How to add an aftermarket tach to a Smart Car

[pitstopautoinc]

First of all I would like to thank Derrick Lynn from Walters Mercedes in Riverside, CA and also Joseph Mills from Autometer. Without their help, I would still be searching for an oscilloscope to make this happen. Thanks guys I really appreciate all your help.

Now on to the install. From the pictures you will notice, that I have a shift light and a Digital Pro-Shift System to opperate my shift light. If you purchase a tach that has a shift light already on it, then you do not need to purchase a separate controller for your shift light. The particular tach that I wanted, did not have a shift light that is why I added one. Once you mount your tach, and shift light if you want, next you will need to goto the engine area. Find your three coil packs and unplug the harness from each of the three coil packs. You will notice that there are three wires leading to each of the coil packs. I had to grab a magnifying glass to see this, but there are little numbers stamped below each wire. 1, 2, 3. #1 is 12v power when the key is on. #2 is for the trigger wire leading to your ECU and #3 is ground. You will connect all of your number #1 wires leading to each coil pack, then that will wire into autometer #9117 tach adapter. What this does, is it creates a 1.5 pulse signal for your tach to read from. You can mount your tach adapter where ever you want, I chose to mount mine on the left side on top of the bracket for your transmission mount. As for the tach, you need to make sure that it reads 1.5 pulse. If you are buying autometer, if it is a mini monster tach, you can configure this yourself. If you buy ANY of their other tachs, you can ship it directly to autometer and they will calibrate it for 1.5 pulse for you for a small charge. They did my tach for about $30 including return shipping to me. Aside from that, you just need to wire to 12v power, and follow all of the other standard instructions that come with the autometer product. Im sure that other tachs that read 1.5 pulse will work with this adapter, but I would support Autometer, as they have helped us. If you like the stuff in my car, we sell it, you can either reach me at sales@pitstopautoinc.com or you can call us at 909.996.3566 we are located in Corona, CA and we sell everything that you need to do this. If this information is helpful, we simply ask that you buy the parts from us. Afterall, if we stay in business we can keep on adding/improving various things for our little cars. And incase you're wondering, I hooked up a stock OEM smart tach, and put it side-by-side with my autometer, and they do read the same. Here are all the part numbers that I used on my car:

Autometer:
9117 Tach adapter $64.00
5312 Digital Pro-Shift System $98.00
5330 Shift Light $46.00
5780 Tach $131.00

We offer tons of tachs in white, black, carbon fiber, silver and other various colors as well.

[pitstopautoinc]

[pitstopautoinc]

[spdickey]

And how much better is all this over the factory tach and the shift indicator on display?

[pitstopautoinc]

Well not so much better, I mean a tach is tach pretty much. The Digital pro however will allow you to configure your Shift light to go on at any RPM down to the 10ths... ex. 2,010 RPM 2,020 RPM or what ever you want. It also will tell you the last Peak RPM you reached, so for instance if you some how ever reved your engine, you can log into your Digital pro and it will tell you that you blew it up at X RPM. Aside from that, alot of people on Forms kept asking for an alternative to the OEM tach, so we thought we would put a few ideas together for you guys. And lastly, the shift light, is super super bright, if you miss a shift and have that thing blinding you, then you have problems ha ha. =)

[Turbo42]

OMG is all I can say this is not a race car

[Wdhitch]

The tach looks like the stock but worse... Same result for too much work...

[pitstopautoinc]

1. not a race car... at least yet... hayabusa engine swap is next on the list.

2. There are hundreds of tachs to choose from. That was my own personal preference, I just wanted to show you guys how it could be done, should you want to choose any other make/modle of tach because the install would be the same way.

[HGB]

Could anyone let me know how I can use an off the shelf plain tach that is adjustable for 4-6-8 cylinders on the smart's 3 cylinder configuration? That's all I need to know...

[pitstopautoinc]

All you need to do, is find out if the pulse per revolution can be adjusted by you, or if it needs to be sent to the manufacturer. Almost any guage company can change the PPR to 1.5 and alot of tachs such as sun pro, autometer mini monster, and vdo have switches on the back side to change the PPR. When you buy a tach and it states 4cyl / 6cyl / 8cyl there are usually switches in the back associated with them that will also allow you to change the PPR.

Hope this helps,
-Chris