Superbike81

Company e-mailed me back about returning them. I'm going to send all but one small gauge and the tach back. So the center gauge in the cluster will have the logo, and the center gauge in the triple center pod will have it as well, should flow pretty well without being overkill.

I had a company in the US called SpeedHut custom make me some gauges, they came out great, except for one thing. I requested that the custom GTR logo be put on the tach ONLY. This is a $25 option per gauge, and I have my invoice, I only paid once. So they made a mistake and put them on ALL of the gauges. The tach, speedo, and boost gauge are all 80mm gauges. The smaller gauges are 52mm. Should I send them back and get new ones the way I ordered? Or should I keep them? I'm on the fence, I like both ways, but some friends have told me it's "GTR overkill" and others have told me they really like it. Opinions? I added a poll just to see what the overall thoughts are. Thanks!

I paid $850 US shipped. However, I only paid for the GT-R logo on one gauge, as it's a $25 option (per gauge I think). So they made a mistake and accidentally did it on all the gauges, I'm trying to figure out if I want to keep it that way or not.

Got my set of gauges in today. Love them! Can't wait to get them installed with the new dash.

Interior should be partially complete in a few weeks. I've got the Evo IX Recaros installed now, SpeedHut gauges on the way, and a friend of mine is layering a couple sections of the dashboard in carbon fiber, outer edges of the dash as well as the center radio trim will be done in flock material. So the dash will be installed in a few weeks, but the door panels and center console will be custom made from fiberglass and carbon fiber, so those will take a bit of time to do. Between work and college, my time has been very limited lately. So things will be a bit slow going. Car is going into the body shop in February for a complete restore. I'm keeping the stock R32 front, East Bear rear bumper, and Bee*R side skirts.

Got a few new things on the way to me in the mail right now, should be here sometime next week.... Mitsubishi Evo IX MR Recaro leather/alcantara seats: SpeedHut custom gauges. 80mm GPS Speedo, Tachometer, and Boost Gauge. Along with 52mm Water Temp, Oil Pressure, and Fuel Level. The gauges should be here in ~2 weeks since they are custom made. Momo Evo steering wheel, will be installing custom buttons to operate the turn signals so I can eliminate the stalk. Also the shiny parts will be covered with 3M Di-Noc carbon vinyl to match the rest of the interior. Dash fitting is going well. Going to do some more custom stuff with it though. The outer edges, as well as the lower panels will be "flocked", the passenger airbag panel as well as the driver's side main panel will be covered in carbon fiber vinyl. So the dash will be a mix of a carbon vinyl and flock, should look very good as long as I execute it all correctly.

I completely understand, but under my normal driving conditions, which are an average of 50-60kph, with an occasional sprint up to 100kph, all on roads that are in pretty good condition, I don't think the safety issue of these wheels will be a factor. I live on a small island with lots of red lights and low speed limits everywhere. Something like Rota wheels, I can understand, because they are made to be lightweight as well. If they aren't forged, and are still lightweight, there is only really one way to make them light, and that's to use less metal. These wheels are still fairly heavy, feel very solid, and I don't think they will give me any problems. When I do go to the track, a beat up set of R33 or R34 GT-R wheels will be fitted with good tires. The dashboard, I'm working on as well, I'm going to be using a dampening spray on the underside to hopefully eliminate any vibrations or rattles. I'll be mounting it very securely, and adding foam material to further block rattles in areas that really need it. Also the dash will be covered in leather, so should make it less prone to rattles. They are custom done by me at home. The base is a kouki (late model R32) projector headlight, with the inner housing painted black and a aftermarket clear lens cover used. I used 55w 6000k HID's as well, and it lights up the road amazingly well, much better than my old headlight setup.

Latest pic, with my new 19's. I think they look amazing, perfect for a street car with some style. I understand not everyone will like it, but I love it. I just need bigger brakes, which I'll be going the route of V37/370Z sport Akebono brakes.

No progress pictures on the dash, just been doing some trimming here and there. I'm going to fit my satnav in the location of the stock stereo, not the bit above it with the opening door. I was going to modify my dashboard crossbar, but decided against it. Sourcing the rest of the parts for the dash now. Ordered my tires, nothing special, just cheap daily tires. My AD08's will go on a cheap set of track wheels.

I have a BNR32 that I am fitting a 350z dash into. I'm trying to get ahold of this piece: I just need the plastic dash cover piece that goes over the airbag. I don't care if the airbag has been deployed or not, it's fine, the dash is going to be recovered anyways. The problem is, we don't currently have any 350z's at junkyards in Okinawa, the part brand new from Nissan is $2000 US, because it comes with an airbag, and they won't sell it separate. Junkyards in mainland Japan won't ship me the part, because they say it's illegal for them to sell the part without a good airbag, which is crap. So, I'm expanding my search to Australia. Hoping that someone knows of a junkyard that has one and can go grab the part for me and ship it to me. I'll pay all costs of course. Even contact info to a wrecking yard that you know has a 350z would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time! Jason

So you know someone who is doing the Z33 dash? Do you have contact info for them? I would like to collaborate with them to make everything go a little smoother.

Oh and I'm also going to have to rewire the headlight switch as well. Maybe use a R33 steering wheel mounted style stalk or something.

Depending how far you want to go, it can be pretty easy, or it can be fairly in depth. I'm doing the full center console, navigation mounted in the hideaway area, and door panels, so mine take a bit of custom work. But if you just do the dash and center console, not really that tough, but still a little bit of custom work will be required.

As part of my project to bring my R32 into modern times, I took some measurements and found that the Z33 350z dashboard was a pretty close match to the R32 dimensions. So I went ahead and found a used dash frame for about $75 USD shipped. Not too bad, it's in good condition overall. Pulled my dash out today for the initial test fit. I was VERY pleasantly surprised, this is going to be easier than I was expecting. Check out the pictures, I am utterly amazed how well this fits the R32, like it was meant to be. This is what the entire dash looks like installed complete in a 350z: List of things to do I've found so far: 1) Modify main crossbar, because right now it's in the way of mounting the navigation unit I have. So it's going to need to be cut in the center, and then just have a strong enough steel plate welded in the back of it to maintain strength, but give me an extra 3 or 4". This isn't completely needed, but I want my navigation unit to be in the hideway section just below the center triple gauge section. If I installed it in the factory stereo spot, no need to do this. 2) Cut about 3/4-1" of depth out all around, and modify/fabricate some mounting brackets to get everything mounted solid. Other little minor trimming and filling here and there, nothing major though. 3) Cover the spot where the passenger airbag was with something. Thinking about mounting something in there, just not sure what yet. Maybe one of my audio components or something, I dunno. I might just cover it with fiberglass/plastic and leave it blank. 4) Have everything retrimmed in leather/alcantara/carbon fiber. 5) I can easily modify my stock door panels to work, but I will be doing 350z door panels, so that way everything flows together nicely. You can eliminate quite a bit of work if you are willing to slightly modify the shape of the upper stock door panel. But I'm going for a full interior upgrade, not just the dash. 6) Route new piping from the airbox so I can still get good A/C and heat and defrosting and everything, shouldn't be too difficult, might just have to get creative with it. 7) I want to use the 350z gauge cluster, so wiring it up should be interesting, we'll see how that goes. 8) Relocate e-brake handle to the other side. Easy, just have to make a new bracket, drill some holes, and move the g-sensor a little to the right. I'm sure there will be other little stuff I'll run into, but this is the major stuff. Now that I know it will fit well, I need to start shopping on Yahoo Auctions for the rest of the panels. They should be fairly cheap, another $100 US or so total. I know not a lot of people will want to do this modification, but I'm still going to write a detailed log of modifications made in order to do this. I think overall it's going to be pretty simple. Door panels may prove to be interesting, since a fair amount of reshaping will be needed. As well as modifying my current door handle setup to work with the Z door handle.

It's expensive stuff, the rear bumper is ¥71,400' available direct through East Bear, but I'm sure you've got someone in Australia who has a contact with them. http://www.east-bear.co.jp/shopdetail/006007000001/order/ for the bumper Side steps are actually an add-on piece to the OEM side steps, and run about ¥40,000 http://www.east-bear.co.jp/shopdetail/006008000001/order/