These days, building a full-tilt street-car is merely a matter of choosing an off-the-shelf item from your favorite, online speed shop and installing it. The best part, most of the hard part is already completed. Yes, that’s correct. Aftermarket companies go through great pains to assure that you’re replacement part or in our case, a Dakota Digital Dash, will fit just like the factory pieces.
Putting On A New Face
The days of hand-forming and piecing together completely custom parts and components for your street car are almost things of the past.
Now, it only takes a couple screws, some backyard knowledge, and viola you’re done. Although we haven’t revealed what our Nova is currently sporting in the way of new skin, don’t worry.
We’ll be illustrating that in the next couple updates. For the time being, if you aren’t up to speed on “Swinger” or just want to play catch up, you can pick up on where we left off last month here.
Case in point, when it came down to supplying Project Swinger, our ’71 Nova, with an appropriate method for viewing all of the vehicles important life signs, we didn’t even bat an eye.
We immediately knew that with an LSA engine swap, and Tremec TKO600 6-speed manual backing this Mule, information was imperative. With tons of power on tap, every piece of information on what the powertrain is doing becomes vital.
Precision Instrumentation
Like a trained fighter-pilot, gauges are the necessary lifeblood of any high-performance machine. In the heat of battle, pilots must learn to soak up information about the status of their machine, quickly.
Pilots only have a split second to take their eyes from the sky to gain important knowledge on what the plane is doing and how well its performing under stressful situations.
The same can be said while in the drivers seat, too, behind the wheel. Drivers are fixated and focused on the road and what may lie ahead. Wheeling isn’t just about being able to handle triple-digit speeds. It also involves soaking up information and using it to your advantage. It’s all about feeding the driver crucial bits of information.
Updates and stats from the dash can then be translated and applied to the steering wheel, and the more efficient the driver can become. It’s full circle. If all goes well, this will mean a faster lap time and possibly even a more enjoyable ride. It’s like feeding a military gunner an unlimited amount of ammo.
The more information at the drivers fingertips, literally, could mean fun blasts on the streets or pulling it in early to prevent a catastrophic event. These days, pulling out all the stops on a build of this scale is necessary. With so much at stake, we left nothing to chance for our all business cockpit.
With Dakota Digital (PN VFD3-69C-NOV-Z) backing our dash in the form of their VFD system for ’69-79 Novas, we’ll not only benefit from a set of high-tech digital gauges but can guarantee it, too, with a factory fit.
Installation Made Easy
Sean Goude, our in-house tech maniac showed us just how easy Dakota Digital has made it. Beginning with the Covan’s Classic dash, Goude clearanced a hole and then fitted the Dakota display into the dash using the supplied hardware.
From there, it was only a matter of bolting up the completed unit into “Swinger.” Taking it a step further, Goude plugged in the included harness to the Control Box and gave us a glimpse of what was to come.
We’ve left nothing to chance and the Dakota Dash setup will keep us informed, instantly as we’re cruising or battling it out during open track events. Of course, we’ll have a full install on this unit in a future story and cover what makes this unit so unique, so stay tuned!