Konish

You know, I've read that a bunch...about Speedhut being so helpful and having top-notch customer service which is why I popped $600ish for my gauge set, but here's been my experience... I called Speedhut in the past after writing a very clear, detailed e-mail about several issues I've had with their gauges. Funny thing is NOBODY on their staff actually took the time to read it so I had to call and re-explain everything. When I did call, I told them I was calling from Japan and that it was close to 1 am, the receptionist still put me on hold for over 10 minutes and then I got batted around from dept to dept for another 10 minutes before I finally got to talk to someone. Truth be told, they were almost useless in diagnosing the problem and simply opted to replace it. I've had to have the oil pressure gauge replaced 2X before I gave up on the Speedhut Series and paid the difference for the Revolution series. I also had to buy their Rev water temp gauge because the Speedhut water temp was so inconsistent depending on the electrical load on the car it was all but unusable. Even after all the time and money spent on the gauges, the complete redass of getting these shipped back and forth, the best they ever did for me was offer an additional 10% discount on the rev series oil pressure gauge...which after having to send 2 gauges back, basically ended up costing me more in shipping than the additional 10% break they gave me. I would have been better off buying the thing at their normal "15%" sales price in the first place. Having been through all that, I would NEVER buy from them again...in fact Defi was my first choice and easy to get locally although they are a bit more expensive. Speedhut Series gauges have been absolute junk in my opinion. Out of the 4 Speedhut gauges I bought, 2 have been replaced by the Revolution Series, 1 (the fuel gauge) works like crap which only leaves the voltmeter the sole gauge working as advertised. My other 2 originally purchased (Tach and Speedo) gauges work great and the replacement oil press and water temp Rev Series work well too. Oh, and it took over a week after my order for them to get each of my replacement gauges in the mail. Sure they're "custom" but my order was their stock offerings...nothing fancy and it still took much longer than it should have IMHO. It literally took me the better part of 3 months to have a full set of working Speedhut gauges...and even now my fuel gauge is questionable. If i had any advice to give to someone that absolutely had to have these gauges, I would HIGHLY recommend just saving up a bit more for a complete Rev Series set...less headache that way. Oh, and I'm sure that 2-3 others will chime in and speak praises about their Speedhut Series gauges and while that's great, it was not my experience and I stand by what I wrote. R/ D

I used the existing daisy chain for the backlight and gauge power since I had all the other gauges tied into car power anyway. As per the instructions, I am aware the tank needs to be empty to calibrate empty (or whatever you want to call empty) but when calibrated with a full tank, the needle drops right back to the "E" mark after calibration. However, from what I gather reading the instructions, it should read "full" becuase I established the "F" resistance level. I do understand that the drop to empty is not going to be accurate because the sender resistance when empty has not been set. If my tank sender is showing 15 Ohms of resistance full, the gauge should peg out at F even without calibration since the factory setting 33 Ohms for full. However, the only way my gauge reads correctly is to totally unhook the sensor wire, and if attached to anything, it grounds out and goes right to empty.

Fellas, Since my install, my Speedhut fuel gauge simply does not seem to work properly. I'm betting 100% it's the way I'm trying to wire it. Essentially, no matter how many times I calibrate it, it ALWAYS reads "empty" if I have the sensor wire hooked up in any way (more below) and the only way it reads "full" is to totally unplug the sensor wire and let it free hang. Here is what I have tried so far: 1. Under dash three wires from original fuel gauge (yellow w/ red stripe, black and yellow). I hooked up the Speedhut gauge sensor wire to the stock harness yellow wire. I made an extension for the stock black wire and ran it to ground. Reads empty even through the tank is full and the gauge calibrated per instrucitons. 2. Ran gauge sensor wire to trunk and wired directly to the fuel level sensor plug (yellow wire) and ran a ground from the black wire on plug to the chassis. Reads empty. 3. Did the same thing in 1 & 2 only I switched hooking the sensor wire to the black stock wire and the yellow to ground 4. Fuel sender plug terminal reads 15 ohms (full tank) 5. The yellow with red stripe wire (stock harness) has 12V on it with the key in the acc position...power to the original gauge(?) 6. When I hooked up my multimeter in between the sensor wire and stock yellow wire, it read something like 35 Ohms and the gauge moved to the full position...wtf? I measured the sensor wire voltage from my water temp gauge and it was like 5V...the fuel sender is *much* less, although I can't remember it was something in the millivolt range. Now if the sensor wire is unhooked, it will perpetually read full (obviously). Damn, I hope that made sense...anybody else successfully get one of these to work, and if so mind sharing your wiring setup? R/ Dustin

I went through three sets of webers and *all* of them had them same issue...the butterflies simply will not close when the motor was running. Of course, I could either pull the throttle linkages shut or put a HUGE spring to help close them (but still had to blip). You've already observed/felt what that's like trying to drive around town with a screen door spring. With the car running, I would have to pull the throttles closed about 1/32" of an inch to fully seat them. However, with the car off, the throttles would shut all the way with no movement. Sure enough, fire the car up and it would idle a lot lower...say 1000 rpm-ish. Roll the throttle open the carbs would hang at high idle. If I killed the car without pulling the throttles shut or blipping, the carbs would close all the way once the car was stopped. Also, the bores were simply horrible in those things. I had light leaks all the way around each set of butterflies and I even had a custom set of butterflies made to no avail. Even with the throttle stop screw completely backed out, the butterflies could not seal against the bores. Mind you 2 of the three sets were brand-new out of the box. This made synching impossible because even when fully "closed" the leaks all metered a different amount of air. As a result I had to synch to the highest flow rate which caused my idle to be something like 2000 rpm or higher. Do get anything in the realm of 1200-1400 rpm, I had to manually shut them all and compensate with the idle air screw...but then they were flowing different rates of air. LOTS of people suspected binding and while some of the concern was valid, they did the same exact thing disconnected form the main throttle shaft. On odd thing I noted when my car was running and the linkages were disconnected. One of my linkages was still connected to the carb butterfly lever and the upper end was disconnected and was resting freely against the common shaft. In messing with the throttle the linkage rotated away from the common shaft (as it was dosconnected) and fell forward leaving it hanging by the butterfly lever. Just the weight of the linkage itself pulled the throttle almost 1/3 open (which instanly killed the car). I tried this a few more times and it was repeatable. As you well know, even using your fingers, it's hard to crack the throttles open on the Webers, and yet the linkage was heavy enough to pull the throttle open while the car was running (?) When off, the linkage would simply hang there and was certinaly not heavy enough to even budge the throttle lever. Try it, you'll see that light finger pressure when the car is running will be enough to open the throttle with ease. I suspected (and still do) that some fluid dynamic forces (just guessing, I'm no engineer) make it easier to open the throttles under load which conversely makes it harder to close and almost beyond the mechanical spring pressure at the very end of the sweep. Also on the newer DCOEs, the first transition port was way too far back which made the car run really, really lean when the throttle is cracked open (which is why I had the custom butterflies made with an altered angle). Essentially, IMHO Webers are the biggest pieces of crap in the carb world...again my opinion and some people swear by them. I finally bought an old set of Solex/Mikunis, had them rebuilt and installed them on my car. The butterflies seal light-tight and will hold fluid indefinitely. Synching was spot on, idles at 900 rpm, no nose-dive on acceleration with a seamless transition from the idles to the mains. Car runs like it's fuel injected; I love these carbs. Understand that I did nothing differently in terms of tuning the Solex carbs IRT my Webers (as they use the same tuning procedures), but everything on the Solex carbs was text-book in terms of how they responded to changes/tuning. Another thing, the Solex carbs were no easier to open or close with the car running or not and it uses really light assist springs on each throttle lever which makes driving the car a breeze. I hope you get them to run right... R/ Dustin

Yes, it's an instantaneous jump anywhere between 5*-20* depending on electrical load. Actually, everything going through the stock wiring harness (fan control, flashers, wipers) make the jump 5* each and combined something less than about 10* (not totally cumulative). Adding the lights (running off a battery relay harness) all by themselves adds 10* to the temp read-out and is cumulative combined with the other sources (i.e. heater fan + headlights = 15*, heater fan + wipers + headlights = 20*, heater fan + wipers + hazards = 20*). I'm guessing I have a ground problem which along with the sensitive circuitry in the new gauges is causing it to read improperly. Just for reference, I am also running the 60 amp alt upgrade with the internal voltage regulator harness plug adapter. R/ Dustin

As close as I could guess to a "miss"...it over-runs badly when I abruptly let off the throttle...lots of backfiring, spitting, rough running...then it all seems to clear up. Funny thing though is that if I rev smoothly or come off the throttle smoothly, it doesn't do it and the tach is smooth to reline. However power shifting makes it break up pretty badly (as well as the aforementioned throttle off situation). Can't say it's the gauge making it do that though as it did it before, but my old Datsun gauge didn't register the "noise" as it was wired up differently. I will say that my ZX dist does not have the ground wire from the dist body to the chassis and I think I'm going to wire it back in to see if that clears up the problem. R/ D

Hmmm...mine is bouncy too, but not under acceleration. If I abruptly let off the throttle, the tach goes crazy and bounces all over the place and I get a LOT of missing. I'm betting I have a grounding problem as I've had some other gauge issues with the speedhut stuff...this time the water temp gauge increases when I turn on any of the electrical accessories in the car. ktm, Does your temp gauge instantly read higher when you turn on your lights, blower fan or wipers...anywhere between 5*-20* depending on electrical load? R/ Dustin

I had this stock mount modified to use both the stock rubber isolation as well as an energy suspension sway bar bushing (donut) or old valve spring. The stock mounting stud was cut off and a hole was drilled in it's place. Essentially a bolt passes through both plates with the head welded to the top plate. It'll bolt up exactly like the stock mount with the suspension bushing/spring mounted between the nut and the differential cross member. The benefit here is that the top plate can still extend upwards, but is limited by the dampening from the spring or bushing. My hope is that the stock rubber isolator combined with the less compliant urethane bushing/spring will limit the upward moment while providing all the benefit of noise isolation and required compliance from the stock mount...without all the bracketry of the RT mount. If the stock rubber isolator was capable of arresting most of the torquing moment by itself without ripping in half in short order, the welded bolt head shouldn't experience enough force to tear it from the weld. I'm also hoping that the limited compliance in the bushing/spring will keep the whole mess from ripping through the cross member like a solid mount. However, if it does fail, then it'll be an RT mount next. EDIT: I guess you could just use a rounded head bolt and make it without welding the bolt to the top plate. With this method you could also jam 1/2 a polyurethane bushing (sway bar link bushing) in between the top and bottom plate then put the bolt in place. The benefit here is that you have a polyurethane bushing both in tension and compression giving the stock rubber pieces a break in both directions.

Must be willing to ship to an FPO/AP (military overseas). Rates are the same as domestic USPS Pri Mail to CA just requires a really easy customs form. R/ Dustin

Dang...I bypassed my ammeter as well recently and now wondering if I introduced a new wiring issue. I looked at the wiring diagram to see if I could by pass the connection earlier in the harness but they way both of those wires are routed into the fuse box confounded me a bit. I would love to find a safer, alternate means to wire this up...any electricians out there? R/ Dustin

Looky what I’ve been doing: First, strip entire unnecessarily complex dash from car Remove blower box components for rebuild Before After Install new gauges and re-wire dash Kinda proud of this… I had to locate the dimmer for the new gauges, but the dash is so thick it was going to be hard to mount it in the stock location. However, I took the old “trip†reset knob, coupled the Speedhut dimmer knob to it (via the long spring-snake) and pushed it back onto the dimmer pot stud. Makes for a really cool remote dimmer switch that uses stock pieces, looks factory and more importantly keeps me from drilling more holes in my dash. Sure, it’s technically on the wrong side of the steering wheel (the stock dimmer is to the right of the steering wheel and the trip reset is on the left). This is the snake connected to the stock trip reset knob.

Tony, Great stories and good memories. I laughed out loud at the conversion rate of Y10000 being equivalent to $33 in '77. My dad served in Japan for most of his 21 years in the Navy and I always love to hear how he would take his pay in cash at the ships clerk and then convert it to Yen at the wooden table set up right next to the clerks pay table. He said he'd walk out with enough Yen to fill a wheelbarrow and he'd live LARGE for the next month...wish it was like that now...Y85 to the $1...ouch. It's funny, you still see the 10 year cycle here. One year it's a ton of blue/green Mitsubishi RVRs on the road with "Y" SOFA plates and the next it's silver Nissan Cubes. This year it's red Mazda MPVs with silver accents...I own one and on Kadena, I see no kidding, 20/day. I keep thinking my wife is driving all over the base all day long...LOL. Completely agree with your 5th para...the move to add corrosion resistance to cars pushed the entire automotive industry to get better (at least in this area)

http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/topic/87061-suspension-guys-please-help-the-ignorant/page__p__825786__fromsearch__1#entry825786 Please look at this...I had the same spring set-up and had the same bad bottoming problem that manifested itself exactly as you describe. Replaced with the 280z springs (had to be cut on each of the corners) and 5-way Tokico Illuminas...problem solved for around $800ish and the ride is awesome

I know I'm a necro-poster, but this info is just false. There is no mileage limit placed on cars in Japan. The real reason most folks get rid of their cars is that after the initial "new car" shaken (safety certification) it gets increasingly more and more expensive to keep cars on the road. In fact, at some point the govt mandated inspections and associated parts costs to "conform" is more than the value of the car itself. It's also the reason that used cars in Japan are basically worthless after about 8-10 years...in fact some people *pay* a dealer to de-register their old cars. Having lived here in Japan for the past 4 years (plus 2 years in Sasebo about 10 years ago) with 2.5 more to go, I've been through my share of cars and have a good working knowledge of the rules/regs in registering Kana plated cars. The Japanese mentality on collector cars is no more or less different than the US mentality on, for example, MOPARs during the late 80s early 90s. Hell, you couldn't give a good Duster away when I was in H.S....gas was too expensive, the cars were just "old", weren't the most desirable models in the line-up and most folks wouldn't put the money into them to restore them (right before they got collectible). You have to understand that rust prevention right up until the 80s was just not common practice anywhere (Porsche started galvanizing their shells in '78 starting with the 911SC for US models). Check out a late 70s US built car and you'll see the same rust-bucket effect. Japan has always exported more cars than it uses domestically. Honda is a good example of this, and actually design cars for the US market and installs engineering fixes for their own domestic market, so corrosion resistance had nothing to do with their export numbers increasing in the 90s. Corrosion warranties started to become a "value add" in the early 80s which then prompted the industry to improve their corrosion resistance in order to keep from having to make good on rust-related warranty claims. I remember as a kid the first car commercials that actually used corrosion resistance in their ad copy as a feature. Of course, "rust-proofing" cars became a standard practice for all manufacturers that wanted to stay competitive...like stock A/C, AM/FM/CD decks, power windows, carpeting etc etc. Believe it or not, there was a time when even floor mats were dealer installed optional items that cost extra and NOT included as stock equipment (and sometimes for your money you got deluxe rubber mats for your $$$) My dad's 1976 Ford Courier PU didn't have a rear bumper because it was an option he just couldn't afford at the time...a rear bumper! LOL If you really want to see how freaky Japanese car dudes get, see if you can get a copy of "G-Works" magazine...these dudes will eat Ramen noodles for months to spend every freakin' dime on their rides. Seriously, car dudes in Japan are some of the finest, salt-of-the-Earth folks you'll meet anywhere...and about as crazy to boot.

They are screwed...looks like from a back-fire. I had 2 like that on my DCOE 40s. What's more is that when you order new ones they'll be the newer kind held in by grub screws, which means you'll have to drill out the brass plug and tap the holes for them. I tried like crazy to find the old school kind but no such luck. Just remember to order some grub screws along with your aux v's.