White face gauges/ Will this part work in my car?

[av8sky]

I have a 2003 996 C2 Cab. I would like to put white face gauges on it. Stickers do not appeal to me. Opening up the cluster to replace the faces sounds scary (if I go this route I will send it out to be done). I located a used cluster at a dismantler part number 996 641 984 93 it is out of an 02 turbo(6spd). My question is will it work in my car? Do I need PIWIS do reprogram it for my car or can I do this with my durametric? If you converted your car to white faces How did you do it? Did you have any problems? Looking for opinions and options. Thank you in advance.

Jim

[creekman]

Jim,

I'm no expert, but I've been into my instrument cluster several times, it's not that hard... Just take your time, keep track of which screws goes where. However, I had an occasion to remove my speedo face to get to the cruise control LED and I got stopped because I couldn't get the needle/pointer off. I decided that I wasn't going to use any more muscle and gave it up at that point. I ended up sending off the cluster to the speedo man to do what I wanted.

Let's see what some others have to say, but I think before I would do this I would pay North Hollywood Speedo or Palo Alto speedo to do this. You screw something up and then you'll spend more money having the repair done.

If you decide removing the cluster and opening it up to expose the instrument faces is pretty easy. Maybe someone will chime in on the needle/pointer removal. If you have any questions on how to get the cluster out or open up the instrument package, let me know and I'll see if I can give you some pointers.

[Paul Grainger]

Providing that both clusters are for auto (or manual) transmission, and both are post 2001 (with the 200mph speedo) then you should be able to swap them without issue. The only coding options with PST2 (if I remember correctly) relate to cruise control fitted or not, OBC enabled or not. I have changed my cluster a number of times for various reasons including a desire to have white dials like yourself.

Having said that, I have never fitted a turbo cluster and don't know if there is anything particularly unique about that type.

Pulling the needles off is fiddly and awkward, I have done this and it involved a lot of swearing and cursing......

Paul G

[Loren]

Um... the Turbo cluster will have Boost whereas the 996 cluster will not.

You may still need a Porsche PST2 or PIWIS to set the options for your car - and - you can not change the mileage on the cluster once the cluster has passed 52 miles. So you may need some legal paperwork if you ever sell the car.

[av8sky]

Thanks for all the replies. I am thinking the best solution would be to buy the white faces and send them along with my cluster to Palo Alto speedo shop and let them put them on and recalibrate everything. The mileage thing is definitely not something I want to mess with. Thanks again.

Jim

[RD996]

Palo Alto Speedo did mine and checked the calibration on everything as well. I guess the 99 faces have a peel and stick backing and I wanted no part of that! I dropped the cluster off and picked it up and I think it was $280. I tried to go with a 2000MY Tip cluster off ebay that advertised it would fit a 99 tip as well but found that although the cluster was physically identical two of the three female sockets on the new cluster physically wouldn't mate with the male plugs on my car. The pin arrangements looked the same but the alignment tabs weren't. The seller tried to get me to shave the male plugs to make them work but I wasn't going to mess with that.

I went with the alu look faces from NRauto. When I first got them I was hesitant to have them installed because they looked kind of cheap but that concern went away after they were in the cluster, they looked great! I asked the owner at PA speedo what he thought of the NR vs the FVD and he said he has done a buttload of both and the only difference he saw was an appearance difference at night when illuminated. I guess the NR bleeds the back lighting a bit more which I can verify. It's not that bad IMHO so is no big deal to me. The NR faces are a lot cheaper.

Edited April 18, 2014 by RD996