hood tach ?

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I need a new hood for my grand prix, and i was thinking of adding a hood tach. that is, if i can pull it off without it looking too out of place. it's a 90's era grand prix and i've been thinking about doing a historic pontiac theme with it.

I'm making a healiner with the pontiac chief raised in the center, and my trunk will feature the old pontiac "V" backlit for the false floor. i'm also looking into adding pontiac sidemarkers like 1st gen firebirds (i think) had, but recessed.

but i digress. my biggest question is whether anyone makes electronic hood tachs for the gto/grand prix/cutlass so tat it can be used with a v6. i would also like it to be digital to match the digital cluster i installed, but i could deal with an analog tach.

so, any help is appreciated. thanks in advance.

I know what your trying to do however an old pontiac hood Tac will not work, However you can buy this new fiberglass clone with a round hole for a guage, I will look in my HPP book tomarrow to find the people who make it. I will write again when I get the lead for you.

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i realize an old pontiac cable-driven tach wouldn't work. that's why i asked if anyone made an electronic replacement that may work with a v6. unless maybe 80's-era g body hood tachs were electronic. i don't know. anyhow, i guess if there is a company that makes clones of the old hood tach, that makes it that much easier for me to put in a digital tach to match my interior gauges.

thanks for looking into this for me.

LOL, no the old pontiacs did not use cable driven hood tacs, lol man that would be very old or even a off distrib.

I have been going threw my mags but I cannot find my new HHP, between me finding it you can try to goto the webpage HPP.

The hood tac holder they sell has a place to add in a guage, the guage can be anything, even a cyberdyne unit tac, you can't use a real pontiac hood tac because your not running a V8, however I think they may have a 6ohc hood tac, however I would try calling around first.

I have family comming in tomarrow, so plaese bare with me on getting back to you

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well hey. learn something new every day, huh? i'm more familiar with late eighties-present cars, obviously. lol. i'm not in a real big hurry for this stuff. i'ms till finishing up my interior, then i have a lot of body work to do before i get around to the hood and prepping for paint. so take your time. in the mean time, i'll look around and see what i can find on hpp. thanks

I was reading another one of my HPP mags and I seen a guy going low 14s with a GP with the 3800, it was kinda striped down, but for stock wow.

You can have yourself a sleeper for sure, the aftermarket loves that 3800 engine, you can get hedders, cams, blowers, dry shots on NOS, forged bottom end, and nasty ported heads, and to top it all off its a light car.

You can even get a posi for that thing.

If I was in my GTO and I got taken by a 3800, man I would park it untill I got my new engine LOL.

But really the cable driven tac was used only on mags that make it's own power, and you have to use a cable to drive a tac, you can do this today, but on yours ..no.

I use cyberdyne guages, digital , they are ok, but i'm so used to watching a sweeping needle it's hard to get used to them, I like them because it's something you don't see every day, but just before you run sombody you have to do a check list,, it's like this, with a needle you can look at it and know its to the left or right, and you know it's ok, but when I get ready to run somebody, I have to look at the guage and think about what the correct number it, my oil temp has to be around 160-170, the trans around 150, air fule, the higher part of rich, the oil pressure 45 at idle warmed up, water temp 160-180, volts around 15, do it's work, I kinda like it like I said, but it's easyer to look at where a needle is. however on the flip side of that haveing to study for a few seconds will help you not destory the engine.

Think about this when you buy the guage, I will look for that stuff soon, and I will add some 3800 info also.

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i did the 3800 thing, and it screwed me in the butt. plus you're thinking second generation w-body. i have a 90 grand prix with a 93 3.1 liter. first generation w-bodies were 88-97 for the olds cutlass supreme, 88-96 for the grand prix. second gen was 97-03, which brought with it the second gen 3800 that i swapped into my 96.

i had a 96 grand prix that i bought wrecked, and fixed it. i put a 98 s/c 3800 (L67) in it, and 7,300 miles after i did the swap, even though i rebuilt the engine, the intake gasket blew on me and wreaked havoc on the pistons.
after i blew the 3800, i put the 96 in storage and started building a 3.4 dohc (Lq1) for it. unfortunately, i lost both the car and the engine in the september floods last year. now all i have is my 90.

i was just going to show you a pic of the digital gauges i'm using and tell you that i'm not much worried about accuracy anymore since i'm focusing more on luxury and comfort with this car, as opposed to performance. but since i'm doing that i'll post all the pics i have of the interior swap i've been doing on my 90. i'll have to get some pics of the headliner and speaker box soon. the last pic is from my old interior. it's a fiberglass center console i made to hold some switches.

the new interior is all from a 97 cutlass supreme, except for the digital gauge cluster, which is from a 92 cutlass.

I see , my bad, I don't know why I thought it was the othe car, I guess I was thinking of that guy running 14s.

Is that first pic a picture of the reedouts on the windshield? My bud has a GTP with that, I like that alot, I wish you could retro fit that, I would not mind haveing that.

So your going with more of a Lux then a pro, sounds like you got little bumed on the 3800s, I would also, I know that stuff is not really cheap, non of it is, but I know you allready had some slim pickings with aftermarket speed parts, and the good stuff out is mega money.

I will make sure I find that book and get the info.

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no the first pic is my cd player and dual zone climate control at night. i just have a really cheap digi cam, so it looks funny. anyhow, that pic is just supposed to show that i changed the display form oldsmobile blue to pontiac red, so everything looks factory.

and you're thinking of heads-up display. i have a heads-up display from a 93 grand prix, but the dash style changed in 94 a more rounded style that you see in my pics above. if i can't find one from a 94-96 grand prix or cutlass, i am going to retrofit the one i have. i'm just going to have to modify the housing a bit to fit the dash i have a little better.

you COULD retro fit the hud to fit your gto (assuming that's what you have). there was a guy a while back who put a digital cluster like i have into his 70 olds cutlass s. i believe he used an ecm from a w-body to provide the tach signal and pulses for the speedometer. and if that information is put out, the hud will work. theoretically, you wouldn't need a gauge cluster at all if you put in hud, since it supplies an ses, check gauges, turn signal indicators, etc. however, you don't have to use an ecm like he did. you could use a pic or similar microcontroller.

In fact, if you were really interested, i could probably put you in contact with a guy who has designed a microcontroller to do just that. it's far from common, but i've seen these things go into anything from a mitsu 3000gt to recently a renault something or other.

as far as the 3800 goes. yeah i just burned out very quickly after mine went. i dumped a lot of money into rebuilding it, and i had to have a lot of coaching since it's a 90-degree v6 and i'm most familiar with gm's 60-degree v6 family(2.8, 3.1, 3.4, 3100, 3400, etc.). and aside from all the mechanical work, there was a buttload of rewiring to do, too. i had to splice together the interior harnesses from the 96 and from a 98, and then to underhood rewiring as well.

i'll be the first to admit the s/c 3800 was a lot quicker than my 3.1. but, the 3.1 is pretty much bulletproof and it's easier to maintain, so this makes the most sense for me right now being that my 96 went to the salvage yard.

Originally Posted by stockgp

no the first pic is my cd player and dual zone climate control at night. i just have a really cheap digi cam, so it looks funny. anyhow, that pic is just supposed to show that i changed the display form oldsmobile blue to pontiac red, so everything looks factory.

and you're thinking of heads-up display. i have a heads-up display from a 93 grand prix, but the dash style changed in 94 a more rounded style that you see in my pics above. if i can't find one from a 94-96 grand prix or cutlass, i am going to retrofit the one i have. i'm just going to have to modify the housing a bit to fit the dash i have a little better.

you COULD retro fit the hud to fit your gto (assuming that's what you have). there was a guy a while back who put a digital cluster like i have into his 70 olds cutlass s. i believe he used an ecm from a w-body to provide the tach signal and pulses for the speedometer. and if that information is put out, the hud will work. theoretically, you wouldn't need a gauge cluster at all if you put in hud, since it supplies an ses, check gauges, turn signal indicators, etc. however, you don't have to use an ecm like he did. you could use a pic or similar microcontroller.

In fact, if you were really interested, i could probably put you in contact with a guy who has designed a microcontroller to do just that. it's far from common, but i've seen these things go into anything from a mitsu 3000gt to recently a renault something or other.

as far as the 3800 goes. yeah i just burned out very quickly after mine went. i dumped a lot of money into rebuilding it, and i had to have a lot of coaching since it's a 90-degree v6 and i'm most familiar with gm's 60-degree v6 family(2.8, 3.1, 3.4, 3100, 3400, etc.). and aside from all the mechanical work, there was a buttload of rewiring to do, too. i had to splice together the interior harnesses from the 96 and from a 98, and then to underhood rewiring as well.

i'll be the first to admit the s/c 3800 was a lot quicker than my 3.1. but, the 3.1 is pretty much bulletproof and it's easier to maintain, so this makes the most sense for me right now being that my 96 went to the salvage yard.

Yes I have a 1972 GTO, I built it from the ground up, and yes I had to do alot of wireing, I have cyberdyne guages that need alot of wireing alone, I rewired the whole engine bay less the headlight wires. I once had the wrong harness for the rear wireing, it plugs into the back of the guages, I had the wrong one, and it drove me nuts till I found the problem, I would not have wanted to rewire what you did LOL.

I have the info, it's alittle off tho, the caption reads like this :

" An auto meter boost guage resides in the optional hood mounted guage pod."

Hold on let me scan this picture.

[IMG][/IMG]
This thing looks kinda cool, however it's no replacemnet for the real thing.
If Auto Meter does not make this unit, try this www.arrowheadperformance.com
www.moderndaymusclecars.com as these pople are listed.
You know I had a rental pontiac grand Prix that had that 3.1, around 94? I was taking it back and got caught caught in one of those stop or run lights turning yellow, and I hammered it, that car jumped down into 1st and ran like a rapedApe, it was alittle scarry funny, it moved out. Keep me up to date on your ride, it seem like a fun trip!

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that's about what i'm looking for, though i'd prefer if it was a bit more squared off. also, it looks a little awkward with that tiny gauge and all that empty space around it.oh well, i could do something with all that space. thanks a ton for the info bud!

rewiring everything on my interior was a nightmare. you'd be right to be scared. but i think rewiring the gauges in my buddy's 66 mustang was more of a challenge, only for the limited space and the sharp metal edges of the dash.

if you had a 94, it would be the 3100 v6. same block, different heads and upper & lower intake manifolds. the 3.1 isn't horribly underpowered considering w bodies can weigh a hare over 4000 lbs. 140 hp/180lb.ft would for the 3.1, 150-175hp for the 3100 dependent on the year. it'll never put up a fight on the strip, but it's got enough power to be fun in the twistys.

i'll keep you updated, thanks again.

dan

I'm sure it was a 4 banger, I had opened the hood before hand and was kinda looking down on it as it not being that quick, however I was wrong about it's get up and go ability.
I also had another rentel, it was a frontWD it was a ford, i'mnot sure what it was, but you were able to hammer it between the shift into 3 and it would downshift and bark the front tire LOL I love rentels.

I rewired my buds 72 Monte, what really sucked was the AC wireing, the AC was removed and he had a mess of wires. the trick about the montes is that the dash is packed, you have 0 room for anything, my GTOs dash is much easyer to run wires in or add something to it.
Late models have got to be the worse, haveing wires that seem to go every place for no reason, random sensors, options that are not installed still have wires going to them, miles of wires!

Keep me tuned

OH I forgot, yes it is a waste of space, I would look into finding a way to use the orignal one, I have seen some on OHC6 pontiac engines, so you must be able to do it, your tac lead has no voodoo to it, I would try to find the answers at the webpages I listed above, they would know!