Z-28 Instrument Cluster Installation Guide

The general purpose of this modification is to update the instrument cluster used in 94-95 Impala SS's, and 94-96 Caprice's. This modification is not easy, and requires extensive work and time to make it fit and look factory. Your time will vary on the install, and will hopefully take less than mine. You will need to research this out and make sure that you want to do this modification. I will say up front, that after doing it, I love it. Scott Mueller put it best to me, when he said it was the best mod he had done to his car. What part of the car do you interface with more than the instrument cluster? I'll admit that the Digital Cluster was cool when I got it, having the little "Certified" label below it, got some attention, too. But the cluster looked older style (out of the 80's). It just doesn't look like something from the 90's to me. Now that I got this Z-28 cluster in, it works like a champ! Keep in mind you loose a couple of minor idiot lights, nothing major. Heck, I gained a couple. The biggest thing you loose is a gear position indicator, but if you check back in a couple of weeks, I will show you the Dakota Digital product I bought, which will be a nice alternative. It's been operational in my car for over a month now, and works great.

Your first question is probably.. where do I get one? Well, the answer is John Spears, at Speartech Fuel Injection Systems. He is an excellent GM technician, and he makes TONS of custom harnesses for GM car's and other things. I did the whole order through email, and I will tell you, his service is TOP notch. He contacted me to let me know he got his payment, he was willing to answer all my questions, and he gave me a quick turn around time for something custom. I had the cluster in my hands within 4 weeks from the date of order, and I thought this was excellent. The cluster worked like a champ when I got it, and the harness he made to allow it to be plug and play is TOP quality. He does a heck of a job both for service and for quality. I highly recommend him. Visit his page at http://www.speartech.com/. You can email him and he will get back to you within a few days. I think he works more than he gets on the computer, so don't think you are being ignored if you don't get a 1 day return response to your email. Mention my name when you contact him, and tell him Hi for me. The total cost for me, was $355 shipped. This covered the Z-28 Cluster, Adapter Harness (not cheap or easy to make), and the modifications to the cluster to allow it to work properly in the B-body chassis. I initially sent $370, and it ended up being cheaper to ship, he sent me a $15.00 check back, talk about service!

Here are the pictures that show the cluster when I pulled it out of the box that John shipped me. First picture shows what you get, you can see how it fits the black bezel (I thought it was gonna be easy!), and you get a picture of his adapter harness. The spooled up wire is for the tach hook up.

The before and after pictures. At this point I still was not done, and as of this time, I'm still not totally done.

A few pictures of the stuff removed. First thing.. disconnect the negative battery cable, use a 8mm box end wrench to do this. If you minimize what is on in the car, the arcing will be minimal. Have a 7mm socket handy and start removing all the screws from the lower dash (don't forget the one in the ash tray recess). You have to remove the cluster bezel, and then some more 7mm screws that hold the cluster in. Its a little bit difficult to get the cluster out the first time. I thought I was missing something, but after moving it side to side a little and wiggling it back and forth, I got it out without a problem.

These pictures show how I cut the dash support on each side. Now, I cut more than I needed to. You can probably leave an additional two inches on the front side of the dash support, but I wanted clearance, and I wanted to be able to remove the cluster without taking the whole dash apart. I accomplished this task, so I was happy. I used a Dremel tool with a flex shaft extension and 1 fiberglass reinforced cutoff wheel to do all my cutting. It will smoke, and the smell isn't great, and it is messy. Look at my floor, that is just after one side. I then kept test fitting the cluster... looks good... then I cut the left side. You might think.. looks like it fits ok, why cut the left side? Answer: That is where the harness adapter plugs in. At this point, I had modified the cluster by rounding it as much as I could to match the factory cluster. If you look above at the first pictures, you will see how much I cutoff on the cluster itself. At this point, the cluster has the old lens on it. Notice the column is dropped, so you need to remove the bolts holding that in place (two 16mm nuts if I remember right), so that you can get that big cluster in there.

Now, notice, these pictures are very similar, but taken about 30 minutes apart. Notice on the first picture where the speedometer needle is, compared to the second one. If its on the right side of the dial, it will not pull itself over and work... I yanked the cluster to see if there was an electrical problem, but I could have just taken the lens off and flipped the needle over to the normal side. Once I had the cluster out, I simply turned it upside down and moved the needle that way, using gravity. I then reinstalled it. You will notice that in the first picture, in the lower left corner, there is still a white bracket coming off the cluster, but in the second picture it is gone. I cut all the mounting tabs off the cluster and used some little pieces of metal (used for installing a radio in a dash -rear support-), and cut them with my Dremel and drilled 4 holes in the cluster after getting the cluster in the dash and using my black bezel to get an approximate good location for them. They are straight above/below the factory mounting holes for the Caprice cluster. This allowed for some adjustment to be made for final fitting, and kept me from having to take the factory connectors out of the dash. Its looking good, but FAR from perfect. Though it looks good here, when I put the lower dash back in place, it stuck out too far on the bottom.. so I had to move the cluster further back in the dash. I did a little minor cutting, your results may vary. Notice the cluster is now raised back into position, for a quick test fit/cluster operation.

Here's the PCM connection being made for the cluster. You have to hook into the RED connector, terminal 13. You need a mini-pack 100 series connector terminal for this. While I was here, I hooked up my Vehicle Speed Sensor signal for my new cruise control install. I used factory style wire conduit to run the wires down to the PCM, and taped them up to look factory. Give it a little dust and you won't be able to tell! <g>. Note: This is with the factory air box removed.

While I was doing the cluster, I figured why not install that replacement Dash Pad I got from Alex on the 9C1 List. Thanks Alex!! But this does give a better view of the cluster, and you know what? The dash pad is very easy to remove, just remove all the screws holding it to the dash (on the front of the dash pad), unsnap the trim piece on the right side of the dash above the glove box (the entire piece, including the A/C vent), and remove the A-pillar moldings, they just pull out with small metal snaps. Once you get all the screws out, just pull back evenly on the entire pad about 3 to 4 inches, and lift the front of it up (this clears the air bag assembly). Installation is the reverse of removal, and really only takes 10 minutes tops to remove it. It might make that cluster install much easier with it removed, as you can really get in there and work, plus you get better light.

I'm getting closer... this is about 95% done. I have done a little after this, but not a whole lot. There is a gap around the cluster, which I am filling with some neat kind of weather stripping. As soon as I get my black bezel fully modified, and get the weather stripping done around the cluster, I will post more pictures. Your final fit will determine how you can cover up the gaps. In any event, its a tight fit on the bottom of the cluster. I even included a night time photo, and in the 9C1 style, my high beams are on! :) On this cluster, I modified the cluster board myself for a couple of things. I enabled the "skip shift" light to now become my "Change Oil Light", and I enabled the ASR light (right, bottom of speedometer), to become my cruise control indicator. Yes folks, I enabled a light on the dash when the cruise control is on. Yes, you can do it.. very simply. If you want to know how, shoot me an email with one of the links at the bottom of this page. Don't forget to order up a new black bezel (good to have a spare), and a new lens for the cluster). These parts were about $25.00. Well worth it and gives you that NEW look. P/N's soon.

If you look closely, this is a preliminary shot of the weather stripping I used around the cluster. I just took this today, and I'm not done with it yet. But if you look closely, it really fills the gap nicely and is consistent around. I'll post a picture of what this stuff looks like. I paid $25.00 for 10 feet of it.. OUCH.. but I wanted a good look, and thought this would fit the bill. Cluster has about 200 miles on it now... boy is it pretty. The Impala guy's at work are a little jealous. I'll just call them Digital boy's.. they can call me Analog Man! <g> I have not put my Dakota Digital gear position indicator in here yet... so, I will be adding that soon.