With all the talk about digital dashes and how everyone else in the world gets them but us in the States, this should hopefully turn out to be a good thread. A couple months ago, I, like many others before me, decided to attempt the project on my own. My goals with this were to find a way to install an originally RHD MKIII digital dash into my LHD car (obviously). Along the way I wanted to figure out what digi dash sensors I HAVE to run to make the digital dash work, what tach signals work, if there were suitable cross-reference sensors that would work, and finally to dispel all the false “facts” about what works and what doesn’t. Now, to give you a bit of background, I’m not an engineer. I am a lowly enlisted avionics technician for the Navy so what I have figured out may not necessarily be the best way. In fact, it most likely isn’t, but I did this on a kitchen table and dryer with no specialized tools and it worked for me so as always YMMV!
Before you tackle this project, I would like to give credit to a few people and websites who helped me out along the way.
For the translated version of the Japanese wiring diagram:
http://www.supraforums.com.au/forum/topic/41157-diy-mkii-analogue-digital-dash-conversion-vice-versa/
For the initial pinout for the digital dash (I changed a few things but it was mostly accurate for my dash):
http://www.clickdesign.co.uk/supradupra/html/digi_dash_connections.html
For the inspiration for me to tackle the project, Stretch’s digidash thread. Just reading it gave me quite a few ideas on how I should tackle my own project, so his thread was invaluable:
http://www.supramania.com/forums/showthread.php?12183-Stretch-s-Digidash-thread
I would also like to thank Suzy for all she did. Now, even though she didn’t directly help me out, her translated wiring diagrams were very much appreciated and helped me decipher the inaccuracies of the wiring diagrams and pinouts.
I would also like to thank Faye for hooking me up with a new gauge cluster glass. You rock!
Anyway, let’s get started!
*You will need a digital gauge cluster (duh). The gauge cluster I bought was the one with both “Turbo” and “Oil” meters on the left side. The part number was 83010-1B474. There is another digital cluster that does not have the oil pressure meter. Maybe that is for the JZ or 1G motor. I don’t know, I’m not that familiar with those motors in these cars. That one might work, you just won’t have oil pressure readings.
*LHD analog dash skeleton. What I mean is you don’t need the gauges or any of the electrical stuff, just the plastic shell and front glass. Hopefully you don’t have any attachment to this, because you will be hacking the backshell up with a dremel tool.
Digital speedometer sensor (I will get into this later)
Digital fuel level sensor (again, I will talk more on this later)
18 pin connector (hopefully on the back of the dash when you get it, if not, don’t despair)
20 pin connector (same as above)
12 pin connector (same again)
*Dremel tool
*Soldering Iron
*Multimeter (if you don’t have one of these by now, you should probably not own a MKIII)
*Black paint (I used gloss black VHT with primer)
*Duct tape, Masking tape, Electrical tape
*Heat Shrink
*Basic hand tools
If you get a dash with no connectors, all is not lost. We have those connectors on our cars already, and I think I would be safe to assume that many other Japanese cars have those same connectors. Just spend some time in junkyards! The 18 pin connector is the same as the 18 pin connector for the theft deterrent system and cruise control as well as the H1 harness connector. The 20 pin connector is the same as the wire harness joining connector O1 (http://www.cygnusx1.net/Supra/Library/TEWD/MK3/manual.aspx?S=Main&P=31). The 12 pin connector is the same as the one on the A/C amplifier. Anyway now that that is done let’s move on to building the dash.
Now, I wish I could show you pictures throughout the build, but the SD card on my camera isn’t living up to the “secure” part of its name and lost all my pictures. What worked for me was to hack up both backshells for the dash. All you really want left for the analog one is the outside portion to mount the glass and screw the dash into the stock mounting holes and a spot for you to put your stock clock. Now, be careful with skeletal remains of the backshell. It is very fragile without all the support of the rest of the plastic and WILL break on you if you aren’t careful. It would be a good idea to screw the front glass to it to give it some structural rigidity.
Moving onto the digital backshell, what worked for me was to cut the back out of the plastic that the gauges mount to. What you want when you are done is one piece that holds the main board with speedo, fuel, odometer, and coolant temp gauges. The other plastic piece is the one that the tems and oil and turbo pressure gauges mount to. Before I did this, I used a sharpie and a ruler to make straight lines and figure out the best spots to cut. Remember, to cut is permanent!
Now, after you have accomplished this, you should have the analog dash skeleton with front glass mounted to it face down and the two plastic pieces with gauges mounted to them. What you are going to do next is lay the gauge assemblies down over the skeleton. You may want to use stacked washers or spacers of some sort to hold the gauge faces between 3/8” to 7/16” away from the closest part of the glass. Don’t go too far away from the glass, because you want the cluster to be as shallow as possible. Look at the depth of the old cluster. The digital one is a bit deeper than the analog one, but you really don’t want to go too deep, otherwise it won’t fit! In case you don’t know, the glass is concave (or convex, depending on how you’re looking at it) so place your spacers on the middle of the glass. After you are happy with the placement of everything, place reference marks on the plastic pieces to make sure they don’t move around while you fiberglass it all together.
On the subject of fiberglassing, I’m pretty new with this. I fiberglassed the cluster together with the gauges still mounted inside. That being said, the resin is nasty stuff and will flow everywhere. It’s like honey. What I did was covered the connectors and everything I didn’t want covered in fiberglass with duct tape. Not the most aesthetically pleasing thing to do, but hey, it worked for me! After the fiberglass cured (took mine around 12 hours till I felt comfortable to gently handle it) I used sharp razor blades to make my cutouts for the connector openings and such. One thing I would like to add, do not fiberglass over the gauge glass. You are most likely going to get some resin dripping onto the gauge glass and will want to replace it with new stuff. Thankfully Toyota still carries them and they are reasonably priced.
Now that you have it physically ready, now would be a good time to trial fit it in the car. Do this with the gauge glass on, since that is what you’re aligning everything to. As long as everything fits, now we can work on the wiring. You will have to extend the 4 connectors from the main display to the tems display by 24 inches. It is pretty easy. With wiring, it doesn’t take much longer to do it right, so get yourself some heat shrink and soldering stuff and extend them that way. When extending wires, use the “Western Union Splice” method. It works really well and is actually quite strong. You can find info on it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Union_splice . Here is a picture of how I did the harness extension (I didn’t do the door warning light harness yet, that’s why there are only 3 connectors instead of 4):
Now at this point, you have a digital cluster that doesn’t look very pretty. There is a tinted piece of acrylic on one of the layers of the digital dash that is used as a vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) filter. You are going to want to separate that from the framework holding it on. Be careful, it is somewhat brittle and you can crack it. I’m looking into sourcing sheets of the VFD filter acrylic, but so far, I’m coming up with nothing. If anyone knows where to get it, let me know! Anyway, after you have the filter separated from the frame, you will be left with a bunch of adhesive residue. I ended up using a very sharp razor blade to get the adhesive stuff off (while being careful not to scratch the acrylic) then used Windex to take care of the rest. It isn’t the best, but at least it worked!
Next, we have to tackle the indicator lights below the dash that house the turn signals, charging light, high beam, etc. I just used a dremel tool and cut out that whole section, then routed the harness to the connector on the main board. Fit it in there to that it looks nice, then glue it in place. When that is done, you should have something that roughly looks like this:
Now fit the analog dash’s clock in the spot to the right of the odometer. From left to right on the bottom of the dash, you should have your section of indicator lights, the odometer, and the clock. If you have all the gauges, clock, indicator lights, odometer in there and they look nice, fit the front glass back on. This would be a good time to put on a factory fresh new front glass. The part number for that is: 83138-1B190 and is still readily available. Take a dry erase marker and outline the gauges, clock, indicator panel and odometer. Remove the glass and mask on the inside of the glass and paint it with a good black spray paint that adheres well to plastic. After you are done with that, take a break and enjoy a delicious beer.
When you are done with your tasty beverage, remove the masking tape and fit the glass over the dash. Hopefully it all looks nice. If not, well bummer. I’m going to assume that it looks nice though. Now you get to install the acrylic filter in the dash, formerly adhesive side up. You might want to put a couple dabs of hot glue on it to prevent it from sliding around. After that is mounted, install the glass for the last time. When you are done, it should look like this:
Pretty sweet, isn’t it? Now is a good time to remove the vents from your old dash and put them on the new dash. No, the JDM dash vents won’t work. They technically do snap into place but the angles are wrong, so you have to use the USDM vents. Also, the screw holes on the vents will not line up with anything. Thankfully the vents snap into place on the glass so you don’t have to worry about that. After you are done with that, admire your work and the transition from your old analog dash to the new digital dash:
Next post, wiring it up!
Before you tackle this project, I would like to give credit to a few people and websites who helped me out along the way.
For the translated version of the Japanese wiring diagram:
http://www.supraforums.com.au/forum/topic/41157-diy-mkii-analogue-digital-dash-conversion-vice-versa/
For the initial pinout for the digital dash (I changed a few things but it was mostly accurate for my dash):
http://www.clickdesign.co.uk/supradupra/html/digi_dash_connections.html
For the inspiration for me to tackle the project, Stretch’s digidash thread. Just reading it gave me quite a few ideas on how I should tackle my own project, so his thread was invaluable:
http://www.supramania.com/forums/showthread.php?12183-Stretch-s-Digidash-thread
I would also like to thank Suzy for all she did. Now, even though she didn’t directly help me out, her translated wiring diagrams were very much appreciated and helped me decipher the inaccuracies of the wiring diagrams and pinouts.
I would also like to thank Faye for hooking me up with a new gauge cluster glass. You rock!
Anyway, let’s get started!
*You will need a digital gauge cluster (duh). The gauge cluster I bought was the one with both “Turbo” and “Oil” meters on the left side. The part number was 83010-1B474. There is another digital cluster that does not have the oil pressure meter. Maybe that is for the JZ or 1G motor. I don’t know, I’m not that familiar with those motors in these cars. That one might work, you just won’t have oil pressure readings.
*LHD analog dash skeleton. What I mean is you don’t need the gauges or any of the electrical stuff, just the plastic shell and front glass. Hopefully you don’t have any attachment to this, because you will be hacking the backshell up with a dremel tool.
Digital speedometer sensor (I will get into this later)
Digital fuel level sensor (again, I will talk more on this later)
18 pin connector (hopefully on the back of the dash when you get it, if not, don’t despair)
20 pin connector (same as above)
12 pin connector (same again)
*Dremel tool
*Soldering Iron
*Multimeter (if you don’t have one of these by now, you should probably not own a MKIII)
*Black paint (I used gloss black VHT with primer)
*Duct tape, Masking tape, Electrical tape
*Heat Shrink
*Basic hand tools
If you get a dash with no connectors, all is not lost. We have those connectors on our cars already, and I think I would be safe to assume that many other Japanese cars have those same connectors. Just spend some time in junkyards! The 18 pin connector is the same as the 18 pin connector for the theft deterrent system and cruise control as well as the H1 harness connector. The 20 pin connector is the same as the wire harness joining connector O1 (http://www.cygnusx1.net/Supra/Library/TEWD/MK3/manual.aspx?S=Main&P=31). The 12 pin connector is the same as the one on the A/C amplifier. Anyway now that that is done let’s move on to building the dash.
Now, I wish I could show you pictures throughout the build, but the SD card on my camera isn’t living up to the “secure” part of its name and lost all my pictures. What worked for me was to hack up both backshells for the dash. All you really want left for the analog one is the outside portion to mount the glass and screw the dash into the stock mounting holes and a spot for you to put your stock clock. Now, be careful with skeletal remains of the backshell. It is very fragile without all the support of the rest of the plastic and WILL break on you if you aren’t careful. It would be a good idea to screw the front glass to it to give it some structural rigidity.
Moving onto the digital backshell, what worked for me was to cut the back out of the plastic that the gauges mount to. What you want when you are done is one piece that holds the main board with speedo, fuel, odometer, and coolant temp gauges. The other plastic piece is the one that the tems and oil and turbo pressure gauges mount to. Before I did this, I used a sharpie and a ruler to make straight lines and figure out the best spots to cut. Remember, to cut is permanent!
Now, after you have accomplished this, you should have the analog dash skeleton with front glass mounted to it face down and the two plastic pieces with gauges mounted to them. What you are going to do next is lay the gauge assemblies down over the skeleton. You may want to use stacked washers or spacers of some sort to hold the gauge faces between 3/8” to 7/16” away from the closest part of the glass. Don’t go too far away from the glass, because you want the cluster to be as shallow as possible. Look at the depth of the old cluster. The digital one is a bit deeper than the analog one, but you really don’t want to go too deep, otherwise it won’t fit! In case you don’t know, the glass is concave (or convex, depending on how you’re looking at it) so place your spacers on the middle of the glass. After you are happy with the placement of everything, place reference marks on the plastic pieces to make sure they don’t move around while you fiberglass it all together.
On the subject of fiberglassing, I’m pretty new with this. I fiberglassed the cluster together with the gauges still mounted inside. That being said, the resin is nasty stuff and will flow everywhere. It’s like honey. What I did was covered the connectors and everything I didn’t want covered in fiberglass with duct tape. Not the most aesthetically pleasing thing to do, but hey, it worked for me! After the fiberglass cured (took mine around 12 hours till I felt comfortable to gently handle it) I used sharp razor blades to make my cutouts for the connector openings and such. One thing I would like to add, do not fiberglass over the gauge glass. You are most likely going to get some resin dripping onto the gauge glass and will want to replace it with new stuff. Thankfully Toyota still carries them and they are reasonably priced.
Now that you have it physically ready, now would be a good time to trial fit it in the car. Do this with the gauge glass on, since that is what you’re aligning everything to. As long as everything fits, now we can work on the wiring. You will have to extend the 4 connectors from the main display to the tems display by 24 inches. It is pretty easy. With wiring, it doesn’t take much longer to do it right, so get yourself some heat shrink and soldering stuff and extend them that way. When extending wires, use the “Western Union Splice” method. It works really well and is actually quite strong. You can find info on it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Union_splice . Here is a picture of how I did the harness extension (I didn’t do the door warning light harness yet, that’s why there are only 3 connectors instead of 4):
Now at this point, you have a digital cluster that doesn’t look very pretty. There is a tinted piece of acrylic on one of the layers of the digital dash that is used as a vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) filter. You are going to want to separate that from the framework holding it on. Be careful, it is somewhat brittle and you can crack it. I’m looking into sourcing sheets of the VFD filter acrylic, but so far, I’m coming up with nothing. If anyone knows where to get it, let me know! Anyway, after you have the filter separated from the frame, you will be left with a bunch of adhesive residue. I ended up using a very sharp razor blade to get the adhesive stuff off (while being careful not to scratch the acrylic) then used Windex to take care of the rest. It isn’t the best, but at least it worked!
Next, we have to tackle the indicator lights below the dash that house the turn signals, charging light, high beam, etc. I just used a dremel tool and cut out that whole section, then routed the harness to the connector on the main board. Fit it in there to that it looks nice, then glue it in place. When that is done, you should have something that roughly looks like this:
Now fit the analog dash’s clock in the spot to the right of the odometer. From left to right on the bottom of the dash, you should have your section of indicator lights, the odometer, and the clock. If you have all the gauges, clock, indicator lights, odometer in there and they look nice, fit the front glass back on. This would be a good time to put on a factory fresh new front glass. The part number for that is: 83138-1B190 and is still readily available. Take a dry erase marker and outline the gauges, clock, indicator panel and odometer. Remove the glass and mask on the inside of the glass and paint it with a good black spray paint that adheres well to plastic. After you are done with that, take a break and enjoy a delicious beer.
When you are done with your tasty beverage, remove the masking tape and fit the glass over the dash. Hopefully it all looks nice. If not, well bummer. I’m going to assume that it looks nice though. Now you get to install the acrylic filter in the dash, formerly adhesive side up. You might want to put a couple dabs of hot glue on it to prevent it from sliding around. After that is mounted, install the glass for the last time. When you are done, it should look like this:
Pretty sweet, isn’t it? Now is a good time to remove the vents from your old dash and put them on the new dash. No, the JDM dash vents won’t work. They technically do snap into place but the angles are wrong, so you have to use the USDM vents. Also, the screw holes on the vents will not line up with anything. Thankfully the vents snap into place on the glass so you don’t have to worry about that. After you are done with that, admire your work and the transition from your old analog dash to the new digital dash:
Next post, wiring it up!
