	copyright 1998-2018 by Mark Verboom

Go back to Opel Speedster 2.2 16v

Shift light

After having drive the car on the track and even sometimes on the road, I was looking for a shiftlight, like the turbo ones have as standard. After browsing for a bit, I found one with a little more options than standard. Allthough they market it for motorbikes, it works very well on a Speedster.

This is the Datatool RevLight. Main functions are:

11 leds (green, amber, red)
Auto dimming (light sensor)
Flexible housing (bendable)
3 operating modes
programmable rev-range

I was having a go at the electronics of the Speedster today anyway. So with the dashboard allready out, I could start mounting the RevLight. It needs four connetions:

+12V
Ground
RPM pulse
button

The power was the easiest part. As I rerouted power from the stereo connetor for other purposes allready anyway, I could tap into that.
For the RPM pulse, I could tap into the connector running up to the stack unit. You need the white wire with the black stripe. I stripped a bit of the insulation away, and soldered a wire parallel to it.

After that I taped the wires back together, so we had a neat cable once again.

Now for the last wire. As I have installed a couple of buttons on the stalks earlier (see the move horn project) I used one of those to control the RevLight.
Connectors were allready in place (did that when installing the stalks), so I only had to crimp a connector to the wire on the RevLight and connect it to the bottom button on the indicator stalk.

When putting the dash back together I mounted the RevLight on top of the Stack hood. Did that with double sided tape, so got some ductape over it at the moment of taking the picture to alleviate the pressure on the double sided tape to let it set. The nice thing is that the RevLight has a flexible housing. So it will follow the form of the Stack hood.

When everything is installed you need to calibrate the RevLight. First hold the engine at idle and push the button. Next run the engine at 4000RPM and push the button.
You can then set the limit of the green, yellow and red zone as you wish, in steps of 500RPM's. So you can decide yourself when you want the leds to light.

Ofcourse you can trick the unit into different rev ranges by callibrating at a different RPM then the 4000 stated in the manual.

When driving the car you have 3 modes of operation:

1. cummulative. The more revs you have to more leds light up. When hitting the RPM limit all lights start flashing.
2. sequential. Only 1 led lights on the bar, moving up and down with the revs of the engine. When hitting the RPM limit all lights start flashing.
3. shift light mode. No leds light, except when you hit the RPM limit, then all start flashing

When driving the sequential mode seems to work best for me. Gives you a nice idea of how close you are to the rev limiter without generating too much light.

When driving at night the unit really works well. The autodimming is really VERY good. Light is low enough not to be distracting, yet it is very clear when you need to shift up.