DIY Aluminum dash (for racecar)

Sterling Doc · 03-23-2008, 08:58 AM

It's good to have a retired German engineer on hand (my father). The dash face is pretty easy - just have a sheet metal place put two 90 bends in some 14 to 16 gauge aluminum, trace & cut out the cluster shape, and use a hole saw for the gauge(s) and switches. The brackets are trickier, as the header/bulkhead behind the dash is curved and not level. We took some measurements, mocked things up with tagboard, and then bent up some practice brackets. Because he's a German engineer, dad the took all the measurements & angles, and cut some wood blocks to form the final brackets over. The cluster screws to the brackets, and stand-offs (threaded rod) are used both as bolts to hold the cluster in place, and on the other side, to receive the screws that hold the dash face on. Lot's of labor, but it's clean, light and functional. Since the pictures, I put a starter button in the left upper dash. I've left room for another gauge to the left of the oil temp gauge that's in there. If more room is needed, the dash could easily be extended in width or depth for the next dash face.

While dad went a bit overkill for this, as usual (it's exactly level, everythings perfectly ligned up, and very stiff), this could be be done by most, with a little help from a sheetmetal shop (we used a heating and cooling local business).

This pic was before final dash leveling

You can see the stand-offs here

You can see the keyholes used in the dash top to make removal easier here. We used the tinerman nuts (clips you screw into) off of the stock dash to screw the top of the dash into the top of the face of the gauge panel

The blocks used to form the brackets. We screwed the metal to the blocks to hold it in place while we were forming it.

The plans:

Schumi · 03-23-2008, 03:32 PM

Very nicely done. Please post more pictures of the build process!

944 boy · 03-23-2008, 03:37 PM

Haha! I just saw that earlier on the NASA forum! I do like it, just wait till Tim starts ragging on you for not retaining the whole stock dash. I would like to build a larger dash like that but I no longer have easy access to a metal brake. Good Job! gotta love german precision.

TNT25169 · 03-23-2008, 03:48 PM

I'm assuming that's legal depending on class for NASA....do you run any SCCA or PCA events and if so, what class?

Sterling Doc · 06:33 PM

944 Spec rules state the stock IC must remain intact. For aesthetics, it is encouraged not to just gut everything out and leave the IC hanging out there, though this is not mandated in the rules. A neat, simple, inexpensive aluminum dash is in the spirit of the rules, IMO. When I got the car, the cage installer had trashed the stock dash mounts, and the late dashes are heavy enough to be a safety issue unsecured. Last year I just hacked part of it off, and secured the rest as best as I could - a (fairly poor) interim solution. This is much better - more neat, much more solid (that German engineer thing), and light!

As far as the PCA, the great thing about Spec is that PCA Sp-1 rules are identical, so I can, and will race with the PCA without worries about the car. The SCCA has a regional 944 Spec class with similar rules, though I'm not sure about the specifics. There's no local SCCA 944 Spec class here, and with 10 races on the schedule this year, I'll have plenty of racing between NASA & the PCA.

troppo · 03-25-2008, 09:00 PM

dash looks great!! great, clean look