gixxerboy

I have an 09 clk 550, i bought it and someone already had 6.3 emblems on it,
it has the bs carbon fiber wing, dual exhaust, kleemann tune. braided brake lines. frozen drilled slotted rotors.
This weekend i'm installing an AMG gauge cluster, i like the look of it better but also wanted the 200mph speedo. I'll post picks of the install.
i have a rear differential out of a clk55 i'm building. My car came stock with 2.65 gear ratio. The 55 has a ratio of 3.06, this should make a huge difference in acceleration. I'm still deciding on a wave track or quafi lsd for it. The better traction and gear ratio should get me sub 12 second 1/4 mile. Faster than a real clk 63
Probably end of the year or beginning of next i will do suspension upgrades. still open on what i want.

gixxerboy

best run was 12.6's

Rudeney

So, did you exceed to limit of the mechanical speedometer and if so, did the the digital display the correct speed?

Note that on the cluster swap, you need to also swap the EEPROM chips or you'll lose your odometer! And then the coding on your cluster's EEPROMs may not "work" with the AMG cluster.

gixxerboy

the amg cluster has about 5k less miles on it than my car, so i was going to leave it as is. Do you think there will be an issue with functionality? Or will i need to have it flashed? I have a pass though device , i would just have to pay and download the flash. I didnt think i would need to if i didnt swap.

gixxerboy

I was hoping to do a class they had where they raced from a roll and thought i potentially could hit it. I did not enter that class when there were a couple twin turbo lambo's and a nasty gtr, I would have been eliminated before it started lol

Yidney

You can search a few threads here on cluster swaps, but I think the bottom line that Rodney is saying is you cannot swap used clusters. No flashing either. You either buy a new one from the dealer for the price of a house, or you physically swap out the key electronic goodies from your old one and put them in the new one so the car does not "know" you put a new one in.

So when are you taking off the 6.3 and AMG badges?

gixxerboy

i've read on cluster swaps, some people said the odometer read ----- and some said it worked perfectly. Guess i will find out

gixxerboy

i want to, i'm concerned about what the paint will be like once removed. Not sure how long they have been on there.

FFXF1

gixxerboy - no worries on removing the poser 6.3 & AMG badges. Take a hair dryer and heat it up, a length of dental floss or fishing line to cut them off. Then take her to a local detailer who can buff out your clear coat and you're GTG.

I completely debadged my car. There was a build up of wax around the old badges on the trunk deck. SpeedFreak Detailing in Sterling, VA buffed her out with a multi-stage correction, wrapped her in 3M film, and topped her off with OptiCoat. Most people (those who don't know cars) think she's new - and expensive.

Yidney

No need to go have it buffed unless you want to. Do the heat and string steps, then use Goo Gone to get any residue off, then some rubbing compound and a clean piece of old t shirt and some elbow grease and it will be good as new. I doubt there will be much of a shadow anyway. The paint probably will not have faded - if you can see a shadow it will more likely be because the paint around them will have tiny micro scratches from dirt and washing and will look duller. But the rubbing out will take care of that. I recommend Meguires M105. I use it all the time to get fine scratches off my cars. Just make sure the surface is clean so you don't rub dirt with your rag.

floridawriter

Just double sided tape. As stated dental floss will take off the AMG posing.

Rudeney

Regarding the cluster, it has to be "married" to the car. If not, it will lock-out the odometer reading and you'll get ------. You need to use SDS to do this coding/marriage of the cluster, but it can ONLY marry a "virgin" (i.e. zero-mileage) cluster.

There are a few options for replacing the cluster with a used one. The first option is to remove the EEPROM chips from your and put them on the donor cluster. This requires no further coding. I know this will work with a "like-cluster" swap; I am not sure about going from stock to the AMG style. The other method is to get an appropriate EEPROM writer that can program these clusters (and it has to be a special one for clusters as their chips are "encrypted"). Use it to zero the odomoter, then use SDS to marry to the car what now appears as a virgin cluster.

gixxerboy

I did the cluster swap, as assumed i got the ------ for the odometer. All my controls , navi , steering wheel buttons work. The extra features in the 63amg cluster work. The 200mph speedo reads accurate.
only 2 issue i have are the warning the sos system is not working and im getting a message that the battery is low and inoperable. Maybe that is in there from the vehicle it came out of.
I got crunched for time and didn't have time to hook the scanner up to try and clear out the messages.
So far im extremely happy. The 63 cluster looks so much nicer than the original.
One other weird thing. If i use the steering wheel controls to change the radio station. It doesn't go to the next preset station like it used to. It tunes the radio just up and down.

Edit: Just notice the little digital clock on the radio is no longer there. If i go to the navi screen its there but on the fm radio screen its gone,
also it lights up very dim. The needles on the gauges are bright, easy to read fuel and temp gauge, but the backlight isnt bright so the numbers on the gauges are hard to read.

Rudeney

So, as I said, the odometer won't work until you zero the mileage on the cluster and then "marry" it with SDS. As for the other issues, (clock, battery warning) those are "adaptations" that will need SDS to make the proper settings. The backlight issues may just be a defect.

gixxerboy

Thank you, I assumed you were correct about the mileage. What are you abbreviating to SDS?

I figured the clock and radio function were adaptations. I wasn't worried about those 2. The clock even adjusted to the correct time when it was plugged in. You believe the battery also? Just weird it reads the other systems properly but not the battery?. Could it be stored in the cluster since it was in a wrecked car?

I'm surprised the extra features of the amg cluster work. Like the oil temp, transmission gear indicator.

I'm going to have my programer come out and see if he can marry it.

all in all i'm happy. It looks so much better than the silver cluster.

Yidney

SDS = Star Diagnostic System, the Mercedes diagnostic program. You need it to read codes beyond basic OBDII codes, and to adjust any settings in the car like Rodney is talking about. Unless your programmer has SDS he won't be able to do anything.

gixxerboy

ok, the only reason im trying is he does all the clusters for other dealerships. I had to to do a cluster on a honda and i called Honda about programing and they said theirs to him.

gixxerboy

so an update on the cluster, i pulled the 1 circuit board out of my original cluster and installed that board in the 63 cluster. now my odometer works and the error message for the sos system went away. All the features work like my original and now i have a 200 mph 63 cluster in my car.
Its an easy swap and changing the boards is only unplugging 4 cables, nothing special needed. i know others were interested and got scared away.
so with my original board its still married to the car technically.

DanielFD

did u get the other issues figured out? its pretty simple to program through STAR. you basically name the options your car has and it figures everything out for you.

gixxerboy

swaping the 1 board fixed everything. I didnt need any programing

DanielFD

that great man, im planning on putting in the silver dials when my speedo dies out (if it does). i'll contact you for specifics on how you switched the board

gixxerboy

got my strut tower brace in today. going to install that and ram air on friday. It looks like im also going to have to notch it to make it fit similar to the BS bar

gixxerboy

just bought myself a black friday present. A carbon fiber front lip.
unfortunately today i didn't get to do the strut brace or ram air set up install.

DanielFD

Thanks gixxerboy, i changed out to the silver dash while it was at the body shop, just replaced that back PCB board as you said, went as smooth as silk, no STAR needed at all(all my settings transferred even the things i had played around with on STAR). I even got a good price and paid 50$ for an exchange on my standard black panel