Under the newspaper is my center stack above the center vents. Built this yesterday out of floral foam. Covered it in aluminum foil, and resin glassed it 3 layers thick. Trimmed it down today front and back, glassed in a 1/4" hardboard face plate today, and internal structures for strength, and to support a radar detector. The glassed in 1/4" hardboard should be more than strong enough to mount the 2 digital gauges.
Here's a shot from the back. I cut in a square opening to mount a CPU style fan to cool the detector (I think leaving mine out in the sun did my current one in). The CPU fan draws ~.1A, so on a standard car battery, that should last well over 24 hours without getting into a dangerous zone in the battery, and I should only need to use it on hot summer days here where we get 4 seasons for at most 9 hours at a time.
Here's an accidental overhead. I mirrored the angular front edge on the pods top. But really this pic is to show the lower dash trim plate. You can see the 2 holes I drilled in for seat heaters, and the rectangular seatbelt/airbag warning light area are glassed in. I'm going to leave the warning light module plugged in behind the dash. And I'm drilling 5 holes across the bottom. 2 will remain on the right side for the seat heaters so that the passenger can easily access theirs. I will mount the one furthest to the left as the power for the radar detector so that I can quickly turn it off if needed. I will place another switch right beside it for the cooling fan. And a last single pole double throw switch for over ride of the auto lights. Position 1 will be for stock operation, and position 2 will be to over ride the light sensor making it think it is light out. I'm going this route instead of the much more ingenious setup another forum member posted that was automatic using a diode and a relay. I would have done it that way but when tapping/tracing wires, I could not confirm the results I should have been getting. This way, I will wire the switch in between the light sensor on position 1 for normal operation, and on a separate path to a 1K ohm resistor heading to the BCM which should make it think it's light out, defeating the auto light feature.
And just noticed you can see how much of a hood there is through the translucent fibreglass. The hood is my attempt at trying to make the gauges more readable with the top down in direct light.
The pod's top is level, and the top edge is between 11-12 cm directly above the front edge of the top, basically the top of the vents. So you can imagine if you have a sky. Get in the car, measure 11-12cm up, and that's how high the pod is. From the driver's seat, it's about 1 cm above the hoodline in terms of view for me, but I'm about as tall as you can be and still fit comfortably in a kappa at 6'. Put it this way, I know it's time to cut my hair when my hair starts touching the top regularly. And I also sit relatively upright as my preferred driving position. If you are shorter, you probably could only get away with putting in the 2 gauges, and not the detector or something above.
Not 100% sure yet, but will probably end up covering the pod in either 3M carbon fiber vinyl or some pleather I got from a local fabric/upholstery place or a combination of both. Tomorrow I have crap loads of sanding, body filler, more sanding, body filler, more sanding, and make a detachable rear plate. Will probably mount up the gauges into the pod until I reinstall the pod. Picking up a new detector on a US trip, so that can wait. I'm removing the lower and upper dash . . . lower for the stereo, and upper to access the light sensor, and to aid in running wires. So no point putting the pod back into the car yet.
All part of a much larger project, that seems to be getting larger
