I've wanted to do this conversion for awhile now. For anyone who doesn't know, digital guages were options for several Nissan cars. Kind of cheesy, but not as much as talking cars, which they offered for a few years I'm a technology junkie, so the digital dash is pretty sick IMO.

*Boring "novel" removed*

Pics
http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n229/pearlmax/

Videos
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqxTl43eH24
HQ DL in XviD format: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=799E5UI7

Big thanks to gen3 for finding, and selling me the parts.

 

That looks great!
Like how detailed it is but looks like it would take some getting use to on the gauges since everything is digital.

 

Wow, thats an impressive amount of work! Looks better than what I thought it would. Is there a delay in the rpm gauge? I didn't notice it in your vid, I has seen a delay in a buick with a digital dash.

 

That looks badazz. Good work, I am impressed.

What year Maximas came with the digital gauges? GXE only? I don't think I have ever seen one in person.

 

Dude, that is awesome. I never knew the Digital Dash looked that good when lit up at night. When I get my car back, I should consider it instead of the SE gauges. I'm kind of a technology fan myself, but that looks a bit too complicated for me. If I can find the parts and some people to give me a hand with the electrical work, I will do that.

I believe that only the 89-91 came with them. I thought the 92-94 offered them too, but I have never seen one. It was only on the GXE model. It was an extremely rare option too.

 

I have a cluster laying around. I wasn't going to sell it but I found the part I need for the hud. I also may have a second hud laying around some where. I'll find it when Im done un packing my car stuff. PM me if your interested.

I was always curious to see what the digi gauges looked like. It looks good but I still like my SE's better. If I had a GXE Id probably go that route. But its HUD and SE's for me. Once I get around to installing the hud any way..

~Alex

 

The gauges take a little getting used to, but not much. Although it might seem like it, the HUD and display aren't a distraction. I'm actually more aware of my speed now, which can come in handy

Nope, there's no delay in the tach. Buick probably had Emerson build their displays I was pretty surprised at the good quality of control unit and display board. NEC chips, capacitors aren't buldging or leaking. Everything looked new. E-brake light still goes on and off when it wants, but it did that before the conversion as well.. Probably grounding out somewhere, switch is disconnected.

I'm pretty sure it was available for every year, GXE only. I think they were available on 2nd gens and maybe even 1st gen. I think Z31s had them as well. The DP isn't even listed in my 91 brochure. I've never looked through another year's brochure before, it'd be interesting to see which ones listed the package.

 

Yeah glad to see the final product up and working. I was wondering how does it look during the day. Is it hard to read like radios are sometime? Yeah I'm working on the claims process. I forgot to mention it in the message but do you have the tracking number still on the box?

 

Suprisingly it's pretty easy to read in the daylight. If the sun shines directly on the display, it can wash out a bit, but that rarely happens. it's affected about as much as the digital clock. I keep the brightness at 100% which is enough to compete with the sun.

Check your messages, i'm pretty sure I have the tracking number from the old PM..

 

I couldn't tell in your video if you already have this covered, but you'll appreciate the HUD more if you cut out a piece of window tint for the windshield for it to project on to. Without the tint it's harder (and at times impossible) to read by day.
The tint will also prevent the display from 'ghosting'. By ghosting I mean, when the projected image doubles.
The digi dash does look far better than I had thought. I just went with the HUD alone. With the white faced gauges I get the best of both analog/digi. But I will admit the digital tachometer is pretty cool.
Nice work!

 

the digital dash was offered on 1st gens through our 3rd gens. for our 3rd gens it was only offered in the GXE bourgham edition with electronic suspension and digital climate control. only offered from '89-'91 GXE's. i know that the Z31's had a digital dash but not sure of HUD if it was available as well. i see these digital dash's all the time at the junkyard but didn't want to install it on my car cuz of loose soldering joints and alot of people saying they always burn out. all i did was just the HUD on my '93. but in fact it looks nice. great job on the conversion.

 

did you happen to notice whether or not the colors can be changed? i know nothing about the digi dash, so i have no idea....would be cool to recolor it and such.


edit: looks good, but i like my se gauges more, because i'm used to them. good work though man, alot of effort went into that thing i see.

 

I will do it eventually, it's not a big priority atm, i'm happy to have the display and hud installed for now, but I agree, it looks much better projecting on film or window tint. Nice sig man, that's a clean max

I'm planning on applying some window tint to the display glass in order to achieve a color change. The green is okay, but it would be nice to change. Of course, I can only change to a color which is the result of green mixed with the tint color. A red tint should give me purple which would be cool.

 

think it will work with a ve?

 

It should work fine on the VE. Considering the white faced clusters are interchangable with both VG and VE, the digital display should be compatible as well. The tach should even go into the red if installed on a VE, which would be kind of cool

 

UPDATED

The tinted shield looked cool when the display is off, but it also makes it more boring and gives it a dull aqua colored tint which I didn't care for that much. So I took a transparent shield from a set of my analogs and dremeled the tabs off which are supposed to lock it in place (locations are different). Then drilled two holes where the two push/twist ***** go through and stuck it to the housing with some black double sided tape.

 

 

i noticed it only goes to 115. think it will keep reading on my ve?

 

Speedo tops out @ 115, but the digital readout will keep going on both the cluster and HUD. I've had it up to ~120 on a dyno of course

 

WOW that looked like a lot of splicing and wiring! Good job on the transplant! I just got my max back after a deer ran into the front of my car on the highway and can't wait to start changing things up!

Good job! I'll keep an eye out for the writeup!

 

What exactly is needed for this swap? I have the digital cluster with HUD module plus controler and pigtails. could i just get an extra analog cluster, remove the female connections, solder wires to the female connection, and solder opposite ends to the male connection on the digital pigtail? this would be to have a quik disconnect feature so i could switch between the two clusters. LMK if i need anything else because i want to get started on this in two weeks.

 

What you need is a spare analog harness, not cluster. You do not want to use the harness that is in your car right now because you have to rip the whole works apart and you'll be sitting there trying modify your harness while the dash is completely dismantled. It's not a simple job my any means, and on top of that, you have to go cut the hole for the HUD which will create even more down time. You definitely want to have your modified harness ready to install before taking apart your dash. The first thing I did, was go to the junk yard and grab a complete analog harness. I then figured out which wires/pins from the analog coincide with the digital wires/pins by studying wiring diagrams in the fsm. The info is spread over several diagrams, but in a couple hours I had all the info written down in my own system so I could pick any wire and from any of the 6 plugs and figure out which wire from the other harness it ties into. There are also several more wires that lead to the digital cluster opposed to the analog, so it's not simply cut and splice, you have to branch off wires, create extra leads and tap into other wires that don't even go to the analog plugs in the first place. It's mostly color coded, but there are some discrepancies.. Here's a quick diagram of what I did to make my hybrid harness.. You have to remember that there is not a lot of room behind the cluster for extra bulk of wires, you have to be tricky and bundle them up in an organized and space efficient way.

 

Hey Guys Hello from Canada!! i was hoping to find someone one here with a digital dash. I just bought my second maxima, with digital dash, but am having some issues with it. Does anyone know why from first thing in the am, till around noon, my dash wont come up. But after lunch i can get in it and it comes one. It pretty much runs like that throught the day. Really hit and miss to when it somes on. Since i just started ripping out the factory stereo, maybe someone would have an idea, when im at all the wiring, as to what to look for...a loose connection maybe? Now be easy in answers, i just a Canadian girl!!! Thanks Guys!

 

Maybe you should start feeding it breakfast

I use the heads up display portion (projected on the glass), but I don't use the digital speedometer, so I can't think of what would cause it to perform poorly in the morning, but not as bad in the afternoon. It's probably is a loose connection somewhere that manages to get bumped back in to place when you drive, but it's so hard to say where to look specifically. I don't know of a particular 'problem area' on the unit.
I do know that at one time on eBay there was a guy who was selling repaired digital speedometers, which requires you to send him your core unit.
I just looked on eBay and didn't see him - but check back on there from time to time and you might see one of his auctions.

 

i will do that!! Thanks a bunch...

 

I have some of those digital gauges. I'm not that tech oriented but how much would you charge me or if I sell it to one of my customers to do it for.

 

Ok Hectic....i dont know how your dash works, but mine illuminates all the time, if my dash doesnt come up, i have no gauges, no spedometer nothin...lol but for ****s an giggles i tried to take a vid...i will try again with someone else holding my camera phone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmyomHSsHtc

ok ok i know its really fuzzy...

 

I made a quick video too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opMbmdCBUBw

You've got mail..

 

I cut this one out of an 89 anybody interested I'll part with it for $125.00

 

Yo, bumpin the thread a bit, came back to check on wire colors and which is which but appearantly the juicy info is gone. There's a Digital Dash/HUD equipped max I wanted to take the harness off to get ready on my free time just for ****s and giggles. Hectic you still got the which wire to which wire write up? I'd appreciate it if you would share the wealth of knowledge

 

The "juicy info" actually didn't contain the wiring instructions. I do still have all of the color codes and wiring information but atm it is still scribbled down on a few sheets of paper which I still haven't gotten around to copying in a simplified form.

 

i want the digital cluster, but i dont really want to go through the process of modyfiying my dash just to get it in there. all i want is the cluster itself.

 

im going to be junkyard hoppin to see if i can find one in a maxima

 

search. there is a write up out there

 

Yer thinkin of CB's HUD write up. This guy wants to install the cluster without the HUD. Seems he wants it NOW too

 

hey why ask when you can demand I've passed on so many HUDs and digi clusters its not even funny...I'm just so lazy and I know people cheap out and never buy em

 

I thought there was a write up

 

Since this is in the stickies now, are you going to write this up?

 

whoa, im not cheap. i simply just do not want the heads up display.

 

Not saying you are cheap but most 3rd gen owners expect everything near free and will almost always go buy parts off ebay to compensate for price but sacrifice a warranty and will always end up spending more in the end just for being cheap to begin with but thats another story...

I only said that cuz I've had people bug me and bug me for these but then the time comes and bla money talks.

you really want a digital dash then eh?