FlashGumby
11-29-2008, 10:37 AM
I always feel unworthy talking mods here.... I guess that I have 455 envy :)
But anyway, I finished up my Canadian Cluster mod and am posting up in case anybody's looking to recluster a later model Buick.
The SportWagon Cluster is now complete.
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff182/FlashGumby/dash.jpg
I started out not being able to figure out why Buick got rid of the full cluster that they had on their pre-94 wagons. I liked the idea of the Z/28 mod, which would give me the tach and oil pressure, as well as the 150 mph speedo, so I got my hands on an LT1 Z/28 cluster, modded it, made a harness, shaved the mounts and threw it into my cluster hole trying to figure out how I wanted to fill in the gaps so that it would look nice.
3 days later I swapped the O/E cluster back in. The reason that Buick got rid of the full cluster (IMO) was that the new PCM's were able to give a LOT more info than the old ones and the real estate for the extra gauges was needed for the wealth of idiot lights that could now be put in. Yes, I'd gotten a tach and oil pressure gauge, but I *did* have lights for the oil, the tach was a nice-to-have and I didn't like losing 8 other lights in the swap.
Choptop came to my recue when I griped with a (blue) A-pillar cluster... so I now had tach and oil pressure (and A/F ratio, but that's another long thread)
http://www.compdoc.com:8800/Images/FlashingPod.gif
Now my only gripe was he 120 mph speedo... a mild gripe, but a real one. I'd *like* to say that I only wanted it for track days, but the truth is that there's a lot of dead, straight freeway miles in Florida, and on trips across the everglades or up to Orlando/Daytona/Canaveral it's nice to know how fast you're going.
It was gerry who suggested the Canadian Cluster. It's got a 0-200 km/h face, and an odometer that's synced to it... so if you can get the gauge face to read 0-200 MPH accurately, the odometer will come along for the ride accurately... so I got the Canadian cluster from Pat.
I tried for a while to get an accurate signal from the PCM using speedo scalers atc, but the damned tranny in these things is set to operate based upon SPEED, so as you mess around with the signals sent to the cluster, you foul up your shiftpoints too. THEORETICALLY, I could've gotten the speedo to read correctly and then alter ALL of the tranny table, but there are a boatload of them and one of the Monodax guys suggested the SGI-5.
I cut my speedo signal cable (green and white on the passenger side plug)
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff182/FlashGumby/CutWire.jpg
Then ran it to the SGI unit. Works like a charm. $75 and rig it up with all switches OFF
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff182/FlashGumby/SGI-5.gif
No ground needed and use OUTPUT3 going back to the cluster. There is an up and down button that you push multiple times (68 in my case - up) in order to fine tune.
Now I had a working 0-200 MPH speedo, but it did have a km/h legend and a 0-120 MPH inner scale... Time for a faceplate.
I scanned my stock (canadian) plate, photoshopped it up (adding new indicators in places where the stock unit had unused dummy light locations) and sent it off to LEDmod.com, who had promised me that their screener could make it for me.
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff182/FlashGumby/cluster-photoshopped.gif
Sean (LEDMod.com) was great. He took my photoshop, changed into a vector-image artwork that would work with his screener's hardware and after going back and forth with me for a bit had a template to work with.
I got the new plate yesterday.
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff182/FlashGumby/Fresh-from-screener.jpg
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff182/FlashGumby/backlit.jpg
While I was waiting for the new plate, I swapped the stock bulbs for LED's, since Sean (LEDmod) had told me that it was preferential to coloring the indicator lights (which was time consuming and expensive).
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff182/FlashGumby/close-up.jpg
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff182/FlashGumby/close-up-lit.jpg
It looks great - semi-stock and works perfectly.
Now on to my bumper-mod!!
-Scott
Thanks to ChopTop (H.A.M.B.) for the A-Pillar, Pat (ImpalaSSForums) for the Canadian Cluster, Gerry for the inspiration , Stewart for the SEM info. and The guys over on the Monodax forums for the PCM programming support (and eventually pointing me to the SGI-5.)
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff182/FlashGumby/DaddyWagon_big.jpg
-Scott McGrath
'96 Roadmaster Estate Ltd. - Last of the Great American Wagons
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2762557
ISSCA#2229 BCA#43406 BMD#115
But anyway, I finished up my Canadian Cluster mod and am posting up in case anybody's looking to recluster a later model Buick.
The SportWagon Cluster is now complete.
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff182/FlashGumby/dash.jpg
I started out not being able to figure out why Buick got rid of the full cluster that they had on their pre-94 wagons. I liked the idea of the Z/28 mod, which would give me the tach and oil pressure, as well as the 150 mph speedo, so I got my hands on an LT1 Z/28 cluster, modded it, made a harness, shaved the mounts and threw it into my cluster hole trying to figure out how I wanted to fill in the gaps so that it would look nice.
3 days later I swapped the O/E cluster back in. The reason that Buick got rid of the full cluster (IMO) was that the new PCM's were able to give a LOT more info than the old ones and the real estate for the extra gauges was needed for the wealth of idiot lights that could now be put in. Yes, I'd gotten a tach and oil pressure gauge, but I *did* have lights for the oil, the tach was a nice-to-have and I didn't like losing 8 other lights in the swap.
Choptop came to my recue when I griped with a (blue) A-pillar cluster... so I now had tach and oil pressure (and A/F ratio, but that's another long thread)
http://www.compdoc.com:8800/Images/FlashingPod.gif
Now my only gripe was he 120 mph speedo... a mild gripe, but a real one. I'd *like* to say that I only wanted it for track days, but the truth is that there's a lot of dead, straight freeway miles in Florida, and on trips across the everglades or up to Orlando/Daytona/Canaveral it's nice to know how fast you're going.
It was gerry who suggested the Canadian Cluster. It's got a 0-200 km/h face, and an odometer that's synced to it... so if you can get the gauge face to read 0-200 MPH accurately, the odometer will come along for the ride accurately... so I got the Canadian cluster from Pat.
I tried for a while to get an accurate signal from the PCM using speedo scalers atc, but the damned tranny in these things is set to operate based upon SPEED, so as you mess around with the signals sent to the cluster, you foul up your shiftpoints too. THEORETICALLY, I could've gotten the speedo to read correctly and then alter ALL of the tranny table, but there are a boatload of them and one of the Monodax guys suggested the SGI-5.
I cut my speedo signal cable (green and white on the passenger side plug)
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff182/FlashGumby/CutWire.jpg
Then ran it to the SGI unit. Works like a charm. $75 and rig it up with all switches OFF
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff182/FlashGumby/SGI-5.gif
No ground needed and use OUTPUT3 going back to the cluster. There is an up and down button that you push multiple times (68 in my case - up) in order to fine tune.
Now I had a working 0-200 MPH speedo, but it did have a km/h legend and a 0-120 MPH inner scale... Time for a faceplate.
I scanned my stock (canadian) plate, photoshopped it up (adding new indicators in places where the stock unit had unused dummy light locations) and sent it off to LEDmod.com, who had promised me that their screener could make it for me.
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff182/FlashGumby/cluster-photoshopped.gif
Sean (LEDMod.com) was great. He took my photoshop, changed into a vector-image artwork that would work with his screener's hardware and after going back and forth with me for a bit had a template to work with.
I got the new plate yesterday.
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff182/FlashGumby/Fresh-from-screener.jpg
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff182/FlashGumby/backlit.jpg
While I was waiting for the new plate, I swapped the stock bulbs for LED's, since Sean (LEDmod) had told me that it was preferential to coloring the indicator lights (which was time consuming and expensive).
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff182/FlashGumby/close-up.jpg
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff182/FlashGumby/close-up-lit.jpg
It looks great - semi-stock and works perfectly.
Now on to my bumper-mod!!
-Scott
Thanks to ChopTop (H.A.M.B.) for the A-Pillar, Pat (ImpalaSSForums) for the Canadian Cluster, Gerry for the inspiration , Stewart for the SEM info. and The guys over on the Monodax forums for the PCM programming support (and eventually pointing me to the SGI-5.)
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff182/FlashGumby/DaddyWagon_big.jpg
-Scott McGrath
'96 Roadmaster Estate Ltd. - Last of the Great American Wagons
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2762557
ISSCA#2229 BCA#43406 BMD#115