christianjax

About the baby blue gauges, I think the color is misrepresented in the pictures. I'm assuming that they will use the same illumination as the Charger. I own a Charger, and the gauges are NOT baby blue, the are a bluish green. And yes, the EVIC display is driver selectable and can display both voltage, and oil pressure as well as a digital speedo, engine temp, rpms, 0-60mph timer, and a bunch of other stuff. I love the interior of my Charger and I like the interior of the new Challenger. Although it is quite a departure from the concept's interior. I also am digging the interior of the new Camaro. And with the exception of of the gauge faces, looks very much like the concept's. What I don't like about the Challenger's interior is the lack of color. All black is so yesterday. At least the Camaro appears to offer some accent coloring on the door panals and across the dash.

Kris93/95Z28

Actually, doesn't the GTO give you these readings if it you go into the menu (Hold the Mode and Set buttons down when starting car)? Not that its that useful since reading it as you drive is hard and you'd need to cycle through the readouts to see volts and oil pressure.

BigDarknFast

I played with that when I had mine. The text shows up - but it's very tiny and is really meant for diagnostic purposes, not as a driving aid IMO.

Ron78Z&01SS

Nice interior.....for an entry level pick-up! Looks like they ran out of money to pay the designers & engineers when it was time create the interior.

Makes me love the 5th Gen interior even more.

notgetleft

You can get system voltage and coolant temp, but not oil pressure in the GTO DIC in the diagnostic menu. My solution was some nice aeroforce scan guages that tell me everything i'd want to know.

Nice try at a backpedal. Whether the pictures are done by a professional or not, it's pretty hard to see those halos as anything but light blue through anything but the most 5th-gen tinted glasses. Your burn blew up in your face, just deal with it.

Now you're just making **** up, the complaint about the console guages has been the inconvenient location to easily/regularly scan it to see everything is normal.

Perhaps, but based on the shape of the top of the dash and the goofy bulge of the radio/HVAC, i just don't see how you can put guages anywhere on there to see them better. The GTO/STI/EVO/G8 all have a handy spot right on the top of the stack to put a pod, and the mustang has a dip in the dash in that area that fills in well without looking tacked on (even though it is)

Way to focus on the voltage, which i agree is a more secondary concern since alternators / regulators usually just fail so an idiot light is generally pretty good. Oil pressure on the other hand is something that is handy to keep track of if you're usuaing the car since it doesn't take too long of 'low, but not tripping the idiot light low' oil pressure at high engine speeds to lunch the whole thing. And when i'm using my car hard, i generally don't want to be taking my eyes way off the road and have to move my arm to do so.

BigDarknFast

Aeroforce gauges are a good solution, albeit one costing hundreds of $$. Unfortunately they are not true dial gauges but digital readouts. The 5gen has true gauges for the parameters people seem to want.
Whew - getting frustrated here? Nothing 'blew up in my face', despite your fervent wishes. Do you have a correct-color, non-glared picture of a production 2010 Camaro interior IP with its illumination functioning? No? Then you don't have any basis for your far-fetched claim about cluster backlight hues for the Camaro. In contrast though, we do have a professionally shot photo of the Challenger's.
How does it look when you are actually driving a 2010 Camaro, and looking at ALL its displays? Oh that's right... you haven't.
What kind of 'dash shape' is required, to be able to mount a little gauge pod? Seems to me there is plenty of room on top of the new Camaro's dash. Why not wait until the production car is released, and the aftermarket designers can get a chance at it? Or is your mind already closed on the matter....
I'll be glad to use the almighty Oil Pressure as an example if you like. Do you seriously encounter these dangerously low oil pressure conditions a lot, in cars you drive? If so, why? If you are going racing on a track, do you not check your oil level via the dipstick beforehand? Does your oil evaporate or disappear somehow? The fact is, oil pressure on modern cars is remarkably uniform... and very unlikely (if ever) to need constant monitoring, by drivers who after all, have much better things to be doing with their attention. Has your GTO ever, even once, needed immediate attention at a track event, due to low oil pressure?

BigDarknFast

Thanks! I still miss the Goat

...The rims, I bought used, were Mille Miglia EV-S: http://www.autowerxinc.com/wheels.htm?man_id=100

notgetleft

I'm sure the halos in the 5th gen are actually a manly dark shade of blue that has been distorted by the picture. And i'm sure the console in a 5th gen is going to sit a full foo and a half higher than the equivalent location in any other car i've ever been in, putting the console gauges right in the line of sight.

As for what kind of dash lends itself to a better gauge pod. how about: first, my GTO's pod, not a great picture but notice how the pod basically looks factory nestled on top of the stack. The STI, EVO and G8 have a similar set up, as well as many other cars with this 'boring, modern' interior styling.


As for the mustang, not my first choice of color, but notice how it sits in a natural dent in the dash so there is some sense of it belonging there, not just added on top

OTOH, the 5th gen dash is flat. Short of a whole new molded dash pad, there is no way to add gauges to the top of it without them looking tacked on. There are no character lines or features it can use to blend in.

As for oil pressure, no, i have never personally had any engine fail from an oil pressure related problem. I do know at least 2 people who had had problems with LS1s after cam swaps wherre the oil pump oring was damaged, that was only caught because at high rpms the pressure wasn't consistent and keeping up. Further back, i also have known of a few cases of problems where the high pressure relief valve springs in the OP either got stuck open, partially open, or stuck closed, broke, or weakened leading to blown oil filters and lunched engines.

While not a failure, i have been reminded to be nicer to my engine in the GTO when it was cold due to high oil presssures at high rpms when cold. When you see 80psi out of the corner of your eye at 3-4k RPMs, you tend to take it a little easier on the Rs until it gets warmer.

I mean, i get it, you assume your car will never have a problem, and that's pretty fair, most don't. But in that case, you might as well not have guages and call it a day (which you seem content to do). But IMO having guages in a tough spot to see (which the front of the console is, no matter how you slice it) is nearly as bad as having none at all. It's the difference between needing to consciously check them and just casually noticing an abnormality. And especially at high RPMs, i don't think i want to be taking my eyes completely off the road to check my guages, at least the tach in a standard cluster still leaves the road in your peripheral vision.

BigDarknFast

How do you know they are blue at all?
Obviously they are not up in line-of-sight. Why do they need to be? How do you know your elbow will block the view, without having sat in a new Camaro? Also - do you shift your M6 with two hands on the wheel?
I'm half joking here... but it's a real challenge to read those pod gauges. I could make a case they are TOO high on the GTO dash - leading to just the kind of glare problems so easily seen in your picture. Thanks for the illustration
Sure, the Mustang has a nice little dip there in its heritage-inspired dash. But the problems of glare are still evident.
You assume aftermarket suppliers would mount them up top. What if they are creative enough to mimic the speedo/tach nacelles, and put a few right above the center HVAC vent but merged into the dash leading edge? There are dozens of ways they can add a nice integrated unit like is available for the Mustang. I'm inclined to wait and see what they come up with - instead of pronouncing doom today.
Anyone modding their engine ought to also be willing to mod their dash to have the additional visibility needed into the workings of their custom creation. Personally I don't expect to mod my new Camaro, since I believe it will already be plenty strong. And I don't want to subsidize modders any more than seems to have already been done, with the already-substantial gauge package seemingly coming out for the car.
For me, it's instinctive to take it easy on a cold engine. I do it by feel and sound, and maybe a glance at the temps gauge, more than by watching an oil pressure gauge

notgetleft

How do i know, because they looked quite blue, and the picture didn't really seem excessivley tinted to blue as if the white balance was way off so i'd say it's a pretty safe bet.

I'm not joking, that's my car, and actually, they are perfectly easy to read all the time. The car and guages were OFF in those pictures, it was a quick snap because someone wanted me to email them what the pod looked like. But thanks for playing.

How do i know my elbow will be in the way? Easy, i was driving down the highway on sunday with my right hand @ 3:00 on the wheel, and i looked down towards my radio and noticed i could not see the bottom half of my radio nor the storage bin below it, and i thought ot myself, yup, i really wish my guages were right there so i had to drive with just my left hand all the time if i wanted to see them regularly. And there is simply no way the 5th gen layout is putting the console guages anywhere but in that same basic place.

As for shifting, i generally look at where i am going when i drive, and probably never look at my radio or my shifter for that matter when shifting. I can still see the road when looking at my tach though, and i can also easily see the road when looking at my guage pod if i'm looking for knock.

That's actually why i think the torque guage is the dumbest of all, seriously, who the hell is driving around at WOT and staring at their ****ing console, and can i please get a copy of the police report after the accident "defendant claims that he had in fact pinned his torq-o-meter and was just about to resume watching where he was going when a tree intersected his path..."

That's nice, but the temperature guage does not tell you the temperature of the oil, which can be quite different. I don't generally beat on my cars when they are cold either, but it still doesn't hurt to have a little reminder that you can see without having to think too hard about looking for it.

90rocz

The Challenger's interior, to me, is too bulky/blocky, chauk full of cold, hard plastic...and the lack of color and contrasts, leaves me feeling BLAH..

Kinda like one of those houses, where the window and door trim is the exact color as the siding...you lose most of the visual features!

diarmadhi

I like both the challenger and camaro interiors.. but hey I'm only a consumer that would never touch another gen camaro.. Yet I've been drawn to the 5th gen. I'd say they did something right..

Purple 92 SS

jesus guys.. didnt scott say "redundancy"?!?!

quit bitchin till you see the finals of both in person and then bitch bout it..

sheesh.

Omega94

FINALLY!! Thank you for saying it...it's about time

BigDarknFast

Tossing out tech-talk like 'white balance' doesn't change the facts, including the fact that those are horrible-quality pix - and I am not at all convinced those halos have any blue tint at all. YMMV...
I'm not joking now either. It doesn't even matter your gauges were off for that shot... that's a lousy place for any gauge without a DEEP glare shroud. THAT is why the faces of your two pod gauges appear almost totally black in that shot.
I highlighted your logic fallacy for you. NO ONE reads secondary gauges "all the time". NO ONE cares that much about bus voltage, or even the almighty Oil Pressure. Secondary values are reviewed seldom, if at all, by a typical driver. And it is the typical driver that the car SHOULD be designed for.
It's for fun. Remember fun? Some folks plan to buy a new Camaro for recreational reasons.
Please. Oil and coolant temps track together very nicely, in conventional NA engines such as we are likely to have. Unless... OMG, is this you???