I have been sent an advanced copy of the indiglo dials which are currently being made for the UK 300ZX. The ones sent to me had the 300KPH speedo which I didnt put on as it has no corrolation with the UK dials and I would be pulled over for speeding or slowing. (Is that a crime ? ;))

 

These pictures don't really show how bright these dials are. The camera has a tendency to over expose so you lose colour and contrast a little, but you can compair it to the brightness of the original speedo.

 

The first picture is blured because I had to hold the camera very still for a longer exposure because it was dark.

 

 

 

 

Here is the draft for the UK MPH ones

 

 

 

I have made a small video of what it looks like when driving. Right click save as or just click HERE to down load the video. The video should be about 5mb.

 

 

In the pack I got rev counter, speedo, oil pressure, boost, water temp, fuel and that 300ZX panel, which can go on either the boost area or the oil pressure. As well as that there are instructions on how to install, powerpack for the dials and all wires needed.

Installation was quite easy but time consuming because you have to get things right and there is often little room to work with.

The wiring of the dials to the power is really simple. Wire the power to a dash bulb, and out of the pack is a wire with 6 plugs on. Just plug a dial into a plug.

The power does make a little hummm noise when on and I thought it was going to drive me made. But once I stored it behind the dash and I had everything back together, you cant hear it. If you hear a hummm on the video sound, that the camera motor going.

 

I have not driven with the dials during the day so I dont know what its like yet but I cant see any problems. :D

 

Any questions?

 

Stuart

Nice work Stuart. Quick question, how bright did you have your UK cluster set to as you can hardly see them? You can hardly see the needles too.

 

Or is this because the indiglo ones are that much brighter the camera doesn't pick them up?

 

Thanks again for taking the time to do this

James

Yeah that is the problem, the camera doesnt pick them up. You can see the needles easily normally.

 

The Speedo is on the brightest setting the dash allows. It is readable but the camera set up to the brightness of the other dials so the speedo gets under exposed and doesnt look very bright, but it is no where near as bright as the glow ones.

 

 

Stuart

Yep I like em. I deffo want some of those they look great.

Will the Jap dials go up to 190 MPH because the calibration is different from the UK ones ?.

 

Oh bye the way someone has incked your fuel needle :D

LOL No its there.

The camera doesnt pick up the needle light well.

 

The dials will be 180mph UK spec ones.

 

 

Stuart

So that means it won't be accurate for Jap cars then :( ?

Stu -

don't go booking a flight out to Cannes mate!

 

:D

 

Very nice dials though!

 

I might go back and read more about them now I've seen what they look like!

Stuart...What codec is used to playback the video?? I just get audio on my PC.. :(

Its just Windows Media Player one.

 

Try getting the latest Meda Player.

 

 

Stuart I thought they where the same :(

You can get the speedo recalibrated quite easily apparently. There is a screw at the top of the dial

 

 

Nigel: I have made a other videos. Have you not see it?

IMHO you have too many colours Stu,but as long as you like it is all that matters;)

Any chance you can power up the speedo cover so we can see how the "Dials " logo looks??

Yeah. I have to take the dash off again anyways so I will put the speedo on and take other pics.

 

Stuart

Cheers Stuart :)

http://www.twinturbo.net/net/viewmsg.aspx?forum=general&msg_id=881912

 

not trying to cause trouble lol, but here is an opinion from an Aussi who had then done.

 

Hey guys, as his post just said, we just finished a group buy from autoillusions with the 300zx forum in Australia. I dont want to ruin any business for autoillusions but I feel I should point out some things that went on in our group buy. Everything i sum up here is available on the aus300zx.com forum.

Firstly the R&D didnt take 1 month as promised. In fact it was something closer to 3 months from memory. During that whole period there was next to nothing in communication from these guys. People would pay their deposits and only some people ever got acknowledgements of their payment and so forth. Some of our members got quite irate about the fact that there were no updates and no communication and vowed never to do business with autoillusions again after this. Personally I was patient and didnt really care, but it was a little annoying.

 

Secondly as to the dials themselves a couple of problems. Firstly the font is a little bit funny. If you look at the pics, you might notice the 6 looks like an 8. Not a big deal, but annoyed some people. Also in direct sunlight the dials can be a little difficult to read.

 

Next came problems with the installation. After a few people (myself included) had trouble with installing the dials, they were looked over by a very experienced dial technician and calibrator and it was highly recommended for people to get this done proffessionally due to the ease in which you could stuff up your dials if you did it yourself. The main problem was that the dials were slightly too thick, causing the needle (especially tacho) to get stuck. Now the only solution to this was to gently pull the tacho out slightly to give it some room, but there is absolutely no room for error here and if the connecting pin travels more than a mm then your tacho wont work and can do permanent damage. This was the problem with mine, I managed to fix it myself but I think so slight residual damage was done (tacho doesnt move quite as fast as it did before). Plus it was very easy to move the pins like this during the install, even being very careful about it.

 

Lastly came problems with recalibration. Here in australia some people had the 300km/h speedo so didnt require any changes, but some only had the 240km/h speedo so needed to do some recalibration. One of our members is in this field and did a write up for us and he noticed one of the big problems in calibrating it properly was that the lines marking the speeds were unevenly spaced!! Most noticeable between 40-60-80 km/h, making it impossible to accurately calibrate it at normal driving (and speed camera) speeds. Its not far off, but for something that should of been CAD drawn and measured it was a bit sloppy.

 

For the good part, the dials themselves IMO look absolutely fantastic, especially at night. Really give the Z a more modern look. Once the dials were finished shipping was quite prompt and in good packaging.

 

Sorry, especially to autoillusions, about having to be so negative about the product, but these are all honest problems we had with the dials sold to us.

I posted a reply to the above post. I was unaware of some of these issues till tonight.

 

RE: problems encountered.

True, production did take a lot longer than the usual. This is becuase it was the first time we had ever under gone a co operative group buy. We constantly had feedback coming in from the 42 members of the group, which required action. Such as ammending logos, position of markings, etc.

 

The face markings came from the Zsports 300km/hr dash. All markings were spot on at every stage through to production. So it could be that the Zsports dash might have been off.

 

Installation: One of the pre requisites of the dial's design was that they had to be installed without removing the needles. Challenging, but we did it.

 

Instructions: The instructions were based on the installation of the prototype. We did not encounter the needle sticking to the face problem. This could've been casued by the double sided tape people use to adhere the faces is too thick. If in doubt you should get a professional to do it.

 

Manufacturing: As per usual with manufacturing, first run of products always encounter unexpected complications. With templates on hand combined with group buying experience, you can expect a drastic reduction in turn-around time (ie. 1 month). We have changed the laminate used in the production process, purely for reduction of glare.

Originally posted by 300z

http://www.twinturbo.net/net/viewmsg.aspx?forum=general&msg_id=881912

 

not trying to cause trouble lol, but here is an opinion from an Aussi who had then done.

Interesting thread. It shows that, as usual, the US guys get a better price than we do! :(

 

$118 for the US (around £75 depending on exchange rate)

£90 for the UK

You guys get them delivered. The US doesn't. We have already got freight going to a from the UK atm. Not so with the US, i'm unsure of the charges so I didnt factor it in the cost.

That's fair enough then, although reading your post on tt.net I'd certainly assume that shipping was included in that price.

 

Does the £90 include UK import duty and VAT?

Express post to your door. Nothing more to pay.

Originally posted by jaffa

Any chance you can power up the speedo cover so we can see how the "Dials " logo looks??

 

 

You wanted it with the speedo in too.

 

Here they are.

 

They may look a little dim, but they are not. I didnt have the brightness adjuster plugged in cos I just plugged the dash in to see if I had them right again. My dash is still in bits ;)

 

 

 

Close up of the dials

 

 

 

Further away. This time the camera got the colour very will but it was brighter in real life. Plus I didnt have the changer plugged in, so it was just set on the middle brightness setting.

 

 

 

Stuart

Originally posted by SRRAE

You wanted it with the speedo in too.

 

Here they are.

 

 

 

 

 

Stuart

 

Well it does look much better all the same colour,instead something of a fair ground;)

 

For those that don't have an aftermarket oil pressure gauge,how do they read the stock pressure?or was that your choice?

In the pack you get boost, oil pressure and the 300ZX. You can pick what you want.