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installing aftermarket tachometer


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I bought a little aftermarket tachometer on my XT Turbo, since my digital dash tach is not as cool as a little needle swinging up and down, it's laggy, and and in the cold (remember, I live in Miami, "cold" is like 40 degrees) the numbers on the digital tach flicker off and on.

 

Don't worry, I didn't get one of those super ricey monster tach's with the huge shift light... lol It's a little 2.5" one that I'm gonna put right on my steering column for that racecar look :D

 

Anyway, I'm trying to get it installed. I hooked it up to the battery and negative end of ignition coil and it works perfectly. now I just need to get it wired in the cockpit.

 

Drilling a hole in the firewall - driver's side: How thick is it? This is probably a bad idea, but it seems like all the wires for the dash come through on the passenger side. I guess I may just have to run the wire through there, but that's a pain in the rump roast. So is drilling, I suppose, I guess I'm trying to figure out what would be less of a pain...

 

What is the best wire to tap in to to get power and ground in the maze of wires under the steering wheel? It's such a mess in there!

 

There's a another wire that is supposed to go to the dimmer switch, I guess to power the light on the tach. Looking at the FSM, man, I can't find it. I feel like a total retard, At one point I was an electrical engineering major :banghead: but these diagrams look like the sewers of paris. I am so terrified of doing something dumb and chasing electrical gremlins...

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So I can just drill a hole in the rubber?

probably

I don't suggest drilling holes in firewalls, and it should be easy to find a pre-drilled hole that is plugged with rubber you can use. It would probably only need a penknife to open a large enough hole up for you to pass wires through.

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Yeah, as was suggested above, just poke a little hole in the grommet for the throttle cable or clutch cable. so far I have managed to run wires and hoses for a temp gauge, boost gauge, intercooler sprayer and difflock switch.. all without having to drill new holes. I keep this up and I am going to have to drill a new hole sooner or later..lol

 

 

For the lighting option on the gauge, I generally tap into the illumination wire on the stereo. That way I don't have to wade through a huge mass of crap to find it.

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