This customer wanted a little bit of flare without going overboard. I did a full Speedhut gauge setup with flip-flop color scheme. He needed to squeeze two other gauges somewhere so I closed off the small vents and lower switch areas on the cluster shroud. Then flushed in a 2-1/16″ Speedhut gauge on each side.
Finalized the work on a pretty challenging piece…. I would venture to say the most tedious work I have done with no margin for error. I removed the small vents that sit high on the shroud above the lower buttons on each side. That area is highly contoured, so I had to recess the gauges back in to clear the curve on the top edge. I first bonded in some 1/4″ thick ABS to fill the rectangular openings where the vents were. I sanded the ABS down to duplicate the OEM contour. I then filled the backside with Norton Speedgrip. I made a form on the backside and filled it about an inch deep. I then used a hole saw and made a precision opening just above the lower button openings. Anyone that has ever used a hole saw knows that the thing kind of wobbles around a little to make the hole. And as you can see in the pictures, I didn’t have much room for error above the lower button openings. Unfortunately the opening had to be big enough to flush a 52mm gauge in, which meant the contour at the top of the panel rounded over to fast and the hole saw opening had a weird cutout to it. So I molded in some visors on the top portion to take care of the issue. I think the final outcome looks very natural. Like most of my work, the final product looks simple, but the work involved to get said simple look is mind-boggling.
I had a customer send me the cluster shroud to his S14. He wants a Greddy turbo timer and a Greddy boost controller flushed/molded into the areas on either side of the steering wheel. These will go in place of the dimmer switch on the left and a set of on/off switches on the right.
I am not done yet, but you can see some of the step-by-step pictures below. For a full write-up, more pictures and to follow along until the project is completed, please head over to Zilvia: S14 Cluster Shroud Project
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