Sport Cluster install

[Twenty]

As some of you know, my car has the base instrument cluster (No tachometer) as opposed to the optional sport cluster. You may also remember that I now have a sport cluster, but the issue is it's not exactly installed in the car, so it's not very useful at the moment.

 

I'm hoping to swap it in over the winter, but first there are a few things to address:

 

1. The odometer is too high, but my dealership can take care of that for me.

2. It hasn't been tested, but again I can have my friends at the dealership take care of that.

3. I need to know if it'll even swap in with some sort of ease. This is where the forum comes in.

 

I checked FAQ, looked around the forum, and tried the search function too, but so far nothing is showing up specifically for this swap in this car. That being said, if someone can find such a topic, please let me know!

 

Will the cluster swap in relatively easily, or is there more involved, along the lines of having to get a new harness or having to extensively modify the existing one?

 

Also, while I have experience with electronics I haven't ever done any electrical work to the car, and don't really feel like cutting and soldering for days just for a cluster swap. I don't want to extensively rework the wiring in the car, so I'm hoping this is more plug-and-play.

 

Summary:

 

I want this:

 

 

 

To go into this:

 

 

So how?

 

 

Thanks in advance.

[ManicMechanic]

You're looking at a pretty involved process.

 

Repinning the harness (I am sure, but not positive), running a tach wire, sensor for the oil pressure, not difficult work just tedious.

[Twenty]

As long as there's nothing like having to replace the whole harness or anything. What you've listed doesn't sound too bad. I'd just have to find a week when I can park the car in the garage and tear into it.

[White93z34]

I can get the harness pinouts for you at some point this week. I don't know how comfortable you are with tearing one of those apart, but its not too hard to set the odometer to anything you want.

 

what year car is the cluster out of?

[Twenty]

Well it was a '90-'93...to be honest I forget the exact year, I pulled it months ago. Would there be any identifiable markings/features to differentiate them?

[White93z34]

there might be... i dono off hand. It looks to be a 90-92 I think the oil PSI gauge has different markings for 93. reason I ask is because 90' clusters are generally hilariously inaccurate.

[Garrett Powered]

I got lucky and got a 90 tgp cluster thats pretty damn accurate...

 

but I also got that cluster pictured above in my 88. not sure how easy it was for Ken (Cobracdr) to get it to work when he owned it. he put that cluster, HUD, and one of the newer DIC's from a 95 or some shit in there?

 

its a pretty tight cluster. I wish the speedo and HUD were more accurate though.

[Dark Ride]

there might be... i dono off hand. It looks to be a 90-92 I think the oil PSI gauge has different markings for 93. reason I ask is because 90' clusters are generally hilariously inaccurate.

 

Was it just the '90's clusters that were bad? I thought it was that style cluster in general that was bad, accuracy wise. The only thing i've noticed with the clusters i've owned is speed and the low fuel level/check gauges indicator.

[White93z34]

I think the 90' Clusters were the worst of them. my TGPs cluster was off by 90% or more on the speedometer, I ended up getting a cluster from a 92 and that fixed all my inaccuracy issues.

[mra32]

Is this one of those clusters where he would be able to swap the odometer unit from one to the other? Otherwise, I can try to give a step by step for rolling back the odometer

[White93z34]

If his base cluster has a trip o meter it should be a drop in operation. I dono about putting info on how these thingsa work out in the open. That may not be a good idea as simple as they are...

[mra32]

oh yeah thats right, we talked about that.

[Twenty]

My original cluster does have a trip meter. I can swap them over, or have them swapped by my friends at the dealership.

[Dark Ride]

I think the 90' Clusters were the worst of them. my TGPs cluster was off by 90% or more on the speedometer, I ended up getting a cluster from a 92 and that fixed all my inaccuracy issues.

 

Hmm, that's interesting. Whatever happened to the write-up that Gnat (I believe) wrote about correcting the speedo by adding the resistor on the back board? Anyone still have a link to that?

[Grand Moff Joseph]

Check the FS/WTB forum and see if anyone has an adapter from Dan that is for sale. Would save you time.

[Twenty]

Plug-and-play adapter? That would make it easier.

[alec_b]

At most you're looking at re-pinning, but I'd be willing to bet you've got a tach wire already there, just not used. Otherwise, just pull it @ the module no big deal.

 

When I swapped from a sport analog to sport digital in the regal I had to re-pin the entire connector. Not one wire was in the same spot, and there were several missing wires in my analog cluster harness that the digital uses.

 

What I ended up doing was actually getting the digital harness with the cluster and tapping INTO the existing analog wiring, as most of the wire colors were the same, just not in the same position. This way, I kept the analog wiring completely intact so I can easily swap back if necessary. Essentially my car is wired for 2 clusters at once. However there may not be room in the GP dash for that.

 

I can get pinouts of both the clusters at work tomorrow if you want a for sure comparison of what needs to be changed.

[White93z34]

honestly repinning the harness is not a big deal.

[Addicted To Boost]

My original cluster does have a trip meter. I can swap them over, or have them swapped by my friends at the dealership.

Yes, you should be able to swap them. It's not hard.

[alec_b]

As promised:

 

Edited November 3, 2010 by alec_b

[Twenty]

honestly repinning the harness is not a big deal.

 

Yeah, but I'd be game for an adapter just to make it that much faster.

 

Thanks alec_b!

[AliasCT]

I've done this. Went from a '93 GP LE standard cluster (shifter on the steering column) to a 92 GP sport cluster (shifter on the floor). It was a cake walk for sure. The harness was the exact same, all pins were the same, (almost) all gauges worked with no modifications. The odometer swaps over, but the step motor has a different harness for the different cluster. No big deal, you can separate the motor from the odometer and move it over.

 

Three issues though.

 

Since my shifter was on the column, the gear indicator on the standard cluster was just beneath the cluster. I had to cut out a hole in the sport cluster to accommodate that, but there were mounting holes for it just the same.

 

The oil pressure sender unit for the sport cluster is variable, while the pressure sender unit for the standard cluster is off/on... No big deal for the cluster, it installs like normal. Just know that until you replace the pressure sender unit on the engine with the right sender, the cluster will read full pressure. I know you can buy it off the nets, but I just grabbed it off of the same car in the JY that I got the cluster.

 

That sport cluster is apparently infamous for its "check gauges" / fuel gauge being on *all* the time. It happened to me. It was (really) annoying. Fortunately there's an easy fix, so if you plug in the cluster and it has that problem, send me a PM and I'll tell you the fix.

 

Anything else you need to know?

 

Edit: Probably a good idea to check the pins from those scans first... But I had no issues with this swap. You're not going cross-model or from analogue to digital.

Edited December 8, 2010 by AliasCT

[Twenty]

Well fortunately, two of those items you've listed shouldn't be a problem. The only biggie would be the sender. I'll have to pull apart my dash some day soon to see for myself how my car's set up, but overall it shouldn't be too bad.