Ugly Duck wrote:
You should build a manometer-based liquid speedo, using a pitot tube where the hood trim goes. Or not.

With your brains and fearlessness, Craig, I'm surprised you're leaving the whole LCD gauge cluster thing to me. If the GT gets all funky I can almost see one of those coming on board.
Funny, I could make that work (pitot tube) but I've got bad memories of a fly in a pitot tube. The LCD cluster would be cool, but much of this is being supplanted by these stepper motor gauges. There are some really cool designs out there and they are more flexible all the time.
Ugly Duck wrote:
Can you not find a matching speedo/odo for these gauges you've got? Or will it just be too much bother for calibration/etc? I'm curious about the GPS speedo, though - how quickly will it acquire a signal? I haven't used anything approaching a modern stand-alone GPS, but my iPhone GPS takes about 5 minutes some days before it'll start registering speed, and Dale's old-timey Palm-based one isn't much better.
Yup - almost ready to pull the trigger on this one. Just working out the details of the fuel gauge. Could go with their capacitance sensor (no float) or just stick with my VDO and calibrate based on ohm range. Just have to think if I want a low fuel light or not. Probably will go that way.
I'm mostly just trying to not do this again! The GPS speedo has a fast acquisition mode (it will be based on usage and storing a current satellite almanac - there is a separate power supply if I want this feature hooked up. If I do, then it is ready to go within 5 seconds of power on (as it is tracking satellites all the time). It would kill a battery over a month, but I could also trigger it on/off.
Other features of the GPS system are 0-60 times, 1/4 times, fastest speed recall, clock built in, OD and trip, elevation tracking, and a few others. The GPS with these guys (unlike the competition) is a 5 Hz unit, so it's plenty accurate enough. There is a remote powered antenna and two 12V in's and that's all there is to the system. Gets rid of the cable entirely for more clean under the hood.
I can live without it for a while, but will be pulling the trigger sooner rather than later as I get rolling on the fabrication. Still have a battery to relocate and a fuel tank to finish. Then it's on to wiring and dash stuff.
Ugly Duck wrote:
We'll discuss the matter of style over a beer. Taste is a subjective thing and while I agree your car is lacking a certain cohesion, we might disagree on the direction it should go. It might not even be a topic that's open for conversation, being that you've been staring at it for several years and those wheels in your brain have been turning madly, so I know you've already got a plan. Mine's a pretty simple one.
Yup, we'll hash this out later. I like the resto-mod idea, but will be keeping the brakes and other stuff I like. It just needs a rug to tie the room together. Once painted and with the interior stitched up, it will be close, but the wheels have to go. Now, I'm going to be plenty poor after this effort, so they will be around for a while, but what I'm thinking about is a set of these from Vintage Wheel Works. With custom backspacing they are about $1600 a set (a far cry from the $420 I've got in my current set).
