How Someone Turned Modern-Era Ford Explorer Gauges Into An Epic Cyberpunk Cluster For Their 1980s Nissan 300ZX

As a future-forward design of the 1980s, the Z31 Nissan 300ZX naturally featured a glowing blue digital dash that was so fitting for its era. Automotive tinkerer Kelvin Elsner owns just such a vehicle, and his dashboard, unlike some, was still fully functional all these years later. Despite that, Elsner wanted something a little more special. He set about engineering a cyberpunk dash cluster of his own design, using junkyard parts to create a killer retro-modern aesthetic.

As a basis for the build, his thoughts first drifted to the digital clusters featured in modern Mustangs. Sadly, even second hand, these can cost well over $1,500. After some research, the Ford Explorer turned out to be a positive avenue to pursue. Certain models of the fifth-generation Explorer featured a digital cluster screen with a plastic overlay marked with RPM and speedometer gradations. These clusters used digitally-displayed needles to point at the real physical markings, and Elsner thought the cluster looked like it would be a good fit for the 300ZX with some modification.

As you might expect, this was anything but a drop-in swap. The modern Ford cluster picks up signals from the vehicle over the CAN bus. Without this hooked up, the cluster will not even power on. In contrast, Elsner’s 1986 300ZX used a dashboard which relied much more on analog voltages fed in directly from the car’s sensors. To mate the two, he designed a translator board which would pick up the signals from the Nissan’s various sensors, like speed, RPM, engine temperature, and fuel level, and then translate them into the appropriate CAN bus messages that the Ford cluster was expecting. This was no mean feat, requiring Elsner to spend a great deal of time not only capturing CAN messages from Ford vehicles, but then deciphering them as well.

With that job completed, Elsner turned his efforts to aesthetic concerns. The Ford cluster was flashed with a fresh set of graphics with a sunny, retro vibe. This was achieved using a tool called PimpMyFord, which allows modifying the firmware of these clusters with different graphics. A tool called ForScan was then used to upload the modified firmware files to the cluster itself. “The choice of aesthetic was a pretty cliche one,” Elsner chuckles. “I was originally going to go with some subtle changes to the original graphics, but kind of let my creative mind run free.” The resulting aesthetic that Elsner chose will be familiar to any vaporwave fans in the audience, with its saturated neon colors and prominent grid elements. “Retrowave themes seemed very fitting for the car, especially since I am going through a lot of work to modernize it in various ways,” explains Elsner.

Beyond the graphical update, the original Ford bezels with speedometer and tachometer markings were also ditched for Elsner’s own design. He went through a great number of revisions, eventually landing on a clean dogbone-like design that serves as a more aesthetically-fitting complement to the screen’s new graphics, compared to the original Ford design.  A CNC-milled faceplate was constructed out of a block of ABS plastic. The numerical markings were screenprinted by a local printshop, and backlit with addressable RGB LEDs. This final touch goes a long way to making the dash look like it’s straight out of a hero car from some far-flung dystopia, circa 2163.

The rest of the work involved physically integrating the Ford cluster into the 300ZX. A filler plate was 3D-printed to bridge between the smaller Ford cluster and the large original cluster housing from the 300ZX itself. It all bolts perfectly into place inside the original housing, with the 300ZX’s stock plastic window installed over the top. Perhaps the only minor flaw is that Elsner’s lens is fairly scuffed and worn after 37 years. “I do want to replace the lens,” Elsner told The Autopian. “Good used ones are about the only option, but I am going to try my hand at forming a new one from acrylic sheet, since that will also allow me to remove the holes from the original odometer buttons.”

Installing the updated cluster also proved to be an opportunity for Elsner to upgrade the vehicle in further ways, too. With the interface board already translating between the 300ZX’s sensors and the dash, he figured it could also serve as an immobilizer, too. He hooked up the board with a transponder ring from a Nissan Versa, which looks for a transponder chip when a key is inserted. If the right transponder chip isn’t detected, the interface board sends a signal which Elsner will set up to lock the ECU from starting the car. He also hooked up a Ford mirror switch to act as a navigational interface for the digital dash.

For now, Elsner still has some work to do to finish fully integrating the setup, but the preliminary install already looks stellar. The rich neo-1980s vibes are a great complement to the Z31 design, which always felt like it was reaching for the future. Modifying dashboards and instrument clusters isn’t really a mainstream thing in the auto scene, but it’s great to see someone pulling it off so well on their first try. It shows that with the right skills, some cheap junkyard parts can be turned into something far more impressive.

Image credits: Blitzen Design Lab, via YouTube screenshots