A lot of these terms are going straight over my head, but I get what you’re saying for the most part. One last question before I put this to rest is: Is there anyway I can run a connection from the lights on the old cluster to the new then run the speedometer, tach, fuel gauge, temp motors from the old cluster and secure them to the new. (keeping the brains/signals/power source of the old cluster, but with the looks of the s550)

 

So basically you want to take the guts of the old cluster and install them in the new cluster? For the most part if you are a very good fabricator, I suppose you could do it. Crazier things have been done with cars. I think the problem you will run into is calibrating the motors to match your gauge face. I think you either go with a 3rd party set of gauges to spruce it up, modify the face plate to your liking or just pack it in. There are many walls in this obstacle course. Go for it though. People pull off crazy things all the time. Maybe you will school all of us

 

If you look at the two clusters, the positioning of the needles are the exact same and have the same increments (degrees) for both tach and speedometer with the same redline and top speed. Do you know if I were to do it this way if there would be a way to reverse the signal of the fuel and temp? I only ask because they are positioned upside down in the new cluster but have the same angles as well.

 

You would have to flip the motor and reroute the wiring to it. In this case it is probably mounted to a PCB board so you would have to eliminate the old traces and reroute to accommodate new position. Been a while since I had an 04 cluster apart. I have pics somewhere. I can have a look and see but still a lot of work to make this all happen. And again, not sure calibration will be the same but if you think the sweep is identical, you might be able to make it work.