Any mod for 2005+ information display??

[LandYachts]

The information display in between the tachometer and speedo....is there ANY mod for this? Can any flash change the info it displays or how it displays?

I ask because now that I have the Mark VIII I can’t stand the fact that my 10-year-younger car can’t display numerical instantaneous MPG!!! I like to keep track of driving habits to get PRECISELY the most fuel economy I can practically get and the 7-bars graph is all over the place.

I also notice the fonts changed. I don’t know how many times the font in the info display have changed, but in an ‘06 I’ve driven, some numbers look different and dorky compared to the ‘07. They’re displaying the same SIZE it’s iust that some of the dot matrix is different with some characters. This makes me wonder if there were any mods available to edit such things in these clusters.

 

[Todd Ector]

I have yet to find the ability to change from the imprecise bar graph instant fuel economy to a numeral version. As for the font I am not sure where it is exactly, some time in 2007 there was a change over from the older to newer version. I like the older for some outputs but overall prefer the newer style of my 2010 as they seem a little more upscale?

I suspect the font is embedded into the actual display but I could be wrong.

 

[LandYachts]

Yeah I’ve seen the difference between 06-07 and the later font is better. Interested in seeing a 2010.

If the screen can be removed somebody could program a modern color LCD display with improved graphics and simply use an interpreter to display the inputs from the computer with better graphics.

The car does know it’s fuel economy at all times, but somebody decided to interpret it as a stupid bar. Because the info is there one could basically take data from the ECM and interpret it to a display screen.

In short, yes it “can” be done but I wouldn’t want to be the guy that undertakes the development.

 

[LandYachts]

If I had some nerdy friends I’d make a replacement full color pixel graphic LCD display for Town Cars and Mark VIII’s. It’s been done for other devices and even other cars before. Some Ben Heck stuff.

 

[Todd Ector]

I will try to get some photos later today, to the best of my knowledge it changed mid 2007 and stayed the same until the end of production.

When I have some time I hope to spend more time on the display, I want to do a white led cluster mod and something other than green would be nice with white numerals.

A custom display would be cool and is possible with some hacking, all the data is available on the canbus.

 

[MrWilson]

I work for a auto parts remanufacturer and one of my product lines is instrument clusters. Ive been looking into this myself, and from what Ive been able to deduce is that i'll have to rewrite the eprom code for that screen. I'll say that its not hard, but it kind of is (a bit of trial and error). But the thing of it is there's a very specific tool I need and it costs about $7,000. If i can get a hold of one for work ill be writing the screen to display and cycle through all monitors in the canbus. If anyone else comes up with a better idea until then ill be happy to follow you.