Instrument clusters are no longer truly mechanical analog gauges connected to sensors directly in your car. The car is a big sensor network which communicates to the dash board instruments. This means that you can re-purpose them like Esko Haas has done with his 2003 Fiat Stilo closk. If you want to build on his work you can find his code here.Â
“By the way, I’m using this board for connecting: http://www.ittgroup.ee/en/mikrokontrollerite-arendusplaadid/545-avr-tlcd-128can.html It’s compatible with Arduino Due and the CAN-bus shield from Seeed Studio, but is somewhat cheaper and much more compact than the combination of these. Got the tachometer and the temperature gauge working. The trick here is again to send all the parameters in a single message, not separately. Took a example from the first line here: http://www.fiatforum.com/stilo/174029-stilo-can-bus-question.html#post1874182
This also cleared some of the warning lights.”