E30 dial face upgrade - 8k tacho, 160mph speedo - thoughts?

[Rusty_McRusty]

As I've got a zone chip my tacho goes off the end of the dials, at a guess it's about 7k5. I've had a look and the only way I can see to get an 8k tacho is to upgrade to M3 clocks or something equally expensive. The M3 dials have a different calibration (angle between the pips) and a 160 speedo.

I've been dealing with a dial manufacturer and had a thought of an 8k+ tacho (removing the pointless economy gauge) and perhaps modifying the speedo to 160 mph so that it was at approx the same angle.

Thoughts?

Here's a very simple diagram

[Zizzle]

Good Idea...

The Diagrams Not Very Exciting Tho..

[Rusty_McRusty]

LOL, no, it's the best I could do, not on my own computer so it's a Paint special Shows the basics though, the dials look balanced in terms of their total sweep.

Was thinking of getting them made in a very light grey, much less offensive than WHITE, look nice IMHO.

[Rusty_McRusty]

Spoke to my dial man today about this, should be getting some much better art work sorted out this week.

[Rusty_McRusty]

Here's some much better artwork

[jaistanley]

I'd personally be interested in some nice copies of the M3 dials, complete with swingometer cut out.. I just want to get 8k on the range. I'd need a dakota digital re-sampler to re-calibrate the ecu signal to get the correct range, but thats not a problem.

Is it expensive to get these made up?

Jai

[Rusty_McRusty]

One-offs are expensive to have made, MOQ is about 10 sets...

I was talking with a more experienced E30 owner about using a 6 cylinder coding plug and then re-calibrating the scale but obviously that only works for 4 cylinder cars.

I also amused myself by doing the dials in the M colours... very German tuning house IMO but the wrong side of me quite likes them.

[march109]

One-offs are expensive to have made, MOQ is about 10 sets...

I was talking with a more experienced E30 owner about using a 6 cylinder coding plug and then re-calibrating the scale but obviously that only works for 4 cylinder cars.

I also amused myself by doing the dials in the M colours... very German tuning house IMO but the wrong side of me quite likes them.

Actually with maths and the right resister you should be able to calibrate it for any car regardless of cylinders, there was an explqanation of how they worked on another thread, and quite the little spat too.

[Rusty_McRusty]

If there's a universal solution (i.e. correct value resistor per model) that means a standardised set of M3 replica dials can be used then that's better as you don't want a dial for each type of car, it's not viable really. I just want a dial that works with my chipped M42 as it goes off the end of the clock, adding the 160 marker means that the clocks are balanced in terms of look.

Are replica M3 dials not available then?

[shedrool83]

One-offs are expensive to have made, MOQ is about 10 sets...

I was talking with a more experienced E30 owner about using a 6 cylinder coding plug and then re-calibrating the scale but obviously that only works for 4 cylinder cars.

I also amused myself by doing the dials in the M colours... very German tuning house IMO but the wrong side of me quite likes them.

Think you can change those mtech strips for german flag colours

[Rusty_McRusty]

I can do the art work, unlikely to be much demand for them in mph tho maybe?

[shedrool83]

I can do the art work, unlikely to be much demand for them in mph tho maybe?

Just the art work i'm looking for and i take it from there.
I hopeless with pshop and the likes.

[Zizzle]

One-offs are expensive to have made, MOQ is about 10 sets...

I was talking with a more experienced E30 owner about using a 6 cylinder coding plug and then re-calibrating the scale but obviously that only works for 4 cylinder cars.

I also amused myself by doing the dials in the M colours... very German tuning house IMO but the wrong side of me quite likes them.

LOL.. i was going to suggest this.. when i first saw your draft.... i wanted to get a set like that made up...

but i bought a set of White clusters with red font on here a lil while ago..

[Rusty_McRusty]

It's rough, you'll need to clean it up, was traced from a picture, I'll change the colours anyway.

[shedrool83]

Cheers bud

[Rusty_McRusty]

Here you go, PM me your email address for a larger version of the file.

[chris_335]

Here's some much better artwork

I know this is cheep but is the pic the same size as my dash
will i be able to print and stick