'86 350

Hi, I'm about to order some gauges for my car, and without pulling the gauge cluster out, I was wondering if you guys could tell me if the gauges in our cars (mine's origianlly an '86 2.8 Camaro) are electrical, mechanical, or a mix of both?

Also, I recently got a 8 cylinder tach out of a junkyard for my car, becasue I had the original 6 cylinder tach in there and it was reading off becasue of the 350 that's now in the car. However it still seems to read about the same. The other day, according to my tach, I my engine up to about 8,000 rpms in first gear when I was driving the car real hard. Well, I know that's not right, because I've never seen a 350 actually wind out that high (this is just basically a high perforamnce, street 350) and second of all, there's no sign of the engine being over revved. (bent pushrods, etc.)

So I was wondering, is there a gear I need to change or something to get the tach to read correctly. Does the distributor gear need to be changed or what?

Thanks for any help you can give, Brandon

Ben91RS

All of the stock gauges in your car are electrical, except for the speedometer which is mechanical.

'86 350

Allrgiht thank you very much. Does anyone know about my second problem with the tachometer?

Stephen 87 IROC

The 6 cylinder tach will be calibrated to see more pulses per second than the V8's. You'll either need a V8 tach or find some way to get the V6 tach recalibrated for a V8.

All aftermarket tachs have a 4-6-8 setting on them depending on how many cylinders the engine is.

Runin2Nite

if your buyin new stuff i would recemand electric not mech. just personal experence. good luck the the ride

'86 350

I already put an 8 cylinder tach in it out of another 8 cylnder camaro, and it still seems to be reading high.


Well it's all electric already except the speedo. How hard is it to switch an electrical speedo from a mechanical speedo? Also, I don't run a PCM in this car, so I hope I don't need that.....

'86 350

Anyone know about my tach or switching from mechanical to electric?