Jaguars....

I have no aircon anyways so it doesn't matter :p
I can always open the window if I want stuff like air...
 
Some updates:

Paying work has slowed down my progress on this a bit, but I hope to be back up to speed this week. However, Milltek has made progress on his specific variant and we both worked out some electrical planning issues.

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Yes, that's a Ford Crown Victoria MAF bolted to the stock Jag air filter assembly. It's almost a slip fit, but the original flange needs some "encouragement" to fit in the MAF venturi. Fits well now, though. Milltek is doing a Crown Vic MAF because his car will be remaining normally aspirated. Mine will be sporting forced induction of some kind (eventually), so I will be going with the more conventional Megasquirt MAP sensor.

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This is Milltek's engine bay; as you can see, he's removed the coil, ignition module and distributor and is in the process of modifying the wiring harness to be connected to the MegaSquirt sensors.

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Here Milltek is playing with locations for the MAF/filter housing prior to fabricating brackets and the rest of the intake tract.
 
A little more progress.

Milltek is still working on his prototype wiring; he's had work delaying him. In the meantime, I've proceeded with more work on the rest of the conversion and the car. However, last week my oil pressure sensor started leaking and acting strange... again... and the price for the sender went up... again. If I get a new one, it will last for a few years, and then die... again... and by then the sensor will probably be up to $100 if not more. Heck with that. Time to convert to another set of instrumentation, preferably something more precise and reliable with better illumination.

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I used to own this 1985 Nissan 300ZX Turbo with this digital gauge cluster. I liked it a lot - it was clear, easy to read, and even though it had faded a bit over time, it was still very legible at night without being irritating. Information was accessible at a glance - I especially liked the combiner bar-graph tachometer; the height of the bars told you how much boost you were using and the highlighted bar told you at what RPM you were running. Overall, I found this very usable. I thought, why not try some digital gauges this time around?

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I settled on these Autometer Cobalt Digital gauges, as they match the rest of the panel lighting the best of the acceptable gauges I examined. This is the oil pressure gauge, as you can see. The fuel level, voltmeter, and coolant temperature gauges are on the way and should be here Monday or Tuesday. Unlike the stock gauge, this one can tell me to the nearest PSI what the engine's oil pressure is. It won't be lagged by a bimetallic core and there are no moving parts. More importantly, it costs only a little more than a stock sensor.

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These gauges come with all needed sensors. This oil gauge sensor is readily available and inexpensive to replace should it fail; it is a one-wire hookup so I can use my existing wiring.

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Here's the gauge ready to be installed; Weatherpack connectors have been attached and the wires have been loomed.

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The dash top or "crash roll" on an XJ comes out after removing seven screws and disconnecting a couple of wires. The tach and speedometer come out with a simple twist and then can be lifted out. The ancilliary instruments are held in by a similiar retainer system to the Auto Meter gauges.

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Here are the three connections for the oil gauge - sensor line, the illumination bulb, and the power wire. The Jaguar gauge grounds via its metal retainer and the steel backplate of the dashboard; a ground must be fabricated to connect the Auto Meter gauge.

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Tach back in, gauge installed and active. Here, the external lights are on and the LED display is dimmed - but the "OIL PRESS" legend is backlit by an LED.

Gauge in action:
[youtube]Di9qnNHwtW4[/youtube]
(Did I mention the stock gauge illumination was dim, even at maximum, for no apparent reason? :p)

I'll post again when the other gauges get here and are in. :D
 
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I'm not a fan of digital instrumentation, but that looks great. Are you going to go ahead and swap the rest out? That Jag dash seems tailor-made for aftermarket instrumentation.
 
I'm not a fan of digital instrumentation, but that looks great. Are you going to go ahead and swap the rest out? That Jag dash seems tailor-made for aftermarket instrumentation.

Yeah, the other three aux gauges are on order and should be here over the course of the next week or so.

And yeah, the holes are perfect for 2 1/16 instruments. Probably part of how Jaguar managed to make this thing for less than the cost of anything else in its class - most of the expense in custom instrumentation is making the casing for the instruments; by using existing 2 1/16 housings, they saved a lot of money.
 
Got them all installed, but....

Got them all installed, but....

Someone screwed up when they packed these at Auto Meter; the fuel level gauge was supposed to be a Cobalt Digital (blue LEDs) and it was actually a Sport Comp Digital (red LEDs) in a Cobalt Digital box. They're going to ship me another one, but since the wiring is the same plug and everything I went ahead and hooked it up (with the vendor's blessing).

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Here we are at night with the lights off.

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With the lights on in this shot. I'll post a video when the new fuel gauge comes in and I swap out the display.

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I am probably going to steal an idea from SAAB and rig it up so I can pull off their Black Panel trick.
 
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Oh god no! Blue lights! I'd have to due the "kill the light" trick that saab's do with that.

I never could understand how anyone can drive with bright blue lights shinning in their eyes. Red and green allow you to handle the darkness better.
 
Yeah, that's the Black Panel trick.

They won't be blue when I'm done, they'll be a bluish green from the gels/tint film I will put over them.
 
Alarm-clock-looking digital gauges are way too cheesy for my tastes, but I understand the frustration with the increasing prices of old OEM parts so there goes that. Otherwise awesome car.
 
I dun get it. What's with the 80's-Huey Lewis and the News-digital-dash setup? Why not stick with a classy Cockney-style analog-dash?
 
Because I like digital dashboards?

Also, if I decide I don't like it, it's not hard to swap them out for something else, and they didn't cost that much.

Another problem is that a fuel gauge that will work with the original Jaguar sensors (there's two, one per tank) is difficult to come by, as most require either Big Three sensors or their own custom unit that I can't use in the Jag's tanks. I wanted a matched set, too...
 
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I'm with Spectre on this one.
I love digital dashes!

I don't understand why they didn't catch on. Here is one from a C4 Vette:
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