JC Cosmo Build-Up
April 1998


Apex Rev/Speed Meter
Installation

OK, he we go with another edition to the JC, I saw this Gauge advertised in a magazine and it got me interested! You see, I have been looking for an aftermarket speedo for some time now. The Japanese factory speedo only goes to 180km/h. and this gauge will read to 500km/h, Not that any normal car will ever go that fast!. (Not even a rotor!) Another device I have been looking for is a speed limit override to enable the car to go over its 200km/h factory cut-off. The Apex gauge does both, reads over 180km/h and also disables the 200km/h speed cut. Other functions that this gauge has is 0-100m, 0-200m, 0-400m(1/4 mile), 0-100km/h, 0-200km/h, 0-300km/h timer, Max speed and rev peak display.

The advert said that the gauge interfaces with the factory computer on most Japanese cars. I was pretty skeptical about this and especially about it working with the JC Cosmo computer since it is the one of the most complicated and sophisticated computers ever made. But I was surprised when I read the documentation on the unit and it had wiring diagrams and instructions on how to hook up the gauge for almost every Japanese car!, even the JCESE Cosmo 20B! Amazing! needless to say, I bought it.!

Now to install it!. I don't like the cluttered look so I didn't want to just stick it somewhere where it would look stupid!. So I decided to do something radical and mount it behind the dark perspex covering the Cosmo's digital instrument cluster. The great thing about the Cosmo's dash is looks totally black until you turn the ignition on. This would look pretty cool mounted behind the perspex but I had a lot of preperation to do on the actual gauge itself first.


I pulled the gauge apart and remote mounted the buttons on the front so that I could access them when the gauge was behind the perspex. The gauge also had a light sensitive display that dimmed the LED's when the light was low. We disabled this as we wanted the LED's to shine brightly through the dark perspex. The cover of the gauge was removed so that the LED's would be exposed directly behind the Cosmo's perspex cover. The mounting was also quite difficult and the next series of photos will show how it was done.

Now it was time to wire it up to the factory computer!.  It wasn't too hard once we got the Japanese Manual translated!.

Look at the mass of computers hiding under the passengers side floor carpet!

The last thing to do was to mount the remote switches to control the unit. This was done inside the ash tray, on a piece of perspex.