Upgraded Gauge Cluster

Feb 8th, 2003, 08:28 PM

Well I went to the junkyard today to just get a nice doorpanel to replace my torn one on the drivers door. I looked at every single B12 at the yard trying to find a nice cloth one. Turns out only the 4 doors have them. Grrrr, not fair! So while I was looking around, I found the only Sport Coupe they had, which seemed to be pretty complete. It was an 87 and only missing the passenger door. Anyways, I was looking at the door panel, quite interesting, but I decided it probably wouldn't work on my door. But I did notice the gauge cluster. Mmmm, tach! Mmmm, 160mph speedo! So I snagged it, and just to be safe, I snagged the plugs that plugged into the back of it too. Good thing I did because when I got back to my place, all of the pins were re-arranged, so I had to cut the connectors off my car, and color match the wires to the XE connectors. For the tach wire, I just disconnected the crappy aftermarket tach I had hanging off the A-pillar and ran that tach wire to the cluster. Had to replace a few bulbs and clean some contacts to get all the lights working. I also decided not to try my luck on the voltage regulator, I knew mine worked fine and mine had a big like 1" black heatsink on it, so I swapped mine over to this gauge cluster. So the swap went almost without a single hitch.. The problem came when I went to test drive the car. All of a sudden, I was doing 50 in second gear, at like 3 grand.. Hmm.. My first thought was that the XE's use a different gear ratio for the speedo. Then I remembered how surprised I was that the XE had 291,000 miles on it. And I looked down at the bottom of the speedo... KM/H.. DOH! Damn Cannucks! So I have a damn Canadian cluster in there now. I have to look at the small numbers to see how fast I'm really going. heheh, but the cluster looks really nice, the tach really was meant to be in the cluster, and not somewhere else completely. The tach seems to work perfectly, and completely accurate, even hooked to my '82 ignition system.. heheh..
Oh, and on the door panel, I got the best one in the yard, out of 20 B12's, I got the only one that still had the factory speaker grill in it.

Also has a pocket in it, that mine didn't have.

RiceBox · Feb 8th, 2003, 09:04 PM

160 mph speedo on a B12 would be a joke!!! At least you now have a factory tach.

Feb 8th, 2003, 09:10 PM

With the E15 I have, yeah, I agree, it'd be a joke. But I could see the car doing 160 with a good body kit, 1.5" drop, and a GA16DE or better yet, an SR20DE.. I think the body kit and the drop would be the most important part tho, reduce the drag. Probably wouldn't hit 160mph, but I be it'd get damn close. I've done 160mph in an '89 Toyota Supra, and those things sure don't look aerodynamic... I'm not sure what kinda horsepower the engine was rated at though, it was my friend's parent's car. heheh..

I doubt it was over 250hp..

Feb 8th, 2003, 11:02 PM

The tach switch in sounds great....in the american version of course....it would be worth paying for an aftermarket tach just for the hookups, and then switch in the cluster w/tach instead, just to get the factory look.....good choice.
However that must have been one muscled up supra to hit 160, most i've ever seen in the tests was about 135 on a good day!

Feb 8th, 2003, 11:14 PM

As far as I know, it was stock, and it was supposed to be an '89 only thing..
You don't need to buy an aftermarket tach to get the wiring for this cluster, you just have to run a wire from the cluster to the tach signal wire at the coil. Heh, unfortunately, I'm not sure which wire that is on a B12 as I have a very early B11 ignition. But I know there IS a wire that will send that signal on the B12's ignition.

Feb 10th, 2003, 08:56 PM

I put a picture of the new cluster installed in my dash in my photo album on Yahoo. I also had a shot of the old cluster, in case you want to compare. Just click on the link in my signature to go see that album.

Kind of off the B11/B12 topic, I got my speaker box built and installed. I replaced the back of my back seat with the box. I haven't gotten around to putting padding and vinyl on it yet, so it's very ugly. But it's up in that album too. Was kinda hard to get the camera far enough back to take a good shot of it.. Ahh well. Anyways, the idea was to keep the back seat fully functional, and once I get padding and some good strong grills, I'll have that goal met.

fastpakr · Feb 10th, 2003, 10:36 PM

The units on that cluster look remarkably like kilometers per hour. Are you sure it's 160mph?

Feb 10th, 2003, 10:59 PM

That's what I've been saying. I thought it was mph when I was installing it. After taking it for a test drive and scratching my head about why it was reading so far off, I finally noticed the KM/H at the bottom of the speedo. Ahh well, looks cool going to 160, even if it's not MPH, and the MPH is in small numbers in the middle, so I've just been using those.

The tach is damned sweet, I like it alot more than the aftermarket tach I had.

7RIPP3R · Feb 11th, 2003, 12:01 AM

UnaClocker - sweet setup ... kudos on the rims I got an 87 myself and would like to get my hands on a new cluster like yours. I have to go on a field trip to the local yards and see if i could stumble upon a cluster for myself.

laters - 7RIP

Feb 11th, 2003, 12:13 AM

Look for an XE Coupe, can't miss the radically different interior they come with. Just make sure you snip off the plugs that go into the cluster itself with a good 3-6" of wire. Then it's very simple to splice in to a standard sentra, all the colors match. Only wires I had a hangup on was the temp gauge wire and the seat belt light wire are the same color for some reason. But the clusters are well labeled, so you shouldn't have any problem figuring it out.

fastpakr · Feb 11th, 2003, 01:21 PM

Nevermind, that's what I get for not reading through the whole first post. Sorry 'bout that!

vdubberwithb12 · Mar 5th, 2003, 11:02 PM

Hi there b12 owners! New member here.

I always wanted to know any info about a this cluster swap...and here it is! Thats why i got this topic out of its grave

Any more info about the instalation will be apreciated

Mar 6th, 2003, 01:42 AM

Just cut the harness out of the donor car. Gotta find a Sentra XE in the junkyard, it's the coupe. Someone emailed me and said GXE's had them too. That'd be the 4 door. I haven't looked at one at my junkyard to check that claim tho. Cut your harness off and splice the wires. Same colors. I believe there was one wire that was the same color in two different connectors, and had two different purposes. Just be methodical, everything is well labeled on those circuitboards, just read the board.

AVERAGE · Mar 6th, 2003, 03:08 AM

hey una . i can confirm that the gxe sentra does indeed have a stock tach. i have a parts gxe .....well sort of parts . the gxe is in better condition than my running car so i am on the look out for a motor for it. found one , local japan direct.

SuperSentra4203 · Mar 6th, 2003, 09:24 AM

Jsut got some info from boost_boy. He is using gauges form a 87-90 Pulsar SE. It has a tach and 125mph speedo. He said he hade to "meticuously modify" them to fit the B12's housing, but they do look very good.