Hey hows it going fellow third gen owners. My question is that I was looking on eBay and noticed a selection of universal HUD units for sale but noticed that most were OBD II units. What I want to know is is there anyway possible to make one of these work in my 83 Camaro? They have some that also have the wires already cut for manual hook up instead of the OBD II ready plugs. How possible is it to make his happen?

 

You would have to have some sort of custom interface made from your ECU to the HUD.
It's using the computer readout from the obd2 ECU, not signals from the gauges.
Basically you would need a custom obd2 translator program. Have fun with that.

I think HUD might be impossible in a third gen with the stock dash. Besides the computer problem, third gen dashes are very shallow with zero extra space. That's why we don't even get a glove box. Or decent dash speakers.

I think you would have to do a corvette or other later GM dash swap to even consider this.

 

I have to call the middle line of the above reply BS...

If you can find a HUD from an early-90s W-body, it should fit and work fine (OBDI, GM, and sits mostly on top of the dash pad). There was a thread on this not too long ago.

You should be able to find a complete W-body setup on eBay for around $100-150, including the dimmer switch and other parts necessary for the swap. Just make sure that whether you get it from a yard or otherwise that there is plenty of wire left on the pigtails for splicing into the existing harness.

 

Ok, if it sits on the dash it can fit on any dash. Not sure I'd want one that sits on top, but ok. Still another prob, your 83 is a cable driven speedo so you would need an electronic adapter for that first.

 

Well that's just it the one that I planned on getting was one that just sits on top of the dash. So im pretty sure a dash swap and what not is not necessary. I just wanted to be sure I could use it because from the schematics of the HUD unit on eBay, it says that the unit has a connector with three wires: one power wire, one ground wire, and the wire that connects to your speed signal wire. I was wondering if that manual set up was possible as far as wire that last wire to a speed sensor wire wherever that wire may be.

 

When I saw the connector for the one that would have been in my 93 Grand Prix (I had to replace the dash pad), there were a LOT more than 3 wires in it. I believe there is also a signal for turn signals, high beams, and a few other things. I'm not sure how your 83 is wired, whether it has a VSS buffer on the back of the cluster (yellow thing around the cable drive) to feed the ECM or not, but worse comes to worse you might have to get one of those VSS cable adapters from Dakota Digital.