10 replies to this topic

[Kerrin]

Bought a koso digi dash over a year ago, and never made the jump and fitted it.

This one

I just noticed in one of the magazines that they now produce a mini specific speedo cable pickup unit (its on the vmaxbits website) and I am seriously thinking of changing over to it and removing the centre clocks.

Anyone else fitted one? how easy was it, can the fuel gauge and the temp sender be made to work easily, any pitfalls?

Cheers

Edited by Kerrin, 06 December 2010 - 12:05 AM.

[Darkscamp]

I fitted a Koso dash to the scamp and it took just a few hours.



The fuel pickup just uses the feed that would have gone to the original clocks, i just had to change the setting on the clocks until it worked and theres only 2 settings so no that hard to work out

The temp sender is 1/8NPT (well it was on mine), so i just got a 5/8UNF adapter from speedycables so it would fit in the cylinder head replacing the original. It is very accurate, alot better than the standard one.


Speedo cable wise i bought the short speedo adapter from John at Vmaxbits(very helpfull guy). It screws onto the old threaded speedo cable. I changed my speedo cable for the shorter threaded one as there is enough cable on the adapter so it sits in the engine bay and is easily accessable. I thought of getting the new adapter that threads onto the box but didnt fancy trying to get my hand down there every 5 mins if i had problems.

[Kerrin]

Thanks for the info, it doesnt seem too bad then.

My standard temp and fuel gauge are really useless despite new senders and wiring, so I may as well go for this.

Cheers

[Southy]

As has already been said, wiring the clock is is fairly easy, I just sat down for an hour or so beforehand with my loom and checked the diagram and labelled everything up so when it came to adding on the tail harness for the clock i was straight forward.

The clock itself I can't fault, when I bought mine over 2 year ago it was brilliant but after a few months I had an issue with it and nothing seemed to work with the correct warning lights on the clock anymore even though it was still wired the same. I had lost all the details of the clock at this time so I didn't know who to contact, luckily I went to Himley hall earlier this year and saw the clocks on John's stall from Vmaxbits and remembered it was ifrom himself I had bought it.I explained to him what had happened with the clock and even after 1 year and 1/2 he told me to send the clock back for a replacement due to it being part of a bad batch he had.

I also enquired about the cable convertor and John explained in detail of how it actually worked, and I had decided to purchase one of them, aswell as needing a new temp sender due to the cable braking. Due to the inconvenience caused (and due to a delay in sending the order out due to him being away with shows) John gave the items to me for free.All in all I rate both the clocks' and the customer service by Vmaxbits very highly and would gladly use them again.

[Kerrin]

Just ordered the pickup, and going to order the temp adaptor in a minute.

My car has central clocks (original) with a white multiplug simmilar to the stalk plugs, mayhe with 10 pins.

Anyone know if you can get this plug from anywhere as a spare part, just in case I want to put the old clock back at any point, or it is pretty easy to just modify the loom.

[Southy]

I would just splice the loom a couple of inch from the plug, that way should you wish to revert back, you have the plug with the wire connections/colours attached and its just a case of rejoining them together

[Kerrin]

Its too cold in the garage tonight so spent the night on the net.

I found a suitable connecter on Autosparks website so will make up a new custom loom I think.

[Kerrin]

Ok, got all the components together now, only a couple of questions.

What did you guys use for the ignition/charge light?

The dash doesn't have an ignition light, and the only light spare which earths is the neutral light (-ve)

Or is it better to rig up a proper bulb holder to make sure the alternator works correctly

From the HBOL the indicator light on the standad centre clock feeds power from each circuit and earths through the opposite side circuit. Can I just split these to feed each the left and right indicator lights on the dash.

[Kerrin]

Cheeky bump, I want to wire it up tommorow so need a pointer.

[Kerrin]

To answer my own question, the alternator does not seem to switch off the neutral light on the dashboard when the engine is started, unless you rev it up to over 2k.

So I have used a separate warning light. I am not sure if the alternator is on top form, but suspect the LED in the dash does not quite have enough resistance to switch the alternator.

The other functions of the dash are great, even got the Rev Counter wired up to the megajolt unit and working with the tach output wire.

Trying to get the speedo as accurate as possible, but with the dull weather all the flashing speed warning signs are not working.

[stujepson]

Just got one of these dashes myself just trying to match the wires from the diagrams, you got any advics or tips?