OK Boxster Owners...Turn Your Dials!
 

I saw this picture today, and it reminded me about something Sammy, NickCats and I learned at the Blackhawk Farms Racetrack event this past Sunday.

Several of the race cars have the dials turned about 90 degrees. I asked about this, and one guy told me they do this so they can see, out of their peripheral vision, when they are nearing red-line, so they can up-shift. It is easier to see the red needle, when it is straight up & down.

Pretty cool!

Maybe I should do this mod, and see if I get any increased butt dyno.

that pretty neat :cool:

I know in the race car I drove it was set up that way because of the relationship of the steering wheel to the gauge...with the helmet and gear on you were not able to see anything lower than say 3k...so when the tach was straight up you knew it was time to shift...

It's much easier to do on older 911's because each dial goes into the dash separately if I am not mistaken and they all have to be "eyeballed" to be perpendicular when installed. Rotation of any of the dials is quite simple.

However, I've seen my cluster out on a table and I can't figure out how I would do that on a Boxster. They're all moulded together in plastic and cannot be rotated without a lot of tearing down and rebuidling of the cluster.

As mentioned, its easy in a 911 (and a 914) since the guages all can be moved independantly.

Given the smaller steering wheel, it is simply easier to move the tach so redline points straight up. This allows your periferal vision to check the revs without having to take your eyes off the track.

To do the mod you would have to rotate the gauge face and probably cut off the part that would then cover the digital readouts. Then you would put the needle back on in the correct position (not that straight forward...and you want to get the needle position right!)
It would probably look like really poor workmanship at the very least. You would also have to cover the exposed LEDs that normally light up the top part of the gauge face.
Unless you can find a place that can make a custom gauge face...probably overly-expensive.

And everytime you pull a needle off your cluster, you risk breaking the fragile motor inside. (Don't ask my why I know this...grrrr! and I was REALLY REALLY careful).

So it's probably a mod that you would reserve for track boxsters

Thats pretty common on many old 911's... almost every 930 turbo Ive seen has it done.

What about just adding a shift light for track days? Not one of those big beacons the drag racers use but a subtle light at eye level that you could turn off when taking honey out to dinner in the car. I think one of the G-timers has that option.

That's an old racers mod. Gauges are oriented to point straight up at a desired point, e.g., if temp of 185 is the target, then the gauge is rotated so that 185 is at 12 o'clock. Past 12:00 is cause for warning. With most of your guage needles pointing straight up or to left of 12, you know very quickly everything is OK at a glance on that long straight doing 140 mph.

That's the better mod and many people use them on the track, myself included.