Customer’s S13 Cluster Shroud

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.

Customer’s S14 HVAC Panel and Cluster Shroud

Last week I finished some fabrication work for a S14 customer. I angle mounted his AEM gauges into the vent area on the HVAC panel. I also made a spot to fit his Greddy boost controller. I did this in the area below the HVAC controller where four buttons/panels typically reside. He didn’t mind getting rid of the security light panel and the blank panel… which sit on the outside corners. So I moved the rear defogger button and hazard button to the outside locations. I had to modify them since they needed to have a rounded outside corner to mount in the corner locations properly. I then bonded in ABS material and shaped it to form a housing for the boost controller. I have talked about this exact process on another customer’s project in the past… so I’m not going to go in-depth about it again. You can simply search for my Custom Interior Fabrication off to the left if you want to see step-by-step process.

I also fit his Greddy turbo timer into the cluster shroud on the right side. There use to be a couple of OEM buttons located in that area that were no longer of use to the customer. So I removed those, plastic bonded the area closed then opened an area back up to fit the turbo timer.