car shift lights????

Hi,
I am looking to make a car shift light, so as you go up through the revs, some lights start flashing when it is time to change gears.
But I am stuck of the first stage, where do I start, I know I need something that will have an input for pulses (from the ignition).

Thanks

ps. I an new to this site, it's very very helpful.

I would (1) look for a digital tach project that was within my ability and experience, (2) check the tach's output for voltage or pulse rate at the revs where you want to shift gears, (3) adapt that output to a comparitor circuit for each shift point, and (4) feed each comparitor "goes high" point to different colored LEDs.