Gauge selection advice - layout/brand/function?

[carbuff]

I'm pondering my gauge selection for the 71 Firebird, and I'm struggling with my choices. I thought perhaps I could glean some wisdom from the others here in the community.

My questions are somewhat all inclusive related to my gauge selection:

• Layout
• Brand
• Functionality

Let's start with layout, and by association, function. The Firebird has a lot of available space for gauges which is nice. I have an extra bezel that I've been playing with, and took a few pictures from the Autometer site, scaled them to size, cut them out, and voila! Here is my current stab at the layout:



I know they are a little hard to see, but they include the tach, speedo, oil pressure (in the center), oil temp (top left), water temp (top right), fuel level (bottom left), voltmeter (bottom center), and fuel pressure (bottom right). The vents are Vintage Air pieces, as is the 3-knob controller. I'll use a standard light switch and the DSE wiper switch to round it out.

I have ended up at this layout by sitting in the car and realizing that the steering wheel is going to block something most likely. I placed the fuel level gauge where it will be partially blocked as I figure it's my least necessary gauge. And I put the oil pressure, oil temp, and water temp across the top so that they can be most easily scanned. I might switch the tach and speedo to make it be more inline also, but haven't decided yet.

Regarding the functionality, I don't think there is anything else that I would specifically want, especially in place of the ones that I have. The car will be street driven and used for track days, so I do want to monitor the vitals while I'm on the track. If anyone has suggestions/thoughts to anything else I might want here, I'd love to hear them...

Now, on to the brand selection. I had the Autometer Ultra-Lite's in my Camaro and loved them. I used them here for the pictures as I could easily get them from the Autometer site. I have also looked at the Autometer Elite's and the Spek's. I'm pretty mixed on the Elite's, and they don't seem to offer a 5" speedo or tach from what I see on their website. They do have a 5" pedestal tach that might be able to be used indash.

I actually noticed the Spek's for the first time during a NASCAR broadcast of a night race, and I did some research to learn more about them. I also noticed that BB is using them. I love the idea of the blinking background light possibilities, as well as the solid colored lights being used as warnings. Seems so simple, yet so smart.

But then I started investigating the cost! Using Summit's pricing, as they carry all three that I listed above, the Ultra-Lite setup as shown will run me about $1350. The Elite set (with 3 3/8" speedo) would run $1900. And the Spek set with the same functions as shown would run $2050. That's a whole lot of cash for a set of gauges!!!

When I saw the numbers, I then starting to think about the idea of using one of the available digital 'racepak' type dashes. I only looked into the Stack and Autometer setups so far (which appear to be the same thing). I'm having a hard time believing that I would like those though. With only an analog tach, it would be harder for me to glance at the gauges to get an idea of how the car is doing. Now to be fair, I haven't driven a car with one of these setups, so perhaps they are designed with features to identify warnings, etc, that would help alleviate my concern.

The lower cost digital setups seem to run around $1400 from Summit also, so about inline with my Ultra-Lite choice. I don't know if there would be any advantage to wiring up one of these vs. the individual gauges or not, I wouldn't think so as the sensors still have to be wired to something anyway...

So this is where I'm at. I'm leaning towards sticking with my Ultra-Lite choice, but before I commit, I was hoping to get some feedback as to the other options I've listed above. I didn't say so, but I'm going to mount all of these (whichever I choose) in an aluminum panel in the original shape of the Firebird dash. That shouldn't likely matter for this discussion, but thought I would mention it.

Thanx!

[realcoray]

Look into New Vintage or Speed Hut, much cheaper than auto meter and both would have more features. Speed hut doesn't have 5" non pedestal stuff.

I debated between those two, and ended up going speed hut, two gauge pods with 6 gauges total (speedo/tach and quad in one). I happen to be running a LCD screen in my dash separately so I wanted things to take up less space.

I'd highly recommend the new vintage ones though, I'm a huge fan but it just wasn't going to work for me.

[carbuff]

Thanx for the tip about Speed Hut. I have to be honest, I wasn't aware of them before. I looked at their web site, and there are some options to consider there.

I've looked at New Vintage in the past. They look like nice products, but I just haven't found a 'style' in their line that I like. I realize that custom faces are an option, but I'm not sure I can/want to go that far...