Has anyone thought of installing a aftermarket tach? I was thinking about doing it just for looks till I can get some good performance outta the car but I heard that with the old lancers it was difficult. Anyone got any ideas?

But why? There are only 2 reasons anyone should install aftermarket tach:
1) no factory tach
2) your car is purely a race car - in this case you need an oversize one with shift light for races - during races, good drivers dont usually pay attention to speed, they go by tach.
With that said, to each their own of course, but i think lancer's instrument panel looks fantastic.. adding an aftermarket tach "for looks" will not make it "look" good, actually the complete opposite.

Modern tachs come with 4 wires.
Red: connect to a switched 12v power source Black: grounded to the chassis White: connect to an interior light source that turns on when the lights are turned on Green: connect to the ECU.

If you get something like Defi that uses control unit, you wire up the control unit and then connect gauge to control unit.

I would have to agree with SimmoES. I don't think an aftermarket tach would look good in the new lancer.

If your going to race your Lancer or you want to have an aftermarket tach with a shift light, I think it would be interesting to install a shift light with other gauges in a custom gauge pod that attaches to the driver front pillar. This way you can keep the already great looking interior but add a little zing to the interior with the pillar gauges.

Just a thought! :)

Well thats what I want to do but I cant find any pillars.

Ok help me understand.. You want to get a small Tach to fit into pillad pod? that would make it smaller than factory tach! I quote your first post:
"till I can get some good performance outta the car" - what kind of visual/performance gains would you get out of a tach thats smaller than factory?
P.S. pillar pods wont be available for a little while until demand for gauges for our cars rises.

If I got a pillar than I would definatly scratch the whole idea on the tach cause as you said it makes no sense to have a smaller tach. I am just saying in general that to get a pillar is what I want but like you said again they dont have one yet, which I already knew.

hey see the car in my avatar? thats my race car and it doesnt even have a second tach, I would suggest not getting it, if you want a shift light you can get that without having to use a secondary tach.

If you absolutely must have aftermarket gauges, why not get gauges for something th car doesnt have. Oil pressure, coolant temp (incase you dont have the screen selected on your dash to show coolant temp) maybe a clock? Its kinda redundant in my opinion.