Why get an aftermarket tachometer? There are several good reasons: many Civics come without tachs, reprogrammed ECUs may increase your redline beyond the capability of the stock tach, features such as shift lights, and highest rpm recall, and we can't forget the intimidating street racer look. Lucky for us installing a tach in a Honda or Acura is quite easy.
| My 89 Civic DX HB didn't come with a tach. While I could fairly easily get a used Si gauge cluster and replace the stock one, I found that an aftermarket tach better suited my needs. |
 | I choose the Autometer ATM-2302 because it offered the features I wanted for a low price. It has an adjustable redline indicator, with built-in shift light, was a stealthy black, a reasonably sized 3 3/4", and only $76.95 from Summit Racing. It is labeled as an AutoGage, Autometer's lower priced line, but the Autometer Technical Support representatives told me it had been upgraded with the Autometer electronics and gauge mechanism for 1996. And the looks of the newly styled 2302, were vastly improved over the old style. |
 | I particularly like the new shift light. It is hidden behind the face in a visually opaque circle right below the needle. Very stealth. No one will know its there until it lights. And its bright enough to get your attention even in the daylight. At night, its awesome. The adjustment knob for the shift light is on the bottom of the back of the tach. |  |
When you turn the power on, the shift light activates and the needle indicates the desired turn-on rpm. There is also a slider you can use for reminding yourself where the shift point is. HINT: At the drag strip, put the slider at your launch rpm, and use your peripheral vision to see the shift light. This should help the consistency of your launch.
Installation:
 | First thing to do is open the box and make sure everything the directions indicated are included. You don't want to get 80% done and realize you are missing a critical mounting bolt. Now read all the instructions. |
 | You'll need a couple screwdrivers, some wire crimps, a ring terminal, crimpers or pliers, a knife, and you'll probably need a multimeter and your trusty Helm manual. |
 | There are four wires coming out of the back of the 2302. To cover them up and make the install look a little cleaner, I slipped a 6" piece of black shrink tubing over them. I picked a size I had handy (Radio Shack sells a variety pack) that fit snug without shrinking it. Since I was going for an unobtrusive look, I really prefer the cover wires to the rainbow look. You should set the tach for 4 cylinder mode at this time. |
Temporarily bolt the mounting bracket to the tach. Now hop in the driver's seat and play around with possible mounting locations. The 2302 bracket will leave 2 or 3 holes in your mounting location, so think hard about where you place it. Obviously don't block any warning lights, controls, or vents that you intend to use. I found that mounting it on the left side of the gauge cluster hood would put it right in my line of sight, and would allow me to easily adjust the shift light without removing it. Additionally, this mounting position didn't require lengthening the included wires. But don't let that issue keep you from putting it where you want it. Make sure there is a place for the wires to run. If you need to make a hole or notch, do it now before you start wiring. On the 88-91 Civics there is a transition or step in the bottom of the gauge cluster hood. The wires will run through here without getting pinched.
 | Remove the gauge cluster hood and put it aside where it won't get scratched. Run the tach's wire through an open area in the gauge cluster to the fuse box. Now here is where my install differed from Autometer's instructions. Autometer says to run the tach wire through the firewall to the coil. I knew this wasn't necessary. Even though my car didn't come with a tach, Honda's wiring harness was the same for all the models, so the tach wire was still there. Looking at the Helm manual, it indicated the blue wire that was the tach pick up. Tug at the blue wire gently so that you will have room to get a crimp splicer around it. Crimp the Autometer's tach lead to the blue wire. The instructions also said to run the ground wire through the firewall to a good engine ground, but a little playing with the multi-meter and I found a screw close by to use as the ground. Ground the black wire using a ring terminal. |
 | For the switched power wire, find a wire that only comes on with the ignition. I made the mistake of choosing an accessory wire and quickly found it stupid to have the tach powered up every time I was just listening to the stereo. An easy "ignition only" choice is the windshield wiper circuit. To find it, I looked in my Helm manual in the wiper section. A black wire with a yellow stripe exiting the fuse box should get voltage only when the ignition switch is on. Seemed simply, but under the dash I saw three black and yellow wires. To locate the correct wire, I tested each one for voltage with the meter, until I found the one that switched on and off with the ignition. Only took a couple minutes. To verify I actually had the wiper wire, I pulled the wiper fuse and the voltage was cut off. So I have to remember if I ever blow a wiper fuse, my tach won't work. I crimped the tach's red wire to this wire. |
The 2302 has backlighting so you can see it at night. The instructions said to connect it to a wire that gets voltage when the lights are switched on. This is fine, except that the tach will come on full bright, regardless of your dimmer setting. Again, using the Helm manual, I looked up the dimmer circuit's wires. I could see two wires that control the dimmer lights voltage/brightness (its basically a voltage divider circuit). I crimped to the red one, and had interesting results. The tach dims opposite the dash lights. I found this to be pretty freakin cool. When I run the dash lights at full bright the tach is very dim and since its all black, you can't even see it. Totally stealth when you cruizing around at night looking for prey, but the shift light is always full bright when you hit your redline. And with the dash lights on full dim, the tach is full bright, which is very intimidating. When the $$$ is on the line you don't need those other gauges bothering you anyway. It was easy to find a setting in between where the tach and dash lights were balanced. One of these days I will try the other wire to see if the tach dims conventionally, just for this article, but I'll still leave it reversed.
Now that all the wires are connected, go ahead and turn the ignition on to make sure the tach powers up. The 2302 spins the needle to your selected redline and turns on the shift light when powered it up without the car running. Turn on the lights to make sure the backlight is working. Start the car. Does the tach work? If not, perhaps you grabbed the wrong blue wire. Check your wiring carefully. If you have to, carefully run a long wire from the coil or distributor on outside of the car, through the window, to the tach. If this works, then maybe you have to run the wire through the firewall. The tach includes a rubber grommet for this purpose.
 | If everything works, turn off the ignition. Run the bundled wires through the hood carefully, so you don't pinch them, and put the gauge cluster hood back on. Attach the mounting bracket.. Securely attach the tach to the bracket. Start the car and double check that it still works. Your done! |
Article and photos by Joe Rogers
Scans by John Lewis
mailto: joe_r@westworld.com
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Article, photos and its contents all copyright Crazd-4-Speed 1997. Please, use only by permission.