Gauges not working in 96 EuroSpec 200sx S14. Not a Swap!!!

[BCs300z]

I think the biggest reason why I can't find this answer is because my car is not a swap. Its an original EuroSpec S14 200SX (LH drive Silvia) with notch top SR20DET. It is the earlier version, not the S14a.

I live in Italy and I just bought this car from a guy about a month and some change ago. So far I have ironed out all the bugs in the car except for one. When I first bought the car, the guy had gauges in it everywhere. It was horrible. Most notably, he had this giant Tach right in front of the normal tach. Once I took that out, I can see why he had it there. And I see that there were other issues too.

None of the gauges in the car work the way that they are supposed to. The tach is very, very, very slow. As if in slow motion. If I rev the car, I have no idea how high I am hitting, because the tach needle is moving to slow and doesn't stay with the pace of the engine. When taking off from a stop and pushing to redline, I have to rely on the exhaust tone, as the tach will just be nearing 2500 rpms when it is seriously time to shift.

The speedo is off by about 10Km at 100Km. It seems somewhat exponential.

The temp gauge obviously doens't work. I think the needle just drifts around as it sees fit. sometimes it seems like it is working, but I wouldn't bank on it.

And the fuel gauge works great...but not. If I top off the tank to full, it only reads 3/4. If I drive until the needle hits the E, it only takes about 40L back in. I have to watch the trip meter to know when I really need gas.

Now here is the thing. The car has the 260Km speedo installed. I am thinking that this is not the factory cluster for this car, as I have discovered how rare it is. But there is no way to absolutely confirm that. But...I don't see how that could affect the other gauges, I understand how it could affect the speedo not being calibrated to the sensor.

Do you think switching to the 180Km speedo is the answer to get everything back to normal or could there be something else going on with the car. All the wiring is good and the sensors (temp) are new.

Your help is appreciated

[compactfean]

The only thing I can think of is if the bolts on the back of the cluster got dirty causing a poor connection to the gauge itself. Or, your not getting the right voltage to the cluster for the gauges to work properly. Possibly a bad ground, but with your symptoms is say most likely not.

[BCs300z]

BTW, when I say speedo, I really mean cluster. There were two version clusters made for this car. One cluster has the speedo that tops out at 180 and the other tops out at 260Km. I almost want to believe that the 260Km is the factory on this car, as it is built for Europe and even has the differential cooler installed in the rear. Pretty sweet. I stripped one of a Euro 300zx once and installed it on my US 300zx.