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Livorsi Marine Dash Designer Updates Your Helm

Livorsi Gauges provide a face lift for my 1986 Stoker 26 Super Sport Tunnel, part 1.

When I bought my 1986 Stoker 26 Super Sport Tunnel boat, it came without power but with some ugly black-faced OMC gauges that accompanied the previous twin Evinrude E-Tec outboards. I re-powered the boat with twin 260 hp 1996 Mercury Hi-Performance 2.5 EFI Offshore outboards and they needed gauges worthy of their offshore racing pedigree, so I called my friend Mike Livorsi at Livorsi Marine. He recommended that I use the Livorsi Marine Dash Designer to check out the different instruments available and how they would look in my boat.

After playing with the Dash Designer and consulting with Mike (hey, use the resource if you have it), I went with Livorsi’s Industrial series in a white face with chrome bezels. For twin outboards, I went with tachometers, trim position, water temperature, water pressure, volts and fuel level. I also upgraded to a 100 mph GPS speedometer with a recall.

The gauges are standard size, with the smaller ones requiring a 2 1/16-inch cutout for the smaller instruments and the larger tachometers, and speedometer using a 3 3/8-inch cutout. Overall size is 2 3/8-inch and 3 ¾-inch respectively. Because the water-pressure gauges are a little bit smaller than the rest of the instruments, we determined that bezels would make the gauges fit correctly.

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Livorsi gauges are encased in nonferrous hardware and have stainless-steel rims to increase longevity. To reduce eye strain, they have red LED lights for nighttime operation, and the pointers are powder-coated to improve resistance to fading.

Having upgraded a few dash panels over the years, I loved the Deutsch connectors that link the gauge to the wire harness. Each Deutsch connector has a wire for 12-volt, signal, ground and light. Link to it with a heat-shrink butt connector, melt the ends and you’re in business. No more having to crimp a terminal connector to the wire harness and then having to screw each one to the gauge. This must have saved me at least an hour in rigging time. That alone is an upgrade, but with the new Industrial Series gauges from Livorsi Marine, my 1986 Stoker already looks ready for the 21st century.

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