Pridemore Motorsports

The dash in my 1970 Camaro was a mess. There was not one working gauge, so I couldn’t really drive the car. If you read my Points N Plugs column in this issue, it talks about all of the upgrades I’ve done to the Camaro. Doing this new dash was supposed to be the end of the mechanical upgrades. A few months back, l ordered a new 5 gauge digital gauge pod for Brian to install. My thought was, that I’m not going to be driving this car very much, so just having some simple gauges would be fine. When Brian inspected the gauge deal, he said “Jerry I don’t think you will be happy with this very CHEAPLY built unit and it will look really bad” So, while Brian started the process of removing the old gauges and the frayed and cracked wiring, I headed off to Ramjet’s Speed Shop (602-788-3012) where I purchased 3 new matching Auto Meter electronic gauges and then to Lopers Performance (602-264-5288) where I purchased an Auto Meter tachometer and one more matching Auto Meter gauge. These new gauges did not exactly fit the original gauge holes in the Camaro’s dash. Brian discovered that the old gauges were not even original to the car. He also showed me a piece of thick wire, that was the main power wire to the gauges. It had about an inch long area exposing bare wire. Brian explained that could have caused a serious fire, or at the least completely ruined the car’s electrical system. I next heard a lot of drilling and grinding and the smell of hot plastic as Brian meticulously enlarged each of the holes to fit the 4 new Auto Meter gauges. He also installed the new tachometer right into one of the two large original gauge holes. I gave Brian an electrical GPS speedometer gauge that I had purchased for another vehicle. He perfectly installed it right in the center of the original speedometer gauge. The back of this now fully upgraded dash pod is amazing, to say the least. All of the gauge wires are routed to one simple plug. All of the wires are beautifully wrapped and the front looks great too. Brian was here for almost 9 hours, but the finished job was simply amazing, and there is no way I could have done what he did. Call Pridemore MotorSports at 303-944-7645 he’s in metro Phoenix. Please mention Roddin’ AZ when you call.