[lordfury007]

The custom dash thats been in the works for a few months...

Still has some pretty big modifications to go, including a center console area, a grab bar, a glove box (decided to go without a lid) and a removable gauge cluster area.

Everything is designed to be compatible with the original dash (ie: vent locations and controls etc)

Should get it completed in a few days, will post upgraded pics then, planning on covering it with marine carpet or similar to reduce the reflectiveness and stop any scratches.

By the way, the round circle in the middle of the dash is for a RAM Mount 'ball' to be mounted flush with the dash

[Joe]

Cool but whats the ball thing for

[lordfury007]

it allows any RAM mount to be mounted there. I plan on using it with a Laptop platform, similar to this one here

[Gwagensteve]

Just out of interest, what do you see as the advantage of the aluminium dash?

Steve.

[TZAR]

Please put a glove box in it. You will so regeret not doing it later. Remember its the only dry spot when you go through a deep creek, or mud or get accidently swamped. You could even just put a spot that is an big space in the dash.

Have you been to the wreckers and found some diffent vents. You are redesigning the whole dash so this gives you an open book for adding stuff. I would look for some flat mutli directional vents that you can close and even add some different vents in the middle.

Maybe even change the steering column to a tilt adjustable/slide inyouty type one too. The hard work has been done already, don't just limit yourself to the ordinary. Maybe even build in a 7 or 10.1inch touch screen into the dash with line in jacks for navigators, radios, ipoo's or even two and use the screens as dashs. Or find a maxima and steal the heads up display and wack that in too. Thats the one that projects your speed onto the windscreen so you never have to look down.

Don't just stick with normal stuff, go burko. make it Uber cool

just my 2 cents

[lordfury007]

steve: I'm doing the whole car up custom, and i don't plan on doing it twice. The advantage of the dash is that it looks nicer, is stronger, and will have everything that i want, where i want, including a fully customiseable and removeable gauge cluster. Its also going to be easy to add further things into it later on, as the entire surface is blank space that i can mount to, and is likely to be strong enough to mount to without further bracing. Aluminium isn't overly too heavy either, and it should be very easy to pull out so i can have access to behind the dash quite easily.

Tzar: as per the OP

Quote:

Still has some pretty big modifications to go, including a center console area, a grab bar, a glove box (decided to go without a lid) and a removable gauge cluster area.

Everything is designed to be compatible with the original dash (ie: vent locations and controls etc)

Haven't planned to make the steering column adjustable, but thats not really part of the dash - might add it to the bottom of the list though. I want to keep it fairly simple still, with a lot of space for gauges to monitor the engine. All the advanced stuff will be running into the computer (ie: music, movies, gps, possibly ECU monitoring, and maybe even waterproof webcams under the car looking at and in front of the wheels)

Already sourced air vents (brand new clip in's) and they will be installed in almost the original locations.

Again, its very easily customiseable from here on in. I'm not planning on using really strong glue to put the marine carpet on so that i can take it off with reasonable force and make changes to the dash if required.

[shakes]

lordfury007 wrote:

The advantage of the dash is that it looks nicer, is stronger,

Not meanig to sound like a hater. but your/passengers face wont look nicer when it meets a stronger custom dash like that.

Love the idea behind almost anything custom, even if it's just "cause I can" and I know sierra's don't really rate on the safety scale. but are you looking to add in some sort of padding so if some douche does pull in front of you, then that alluminium sheet doesn't become a meal?

[Gwagensteve]

Go for your life and all. I'm not crazy about the look or function of custom dashes myself and I was interested as to the perceived benefits. Not for me but your work looks clean and neat - well done.

I wouldn't put marine carpet on it though unless you wanted to grow mushrooms on the dashboard. It will get damp and full of an amazing amount of dust. Yuck. Vinyl, black canvas, paint, machine turned... anything except carpet.

I'll add a comment on a tilt/reach adjustable steering column.

I was keen to do this on my new build as I think the stock sierra column is too high set and too far from the driver, and spent some time at a wreckers trying to find a donor.

It's a huge job, and you would want to have started that well before any work on the dash. Tilt columns generally pivot from the firewall, so finding a car with close to the right geometry from firewall to wheel will be a major problem.

Apparently, some late vitaras have tilt columns (haven't seen one myself) and they might be a possibility - the pedal box from a vitara bolts into a sierra and is only a touch longer which means if you used a pedal box and column from a tilt wheel equipped vitara it might work. Still a big hassle though, especially when you consider the wiring differences.

Steve.

[royce]

I jsut bought one of these for the mini, might look good in there

http://trailtech.net/vector.html

have a look at all the android tablets on ebay, they will do all your car pc stuff with ease and are cheap as, that would look heaps better stuck in the middle of the dash than a laptop poking out like a cop car

[BJPK]

some if not all jlx vitaras have tilt columns. may be a possibility

[lordfury007]

Shakes: The plastic may be a little weaker, but i still believe that its going to be stronger than someones face. I am however thinking about racing harnesses as it increases safety a lot more than cushioning the dash.

Steve: Thanks for the ideas, I might go the Carbon Fibre vinyl i saw in another thread yesterday... The main idea was to hide any mistakes in the dash and also to reduce the reflection. Also, if the steering wheel tilt is that much of an issue I won't bother with it. The only thing i find slightly annoying with my steering wheel is that i have to move my head to see some parts of the gauges, and thats quite minor really. That can be fixed by moving the gauges around on the dash.

Royce: They're good units but i'm not planning on having that data on the laptop. Having a removable plate in front of the steering wheel that has the normal gauges (Speed, RPM, Fuel) plus extras (oil pressure, oil temp, coolant pressure, coolant temp, exhaust temp, battery amps etc) to the side. The laptop is to display Satellite Images (something like Garmin Birdseye) along with Topographic maps (like shonkymaps) and also as a media server for the passenger, that hooks into my car radio. I was thinking of getting the cable that hooks up to my ECU just as an additional bonus, but i'm doubting whether that information would be useful. The mount is recessed into the dash so it doesnt poke out when i'm not using it (ie: when i'm on-road)

Thanks for all the good ideas guys, will get some more photos up soon...

[sickzuk1]

royce wrote:

I jsut bought one of these for the mini, might look good in there

http://trailtech.net/vector.html

have a look at all the android tablets on ebay, they will do all your car pc stuff with ease and are cheap as, that would look heaps better stuck in the middle of the dash than a laptop poking out like a cop car

Does that thing work any good? And how would you hook it up to a Suzy? :S Is that even possible?

[lordfury007]

Edit: I think i might go for that option of recessing a tablet PC into the dash... That might be a modification further down the track at the moment though, when i've got the cash to throw at another computer (bought an eeepc901 with 20GB SSD for $300 a year ago, and was planning on using that) got too many other things popping up and being christmas time i'm running close to budget at the moment...

[Zook_Fan]

royce wrote:

have a look at all the android tablets on ebay, they will do all your car pc stuff with ease and are cheap as, that would look heaps better stuck in the middle of the dash than a laptop poking out like a cop car

the higher end boat software for their gps units have the option to be run as a dash board while you are travelling and stuff. is there anyway that you could hook one of these tablets up to speed, fuel, oil pressure, battery and temp sensors to do the same?

[royce]

I believe there is windows software and sensors to do this, look at wwwmp3car.com

[royce]

sickzuk1 wrote:

royce wrote:

I jsut bought one of these for the mini, might look good in there

http://trailtech.net/vector.html

have a look at all the android tablets on ebay, they will do all your car pc stuff with ease and are cheap as, that would look heaps better stuck in the middle of the dash than a laptop poking out like a cop car

Does that thing work any good? And how would you hook it up to a Suzy? :S Is that even possible?

Dunno, ill tell you when it arrives from the US

it has normal power hook up, takes a tach signal from anything including wrapping the wire around the plug lead, you can get a water temp sensor or a washer that fits under a bolt to measure head temp (mega useful) speed comes from a sensor and magnet like a pushy speedo but I am sure it could be adapted to a vss setup even, I plan of fitting the magnet to the rear hub on my mini and bolting the sensor to the backing plate

[lordfury007]

Updated images, now with the grab bar, center controls/radio area and the glovebox. Also have two removable panels inbuilt (one below the glovebox, and one below the steering wheel) to allow easy access behind the dash.






By the way, I'm paying someone else to make this for me. I don't mean to take credit for all the good work he's doing.

[royce]

needs cupholders

[joeblow]

Gwagensteve wrote:

I'll add a comment on a tilt/reach adjustable steering column.

I was keen to do this on my new build as I think the stock sierra column is too high set and too far from the driver, and spent some time at a wreckers trying to find a donor.

It's a huge job, and you would want to have started that well before any work on the dash. Tilt columns generally pivot from the firewall, so finding a car with close to the right geometry from firewall to wheel will be a major problem.

Apparently, some late vitaras have tilt columns (haven't seen one myself) and they might be a possibility

Steve.

all vitara's, except some base models and the 2.0 litre v6 (?) have tilt columns. there are more vit tilt columns out there than non tilt. all early jlx etc have them, so finding one is easy.......in fact i think i still have half a dozen under the house.


i have a tilt column....and so does kenny in his lj. i have used one from a 1.6 efi jlx and it was just about a bolt in fit! you just have to make sure there is enough clearence from the booster, but if its a standard 1.3 setup it will clear.

[atari4x4]

^^^ joeblow is correct SV420's & SV620's have no tilt... WTF were Suzuki thinking?

[Zook_Fan]

I don't know what your intentions with this car are but if you want to run an internal cage now would be the time to make sure that the dash is narrow enough that you can fit the pipe down beside it to avoid cutting or dinting later.

[alien]

i reckon being that its all alloy, get it anodised matt black =) that'd be sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!

Also - put some small tabs that go up on each side of the dash, this way you can put stuff on the dash against the window and they dont slide off and out the side windows =)

edit: OMG cup holders for sure too!

[Gwagensteve]

alien wrote:

i reckon being that its all alloy, get it anodised matt black =) that'd be sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!
!

Although once the sun gets to it it will go a bit of a deep purple colour - somewhere between cool and ghey.

Steve.

[steak_knife]

atari4x4 wrote:

^^^ joeblow is correct SV420's & SV620's have no tilt... WTF were Suzuki thinking?

base model shit box's...

I like the dash, look very well made.

[joeblow]

steak_knife wrote:

atari4x4 wrote:

^^^ joeblow is correct SV420's & SV620's have no tilt... WTF were Suzuki thinking?

base model shit box's...

OI!........

















pussy........

[steak_knife]

It's true tho...