Mr_Plenty

iTrader: (3)

Shift lights are great. They help you to concentrate on quick shifting rather than eyeing the tach. IMHO they look retarded attached to those rediculously large tachometers and out of place being mounted on the dash. Especially on a daily driven car

So i decided to conceal mine in the A/C Vent to keep things clean and rice free

I bought an Autometer 5340 Pro Shift Light. Instead of using the($25 a set) rpm pills; i decided to use a 10k ohm potentiometer and a simple molex connector from radioshack for about $3.00:up: If you cut one open; you will see that each rpm pill contains a cheap resistor:down:. They are not worth the $25! The potentiometer will serve as a variable resistor, it also comes with a **** for adjustment.


VIDEO:
quick vid of the shift light in action!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dAUOfhXMcI

PICS:
potentiometer w/wires attached


pins from the molex connector connected to potentiometer wires


view of the shift light wedged in the a/c vent and blue wires running to the potentiometer



drilled a hole for the potentiometer and used the locking nut to secure it




end result!:up: trust me its bright! and easily adjustable!
OFF!


ON!


This shift light is easy to adjust. Its also very bright and visible in the day and nighttime. I set it to 3000rpm for daily driving and fuel economy and then back to about 8600 rpm for racing. You can turn the a/c vent in another direction if its to bright or simply turn it to an unreachable setting like 11k rpm if you want it off. Its well worth it:up: Accurate and consistant shifting pays dividends:

02civicsi02

Nice work, not a fan of the shift lights and everything but very nice work no doubt.

unTuned

i like it. great place to mount it and i like how the adjust is also somewhat hidden to the lower left of the steering wheel. the only thing i dont like is the colour of the shift light itself but im sure you can get other colours, or you could put some sort of filter paper over it to change the colour and help dim it down a bit.

looks good though, very nice work.

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

very cool place for it

Mad Dog Tannen

Very nice. I love hidden stuff. Just like 007!

How can you not like shift lights? They only help you. Lots of cars have em stock. Hondas are just too cheap to have em stock.

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

the newer civic si (06+) has a red one in the gauges. starts blinking at 7500 rpm and becomes solid at 8000.

well you cant see it now cause its off, but trust me its there lol

02civicsi02

I dont like them cause they are kinda distracting to me and why would I need a light to tell me when to shift when I already know when to shift gears.

Mad Dog Tannen

You need it cause, if you are really racing it, then you are paying attention to the road, not your guages. It is easier to see a light in your periferals (I know that's spelled wrong), than it is to read your guage.

Mr_Plenty

iTrader: (3)

Thanks alot try it out

Yea you can purchase different color lenses. Or you can get a clear lense and purchase different color bulbs. I had a red bulb with a clear lense before. Easily customizable

Thanks! inconspicuous was the goal

It helps because depending on the which rpm you rev to, its not always going to be easy to determine your shift point by ear. Also i think you would rather focus on the road than the tach when driving. Also it relaxes you in a sense because you already know that once you see the light flick on its time to shift; rather than staring at the tach waiting/anticipating it to finally reach the redline/shiftpoint.

truth
this light is very bright you wont miss it.

02civicsi02

I am pretty content without it cause I am not big into racing and I usually shift round 2800 to 3000 rpms and never have to look at the rpm gauge. But I might do it sometime when I get big into auto x or something.

sdaidoji

iTrader: (1)

yes, autoX especially... very hard to keep the eyes in the tach while dodging cones one after the other.
Although when you get to that straight when you have to choose between hitting the rev limiter or shifting up (usually not long enough to shift up, so you just keep it at the limiter...) I would think the light would be annoying.
Concerning to the position to hide, nice! Good write-up!

Mad Dog Tannen

True the one on my old 97 DX was almost too bright even with the cover on!

Hows this for inconspicuous?...

sdaidoji

iTrader: (1)

OMG!
They will take the tach and leave the GPS!

Mr_Plenty

iTrader: (3)

^^^^LOL thats one super humongous gigantagious tach!