the correct signal. Too bad it runs from this though.

This is kinda why I was looking into the digital cluster from the Cavi. Overall it may actually be less hassle...not stock though and they are hard to find now for some reason.

Chay

Yea, this is what started my obsession in the first place. The only problem is you can't really have the entire white face light up unless you're going to use some sort of EL panel or something. It's way too patchy so it'll have bright spots. Plus, I find the white faces distracting. The factory-style white face gauges only light up the numbers and lines like the factory Fiero gauges. It'd require several layers to get it working properly.

Dawg wrote: Here's some more ideas.  White background versions.  I like them! Something a little different I might try at some point.  Dave lent me a gauge cluster so I can try different faces to see how they look when back lit. The Dawg

When I originally did it, I had some somewhat translucent white plastic sheets I tried printing onto. They looked great with the backlight off. I didn't really think it through though, so when I turned on the backlight at night, there were bright and dark blotches all over. So, once I dissected the gauge face, I realized how they do it in other cars. Without backlight on, they're white faced with black-ish numbers. When the backlight lights up, just the numbers light up. The factory fiero gauge face is made up of two layers. The top layer is the black with white numbers. The bottom layer is like the top layer, except larger blotchier numbers and lines, in the reddish orange colour. That way you see the white numbers, but the backlight goes through the red layer causing them to light up red/orange. You'd then need another layer on top, of opaque white with translucent numbers and lines. It's not impossible, but you'd either need to be able to print white, or use pure white plastic or something. And you'd basically have to cut out the numbers and stuff, which would be way harder.

Unfortunately, you can't just print white with a regular inkjet. Why don't printers have white ink, dammit. (I know) :)

And yea, like I said, I've spent a lot of hours planning this out. A printing company is the only real hope of making a professional-looking white face. I'd just stick with black if you're doing it home-made. MUCH easier.  Also, try holding a flashlight up to your printed faces and see if the face blocks out all the light. Otherwise you'll get patches too.

If there's anything else I can help with, give me a shout.

Kris

Dawg wrote: Yes I was planning on letting the whole face light up.  I was just going to find a very high quality tracing paper to print on.  You're right though, the effect might not turn out so good after all. As for making the white face opaque and letting light through the graphics, it would surely mean layering.  Maybe white on top and black underneath to block the light? It's going to take many hours of experimenting to get any of these faces looking perfect. On a side note, I've ordered the microprocessors and the development kit for the calibration circuit.  My buddy is ready to come over and design this with me.  We've done many high tech projects together in the past.  Film industry props to be exact. On a purely technical level, this will be a walk in the park.  I think we'll be pretty close to our target price too. So win win for all I think. It could be another month before I'm actually prepared to mod anyone's gauges.  We'll see. Anyone itching to be the first local customer? The Dawg