xplane

Is nordskog a good brand? i have been looking for a direct fit digital dash for my camaro for quite a while now and i have found this one. It includes all the senders and such and is supposed to bolt right in. sound good?

Angelis83LT

um.. I have a nordskog in my 84z28.... What trans do you have? it does direct fit... although the instructions they give you suck... you end up doing a little wire tracing to make sure you are splicing into the right wire (the wire colors in thier instructions did not match my harness colors)

Also.. the button on the front of the dash which allows you to calibrate it and get all the numbers (1/4 mile speeds, ect) is often broke due to packaging. They did however soldier on two wires so you can remove that button (where the trip is on the stock on) so you can mount is somewhere safe.


And the reason I asked about the transmission. is the sender that they send with it.. does not fit right on a t-5.. instead of being tight like it should be, it is loose since you can not tighten it up all the way due to the retainer clip that is used to keep the speedo gear from coming out.

however.... if you get a stock VSS sender from a later model car.. that will work.... and you will not have that PITA that thier sender comes with...

as for the other sensors... the stock ones will work as long as they are electric signal ones (no mechanical ones)

The dash does work very very well.. though.. once you actually get everything set... the only other gripe i have with it is the tinted plastic they send with it that goes over the guages... they needed to do something better, since if you turn the lights in the cluster up it you will be able to see the circuitry underneath it.

I will take a picture of it for you once i find my camera and put the battery in the car lol

jimp2001

I had a nordskog, they make it sound like plug-n-play, but it's not. you have to change a few sensors, and partially dismantle your speedometer to get a VSS signal without spending money for an aftermarket piece.

I wouldn't buy another one... I'm going Autometer on my current car.

Covan's Classic

Angelis83LT

nothing is all plug and play when you go digital. but with dakota Digital, you can have a bit easier time.... as I believe they actually have a harness plug that will actually plug into the stock one. makes it alot easier.. although you will end up waiting 3 to 6 months to get it.. if you go analog then the corvans ae very nice.. I will be doing that to my 83. (one digital dash is plenty, and the novelty of it wears off... i much rather like seeing the needles on the guages go up and down lol. The only time the digital ones would be nice is when you buy the individual ones that you can mount anywhere and creat your own car data center. in the middle of the passenger side area where there is nothing there would be ideal for that. since you can read the numbers from 15 ft outside of the car.

Al Hasse

I have one of those Dakota Digital gauge clusters. It comes with its own microprocessor that you have to mount somewhere under the dash. A ribbon cable connects the cluster to the microprocessor. You have to splice into the original harness (does not come with a harness) and route the wires to the processor (not difficult) which has a well marked terminal for each signal wire. Comes with senders and fittings for senders. Mine is for a '92 Camaro (6-gauge cluster) and I had to send them a working one for them to convert, 60-90 day turnaround. They claim that they have a cluster in stock for the '89 and earlier Camaro (5-gauge custer).

Angelis83LT

they must have been working thier butts off then. because when i called last fall it was a 3 to 4 month wait on the thirdgen clusters. Nice to see they got back to working.. but yea.. it actually has a place to plug the wires to.. the nordskog just has 2 wires coming off of each guage that you have to splice into the harness... makes a pretty good mess. Say when you turn your dash lights all the way up.. can you see through the green board?

Al Hasse

I've had it since August of 2004 and it took right at 90 days to get it.

Here is what they have for '82 - '89
1982 - 1989 Chevy Camaro Digital Instrument System

I have a decent mess back there, too. The only harness supplied was the ribbon cable to connect the gauges to the microprocessor box (like a computer hard drive cable). All the other wiring was spliced into the factory harness and routed to the microprocessor (mentioned above) and connected with a screw terminal (like on an audio amplifyer). To answer your question on brightness, these are not LED gauges, so no green board to see, but turned all the way up, they are too bright to look at after dark - so they dim when my park lights turn on.

Jza

I've had Cyberdyne, Intellitronix, and Nord-Skog digital gauges, and if Mike from Nord-Skog ever gets back to me, I'll have their gauge cluster in blue, too.

Long-story short, the Cyberdyne had the best instructions, and Nord-Skog had the best quality (except for that trip-odometer button; I had the same problem).

I ran the speedometer off of the VSS signal for a while (2000 ppm) and saw a REMARKABLE difference when I ordered and installed their speed sender (8000 ppm). Much faster refresh on the speedometer. The accuracy of the gauges are also superb.

Anyway, I wouldn't be going to a second Nord-Skog unit if I thought they were junk. Anybody expecting super-easy installations of non-factory parts should go back to installing open-element aircleaners. Not trying to be a phallus or anything, just don't come down so hard on a product when it's not the cakewalk you were expecting.

Angelis83LT

i never said that it was a bad unit, other than the few problems.. and really they are not to bad.. but if it is a person doing it for the first time it could be fustrating. And the only big problems were the trip button (which seems pretty common), and the fact i can see through the PCB board when i have the dash lights turned up (not the cluster but the OEM lights behind the cluster, although i suppose they really are not needed. but you shouldn't have to take them out either.). And then the speed sending unit, which would not fit reguardless of what was done. (haveing it loose down there to where you can move it up and down even with it all the way on and tight always botherd me reguardless of what it was)

other than those three things really.. I do like the cluster. I just feel it could have possibly been pulled off a little better. My next project will be to make a wire harness for that cluster so I can desplice the wires and plug them directly in. since i know which wires go where now. Perhaps that is something i can sell on e-bay lol.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

i've had cyberdine and dakota digital, the quality of the dakota digital is out of this world in comparison. i'm a fan.

Jza

I didn't install my speed sender on the transmission. I installed mine at the firewall where there's a coupling in the speedometer cable. I just undid the coupling and threaded the two ends onto the sender. It was a helluva lot easier than crawling underneath the car to install it there. I don't know why some cars have that two-piece speedo cable and some don't (my 86 doesn't have it, but my 89 does).

Angelis83LT

hmm. you know i never ever thought of that.. lol.. good call.. My 84 only has a one piece... must be a later model year thing.

RiggsLW81

iTrader: (4)

i have a nordskog digital guage set...i like it alot...have only had minor probs with it...one time the speedo went all wacky (random flickering of the color) and then 15 seconds later when it came back on my odometer reading was set back to around 100 miles or so... does anyone know if its possible to reset the odometer reading at all??? i would love to hear some input..

also..anyone with nordskog ever have there rpm gauge flicker (first 2 digits of 4)..this happen at idle every now and then...when rpm are climbing it has no prob...just wondering.

Angelis83LT

it is easy to reset the odometer on the nordskog.. jsut reset the cluster.. then recalibrate it.. returns it to 0 every time.. I know i have done it several times due to one of my speedo gears giving out and me not knowing which one.. *sigh* will get that fixed later this month.. have to pull a tail shaft off....

But yea. easy to rest the odometer.. the oddity about the RPM guage.. I am not sure... never seen it.. I have an oddity with my water temp guage... when i turn the fan on (naual control) it drops 2 degrees, when i turn it back off it raies two degrees.. and I know that it does not cool it off that fast...