Project Lazarus Gets Gauges

Project Lazarus

A very interesting Miata build started last month in Oregon. A couple guys purchased a beat up rolling wreck (pictured above) to restore as a community race car. Anyone in the area who wanted to feel what it was like to drive a car around a track could hop in Lazarus and take him out for a few laps. At least, they could when the restoration was complete.

You can read about the Lazarus build here on ClubRoadster.

These are just regular guys looking to have fun building a car and give something back to their local racing community. And they’re accepting donations in the form of used, unloved, spare parts that might be on someone’s shelf somewhere getting dusty.

F1 gauges for Lazarus

My buddy Stoly clued me in on this build. I read through. I was beside myself. What a great idea! And it was a fresh build, not something that happened months or years prior that I was just finding out about.

I immediately contacted the owners and offered to make them a set of gauges. I was hoping they’d have a week where they didn’t need to use their gauge cluster so that I could fill it with gauges myself (and get a blog post out of the deal). And – funny thing about having a barely-running car – they COULD spare the cluster for a week!

So. I proudly present Lazarus’ new revlimiter Gauges – Version-F1.

I cracked open the cluster for the first time.

60 seconds later...

And about 30 seconds after that!

The little plastic partitions gave way easily. My snips cut through like butter and I just broke the small pieces free with my fingers. This was a cluster that wanted a new set of gauges.

And a cleaning.

2 needle stoppers, no waiting!

This seems to be the most stressful part of the gauge install process for most folks – cutting out your OEM needle stoppers. It’s seriously easy. Cake. Easy cake. I should record a short video the next time I do it. But that video would only be like 10 seconds long.

F1 gauges installed.

And now for that cluster glass.

This cluster glass was filthy. And it was a baked on filth. Like someone did a spit take on it 10 years prior and just never cleaned it.

A wet towel did nothing. Glass cleaner didn’t help. So, it was plastic polish time. And… that didn’t work either. After 20 minutes of scrubbing I gave up.

Out came the rubbing compound.

Clean.

Yes, the glass is still on there. See the little reflection on the bottom corner?

That rubbing compound worked awesome. Sorry for no pix of the process. I got a little… aggravated with that glass and didn’t pick up my camera till I was done.

And now…

The finished gauge cluster.

The tach - perfect for a race car.

227k miles young.

I had a great time getting to help with Lazarus even though I live a few states away. I think the F1 gauges will be just the thing. I used this style when I was autocrossing a lot. The redline wedge is perfect for racing. Very easy to see out the corner of your eye.

All wrapped up and ready to go.

Godspeed, Lazarus!