Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

These pods are now for sale - see HERE for anyone interested in purchasing them. I have many other gauge pods available now too - 180SX, S14, S15, Stagea, Forester, WRX...

I thought I'd post a few pics of of my latest project for my R33 for those who are interested.

My mate who has a WRX showed me a few pics of a gauge pod (made by AVO) that you can get for WRX/Liberty/Forester and sits at the bottom of the A Pillar. It's a nice alternative using a Greddy/Autometer style pod and drilling holes into you pillar and certainly more subtle that the A-Pillar pods. I looked around and sure enough, I couldnt find anyone who sells them for Skylines. The WRX ones are like $90 anyway.

So I thought i'd make my own, using Plaster of Paris as a template, make a reverse mould also out of Plaster of Paris and then fibreglass into that mould. For those who are interested, here area couple of pics so far.

All I did was mixed up a batch of approx 2L of Plaster of Paris, waited until it started to set (into a pretty gluggy consistency), poured it into a plastic bag and shoved it into the corner of the dash/windscreen/A-Pillar (see first pic). Once set, I pulled the plastic off and started shaping to roughly what I wanted with a file and rasp (see 2nd pic). There were a few holes and bits I had to mix more plaster to patch up, but it took about 3-4 hours to shape and sand it, minus the time it took for the patches to dry.

The last couple of pics are progress so far. What do you guys think? Total finished cost of Plaster of Paris and fibreglass should be about $40

post-1179-1143948228.jpg

post-1179-1143948517.jpg

post-1179-1143948644.jpg

post-1179-1143948718.jpg

Edited by MearCat
Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/112024-custom-corner-gauge-pod-project/
Share on other sites

Mate that’s what I like to see, some creativity!!! I have been searching for a similar pod to fit a boost gauge in my S2 R33 but cant find one... those pillar pods arn't too bad but are a definite defect in NSW... please keep me posted with pics on how it turns out! Maybe you could be a buddy by making 2 of your prototype pod and seeing how it looks in my car :D hehehe... looking good so far! keep up the great work...

Regards,

Sarkis

I got the two halfs of the mould done last night. I should get to do some fibreglassing into these moulds in the next few days. Once set, the 2 halfs will then be glassed together and then automotive bog used to patch up any small inconsistencies.

The 2nd pic shows a pencil marking where the outer rim of the gauge (it's a 60mm Apexi EL2 boost gauge btw) will be situated.

post-1179-1144033077.jpg

post-1179-1144033281.jpg

When working with plaster of paris, white dust and marks get EVERYWHERE in your car. Once dry, the plaster wipes off easily with a a damp rag, but I highly recommend covering what you can with sandwich/Glad wrap to stop 1) the wet plaster sticking to anything when you first mix it up and it's setting and 2) the dry plaster marking everything it touches which white marks when you're fitting up any template to parts of the interior.

Great idea, looks good.

I dont have a creative bone in my body so could you please explain how you did the reverse moulds?

If you look at the pic on this post you'll hopefully see that the template is half blue, half white. What I did was mix some blue food colouring with water and dipped half of the plaster template into the water. Just like the old Colgate toothpaste ads on TV :laugh: This line that runs down the length of the template and over the face separates it into about halves. So I mixed up another batch of plaster of paris, poured it into plastic container, waited for it to set a bit and then pushed the blue/white template (blue side down) into this plaster up to the line so that no more blue was showing. Waited for it to 95% set and pulled out the template. Then I mixed up another batch of plaster and pushed in the template (white side down this time) so that no more white was showing. What you should end up with two reverse (negative moulds) of the 2 halves of the gauge pod - which you can seal with wax, coat in a release agent (or oil) and fibreglass in them. Then pull the two pieces of fibreglass out, clean off the release agent and fibreglass the two seperate halves together.

I hope that makes sense.

NOTE : Make sure you cover the template in Vaseline before you push it into the plaster, otherwise you'll never get it out!

post-1179-1144076420.jpg

The final product, painted matt black (which matches the dash very well and doesn't reflect any sunlight).

For those of you who are curious, the 3 orange and 1 red LEDs under the boost gauge are for my Axis/Hyperform shift light.

Total Cost was ~$50

post-1179-1145263466.jpg

post-1179-1145263490.jpg

post-1179-1145263527.jpg

With something as light as that double sided sticky tape would be ok, Also wouldnt leave marks on the dash if you wanted to sell the car.

BTW great work im now thinking about doing that for my 32

that looks cool man how much are you going to charge to seel them and how are you keeping it from moving

I wasn't thinking of selling any in the immediate future but in the long term I may look into how much it would be to get them manufactured in a ABS plastic or something similar, but don't hold your breath. Hence this thread to show people how to make them. Although, depending on feedback/demand ....

As for holding it down, it doesn't actually need anything at all. There is a lip at the back of the dash which the back part of the pod stops it from moving back/front and at the front of the pod where it's contoured to the dash stops it from moving left/right. I was running 12psi tonight (on a cool 12degC evening) and at WOT & fast cornering and it didn't move at all. But the bottom of the pod is slightly raised from the dash level to allow to double sided tape/velcro just in case.

  • 2 months later...

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • The fab work can be as simple as a couple of silicon hoses and clamps to the factory piping. 
    • Just sounds like either way you need to do some fab work to get everything to fit, so why limit yourself at that point? If the GCG high flow option is zero effort in and out swap though I'd probably do that. It's almost certainly lowest risk, lowest cost, etc. The HKS GTIII-RS option that Kapr mentioned is laughably expensive for what it is, they charge the exact same for two turbos on the RB26 so their margins are off the charts on that thing.
    • Intake manifold is not a part of the issue. The turbo bolts to the exhaust manifold. That is easy. But close your eyes and picture the physical situation. That is a T3 flange on the manifold and a T3 flange on the turbo. As long as any new turbo has a T3 flange on the exhaust housing, that exhaust housing will bolt to the exhaust manifold. This places the exhaust housing in the same place as the stock one. But now move your mental attention a little further forward. The location of the compressor housing is set by the length of the turbo's core. The stock turbo had a long core. Let's say that it is..... 100mm long. So that would place the compressor housing 100mm forward of the exhaust housing. But a highflow, might well have a centre core that is shorter. Let's say that it is only 70mm long. Now the compressor housing will be 30mm further back in the engine bay than the stock one. This DOES move the turbo's compressor outlet backwards. It also moves the compressor's inlet backwards. You will very likely have to do some work to both the inlet and outlet piping to make everything connect again. I am not say this to make it out to be a bigger deal than it is. I am just pointing out that "bolt on" is sometimes not quite bolt on. The highflow from GCG that Murray linked above (https://gcg.com.au/turbo-charger-upgrade-skyline-gtst-2iu-xtrgts-s1.html ) uses a core that is the same length as the stock core, and so does not require this extra work. It will look very much like the stock turbo. No-one uses GTR turbos of any flavour (stock, or aftermarket) in a single turbo application on RB20/25. It's not a thing. Yes, people have been putting on GT3076, GTX3076 (and bigger and smaller versions of those) and G30s (of various sizes) onto RB20/25 since forever. But these are not "bolt on". Everything except the 4 bolts to the exhaust manifold change with these. And genuine Garretts are expensive. Non-gen, like Pulsar, etc, are cheaper, variously as good or nearly as good. But still not bolt on. No-one in the right mind would pay for an HKS turbo. Not in this modern day and age. Well, yes, the GCG highflow. You could ask HG what he can do to make the compressor housing sit in the original location. There are surely others doing highflows around the world. And some of the eBay/Temu ones (as reported by Dose) work and don't die. Bit of a lottery though. I would send your turbo to GCG (here in Oz) to be highflowed if you want a trivial no-extra-work option. But seriously, the work required to change inlet and outlet piping is not that hard. That's a boost control problem, not a turbo problem.
    • Thank you all for the replys 🙂 I know that intake would be different but that is one pipe at it is not that hard to get(custom one). I meant mainly bolt to the stock manifold and the turbo elbow. I looked and many sites/forums but they are just "old" with some old HKS turbos from GT-R i guess? What about some Garrets?  Or any other turbo? Is there even a turbo which i can just bolt on? 😄 And yeah i know about that new HKS but that is like 2000k USD without taxes/shipping in here   Iam getting a touch up tune but my "problem" is that on the "not" hot day iam getting peaks around 0,9 bar...and when it was around 15 Celsious i saw peak around 1 bar which is just too much for stock turbo. And of course turbo is old and i like to get some new one for a piece of mind 🙂 
    • I'm working on the assumption that our friend Jasmine here is a Russian (or, possibly Ukrainian) spammer/spambot, based purely on the number of such that I have been having to neuter in the last few weeks. IP address for the OP above was in WA. But that could have been via VPN. Posting at quarter to 4 in the morning is a good sign of being from somewhere in Europe. The last Jasmine that I kicked in the cooch was IP addressed in Ukraine. Even that could have been via VPN, and the bitchbot could have been from Russia, Serbia, China or anywhere. Regardless, was a spambot, so I killed it with fire. The fact that our new friend Jasmine here did not respond in any way to my tart query strongly suggests to me that this OP was just the establishment phase of a user able to be activated for spamming in a week, or 3 or 10.
×
×
  • Create New...