Aftermarket NB gauge faces - waiting for some attention.

Your Shopping List

• A set of aftermarket gauge faces - There are lots of places to find these. I'm fond of the ones sold at the revlimiter.net Store. They're the same gauges that are photographed below.
• Powder-free gloves - Because you'll never be able to wipe off finger prints from most gauges, including the stock ones.
• Super glue - To stick the needle stoppers onto your new gauge faces.
• Paper towels.
• An X-acto knife - to aid in the removal of the needle stoppers from your OEM gauge faces.
• 2 Phillips screwdrivers - one fine (#0) and one regular (#2).
• Either 2 slotted screwdrivers or a single needle/pin removal tool - to help you pop off the needles.
• Needle-nose pilers and wire cutters - might be required to fit a non-stock tach face.

Frequently Asked Questions

• I have an NA. Is it the same process?
  It's very close. I did the NA instructions before I wrote up this set and even used a few NA photos below. Hit my NA Gauge Install.


• How do I install the needles?
  Whoa whoa whoa. Getting a little ahead of things! That section is at the bottom of this document, under Setting the Needles.


• Where can I get the gauges in these pix???
  I sell them here on this site! Check out the revlimiter.net Store.


• What's the deal with those funky gauges with non-stock zero positions?
  Miatas are quite blessed from the factory in that the tach and speedometer are round with the needle in the middle. The gauges have absolutely no idea where o'clock the needle is pointing. As long as you follow the Setting the Needles section correctly, the gauge will think that zero is zero. It doesn't matter if zero is at the stock 7 o'clock position or anywhere else. It will rotate all the way around and stop before it loops back on itself around the stock 9500ish mechanical hard stop.


• How do I know the tach is accurate after doing this?
  There are a few tricks, the best of which is using an OBDII scanner with live view to check your gauges against the ECU. Really, a fine way to assure yourself of yourself of tachometer (and speedometer) accuracy is to take some readings before you crack anything open. For example, an NB with the 5 speed and 4.3 diff will have 2500 rpm as the sweet spot. 2500 in 3rd = 30 mph. 2500 in 4th = 40 mph. 2500 in 5th is just a hair over 50 mph. But take these readings for your car and don't take my word for it. Different tire sizes will change even the list I just typed. After you're finished with the gauge face install, check your speed and gearing against your own notes.


• Will this make my odometer read wrong?
  No. The odometer is not affected by this job. Removing and reinstalling will not change it. But your trip odometer will be reset. Some folks use that to track their mileage (including me) and this fact is nice to know before you put the cluster back in only to see 0 on the trip meter.


• What happens if I don't hack out the extra plastic behind the tach?
  That area on the bottom will not light up at all. It will be a perfectly black area at night. This is fine for a stock-style gauge with zero at 7 o'clock, but for any other gauge it will look a bit silly. Really, it's very easy to hack out that extra plastic.


• What's the deal with the relocated Check light?
  This is a feature of certain styles of aftermarket gauge faces. It involves a tiny bit of extra work moving a wire inside one of your cluster connectors. But once this is done, you have a working CEL along with a non-stock speedometer zero position.


• What about the little corner indicators (CEL and high beam)?
  This is a lot like the relocated check engine light, but with more work. Go to the corner indicator mod section to read about it.






Gauge Cluster Removal



To get access to the gauge cluster, you need to remove two plastic panels - the steering column cover and the gauge hood - and 3 screws. Check out the diagram above and whip out your #2 Phillips screwdriver. Tackle the column cover first.



After removing the 3 screws, just pop the top of the steering column cover off. The bottom half stays in place.



No screws need to be removed to get the gauge hood to come off an NB. It's held in place by 5 little metal pressure fittings - 1 each on the lower front corner and 3 around the far back curve.

This particular plastic piece is notoriously delicate on NA cars. On the NB, Mazda used a slightly more forgiving type of plastic. It bends before it breaks. Still, you should be careful. But not too careful. Prying gently can make the plastic tabs gently tear free from the gauge hood. A forceful yank forward (toward your face) should get the hood off in one piece.



4 screws are holding the cluster in place. Well, 4 screws and 3 plastic clip connections on the back side. We'll get to those in a minute. For now, just remove these screws and set them aside. Then pull the cluster forward slightly (less than 1 inch or 2 cm) to give yourself a little room in the back.



There are 3 electrical connections to remove on the back. There should be enough slack in the wiring harness so that you can pull the cluster forward and see what you're doing. Pull each and either take your cluster inside to swap gauges or continue on to the CEL relocation step.







Optional: CEL Relocation



If your new gauges feature a Check Engine Light that's been relocated, you'll want to do the work in this section. It's very easy. You just pop open this little black connector and move a wire from one slot to another. This enables you to keep your CEL, but get rid of the 8 o'clock zero position that the stock tach and speedometer use.



First task: pop open the back of this little connector. This is easier said than done. It's held closed in 3 spots. Pop open the center clasp first, then try to open up one side. If you can get both of these open, the third clasp is easy to pop.



Each pin is held in the connector with a very small tab right in that black center area. Take a push pin or jeweler's screwdriver, or anything really small and press that tab down. Then just pull the pin out by the wire. If you got the back of the connector open correctly in the last step, the pin will just slide free.

Move the pin into the far right slot, right next to its old location.



Final step: Move the bulb over. It's on the back side of the speedometer. There should just be an empty slot next to the old/OEM CEL location. At least, there's an empty slot on 99s and 01s. I suspect 02-05s are the same. And that's it. The computer will still light the CEL happily and have no idea anything is different.







Optional: Corner Indictors



If your new gauges feature new indicators for your high beam and CEL, you'll want to do the work in this section. It's NOT very easy, and these instructions may not get you all of the way there. 99-02s should have no problem, but as of this writing, I'm not sure what the wiring looks like for 03-05s.

You start out by prying off the small corner indicators. They're held in very tight. A blade or sharp screwdriver will help you get them out.



The fit on your new ones will be as tight as the stock indicators. You'll need to apply pressure to get them over the little posts. Do this without touching the face of the indicator. A gloved fingertip directly over the post will work.



90% of the work centers around moving this high beam light from the tach center to the corner indicator. On 99-00 cars, the tach shares a ground with the turn signal indicators. On 2001 cars (and probably 2002s), the high beam has its own high and low voltage wires. Both pull to ground when deactivated. Both have voltage when activated. One reads 12.5v and the other .45v. This makes life difficult.

The easiest way to rewire the high beam is to duplicate what I've done in the photo. First cut the trace on the old CRUISE indicator 12v (IGN) side. (If you need to go back in the future, it's easy to run a wire from any IGN screw to the side of this bulb.) Then run a jumper wire from the hot side of the High Beam bulb over to the old CRUISE bulb. Then swap the ground from Pin H to Pin B using the methods detailed in the section above. Really, this is 5 minutes of work. But it took me hours to figure out due to the funky grounding method used on the high beam bulb.



Here is a detailed view of the connector showing the new pin locations.

The CRUISE was moved to an unused spot on the board. This is the same as just putting black tape around it, but in a more sexy way. Take a look at your gauge circuit board and make note of any pins that don't go anywhere. Any of these will work for the Cruise ground.

High Beam + remains in its original location.

High Beam - (the "ground") moves over to the original CRUISE location, slot B on the connector.



Moving the CEL over to the corner indicator is easy. You follow the exact same method as outlined above, but instead of moving the CEL pin to the far right, you move it over one slot to the left.

CEL pin: Moves from O (the OEM location) to N, the slot next door to the left. (If you already had it in slot P due to a speedometer with a relocated CEL, move it from P to N.)

The wire that was already installed in N (not present in 99-00s; a door lock indicator on 01-02s) gets moved to an unused slot in the connector just like the CRUISE wire above. There are a lot of unused slots on this black connector. I chose slot G. Just make sure there's nothing on the gauge circuit board that goes to this pin.

If you have any problems with these steps or own a 2003-2005, please use my contact form and I'll try to help you as much as possible.







Gauge Face Installation



Take the cluster out of the car and to a comfortable, dust-free work area. You might consider putting on your gloves now. No gauge face I've ever seen is able to have finger prints or skin oils wiped clean, not even the stock ones. If you think you'll ever want to go back to stock faces, put those gloves on now.



NB clusters have two steps to get the front cover off. You remove the "glass" and then you can remove the plastic gauge bezel. This is really a lot easier than the one-piece NA bezel to remove. The tabs are bigger and more forgiving to your thumbs.



Just take your thumb and press a tab inward. Then sorta hold the bezel up with the other hand and move your thumb to the next nearest tab. Once you get two popped free, you're good. The rest come out easily. And this trick is the same for the clear glass cover and the black plastic bezel.



Next, it's time to remove your needles. (Some of these shots look a little different due to coming from my NA gauge swap tutorial.) These are the two types of tools that I find make the job easiest - an interior pin / needle removal tool or two slotted screwdrivers. The needle removal tool can be found in most auto parts stores. They're usually used for removing carpet pins. The one I have is a very lightweight one that struggles with carpet pins but excels at removing gauge needles.



Here's the trick with the screwdriver method - you just carefully pry. Slide one blade under each side of the needle and slowly twist. Try not to move the screwdriver or you'll risk scratching your old gauge faces. Really, this method is very easy.



Using this tool is my preferred method of popping off the needles. It's just easier using one tool rather than two and I've never scratched a gauge face with this little thing. If you can find a slim pin puller like this, I highly suggest it.



Finally, out come the small screws holding the gauge faces in place. Be careful, since the metal is quite soft and the screws strip easily. Set the screws aside for re-installation in a moment.







Optional: Indicator Light Removal Subsection



If your new gauge faces put the tach or speedometer zero position in a different place than the stock 7 o'clock spot, you'll need to modify your cluster a bit. Notice the little boxy sections of plastic at the bottom of the tach and speedo? Those need to get modified. And the big bad tools in the foreground are what you need to do it.



My favorite way to accurately chew away the plastic in an NB cluster is to start with some nice slices like this. Take the wire cutters and take quite a few bites out of the plastic. The more cuts, the better you'll be able to do with the pliers.



You can see where this is going...



And there we have it. This will enable your tach to light up evenly at the bottom. If you ever want to go back, you can glue or tape a small tube of something in place to make up the space from the cluster to the bottom of the gauge face. A chapstick tube glues on nice, but those little cardboard tubes they pack around a new sparkplug's electrode work great.



A little extra care should be used with the speedometer indicator lights. If your new gauge style doesn't include a CEL, just hack all of the plastic away like you did with the tach. If your new gauges relocate the CEL to the next spot over, you'll just remove the left side partition.



Lastly, the high beam indicator. MOST aftermarket gauges keep the high beam indicator intact, but some place the gauge artwork a little close to the factory high beam location. You need to chew away just a little bit in order to get even lighting but keep the high beam light functionality.



I like to just use the wire cutters for this. Pliers just make a mess of it.



And there we go. Just a little off the top. Mine looks a bit jagged here, but it doesn't matter. The light will still shine through nicely and the high beam indicator will still light up separate from the surrounding numbers.







Dial Face Install (continued)



Optional Step!
If you have an NB with the factory green lighting and are wanting to change to something else, you'll need to remove the green condom. And if you have an NB with the factory orange lighting and want to change to something else, you'll need to remove the red condom. Pretty simple, yes?



PUT YOUR GLOVES ON. You will working with your new gauge faces a lot now. Treat them like they would self-destruct the moment anything touches the front side. A few mintues of extra care here will be worth it. Would you, like to stare at an oily (or even dusty if using powdered gloves) finger print for the rest of your car's life?

Time to screw your new gauges in place. Just be careful. Don't let the screwdriver slip off the screw and gouge your new tach face. Been there, done that. It sucks.



The speedometer is the only gauge needle you can install right away. The rest need to wait till you're outside with the cluster in your car.

See the tiny dot with all the arrows pointing to it? This is where you should point the speedometer needle. Unlike the NA speedometer, it does not self-zero at the correct zero point. This tiny dot is as close as you can come. Most aftermarket gauge manufacturers give you a mark like this.

Place the needle on the post gently. You want to be able to easily remove it for if/when you don't quite get the positioning right and have to fix things. And notice how you've not yet glued on the needle stoppers?







Setting the Needles



Take your cluster back out to the car and loosely install it. I like to use one screw. As you can see, I put my black bezel back in place. You don't have to. I just thought I'd do it so things looked nicer for photos. Then I remembered you can't really photograph the needle setting part of this job.



This little tool makes life a whole lot easier. It's an OBDII scanner with a live view screen. No guessing about your tach. No wondering if the car is warm yet. Just read it from the screen. I highly suggest buying, begging, or borrowing one. It'll come in handy for more than just this job in the future.

There is no good way to photograph each step of this. Sorry, but this involves a lot of reading. I'll try to make it as easy to understand as possible.

Oil Pressure: Start the car. Then pop the oil pressure gauge on anywhere you want. 99% of NBs have dummy oil gauges. If yours has an aftermarket sender to make it actually work, chances are you remember how to reset it correctly. =)

Tachometer: When your engine has warmed up enough and you hear it idling normally, pop the tach needle in place with it pointing somewhere around 850 rpm. Next, rev up to your rev limit. For most NBs, 7200 is the limit. OR save a lot of guesswork and use the OBDII scanner with the car at idle.

Water Temp: Once you've finished messing around with the tach needle, your engine should be warm enough to put the water needle in place. The stock position is approximately 11:30 o'clock. Put the needle in place and then press it down firmly. Of course, you can verify the water temp on your live data screen...

Test drive time. On this test drive, you'll get your speedometer accurate. Refer to the little chart of speed to RPM in various gears that you made earlier. Also verify your speed between your speedometer and the live view screen on your OBDII scanner. Once you're happy with the speedometer, press the needle on fully (remember, it was just barely installed before). As for your test drive, I suggest driving around in a pretty deserted area for this. You're going to be quite distracted. And you should try to plan it so that you end up at a gas station at the end.

Fuel: Last but not least, the gas gauge. As I said before, drive to a gas station. Fill your tank. Then go home and set your gas needle as close to the F as you like. I like to give it a few minutes between filling the tank and setting the needle on the gauge. It takes the NB a few minutes to register a full tank.

Turn off the car. Take the cluster back out. Go back to your work area. It's time to glue on the needle stoppers and be finished with this project!


Some aftermarket gauges include new needle stoppers for you to glue on. Others require you to remove the stoppers from your stock tach and oil pressure gauges. This removal is quite easy.



Take your stock gauge and flip it over. On the back side is a small blob. Take an X-acto knife and slice it off. Then pull the stopper out from the front side.



You'll be left with this. It needs to be sliced flat...



... like this! Pretty simple, but it's nice to have a photo to clear it up.



Apply a drop of super glue to the back of the needle stopper. Don't be shy. Make a big dome-shaped drop on the back. You'll remove most of that glue in the next 3 seconds.



Use the corner of a paper towel to remove most of the glue from the stopper. You want to end up with just a thin layer of glue covering the back. This way, you won't have any excess glue seeping out from the edges of the stopper, making your new gauge faces look bad.

If you'd like, get out a sheet of plain paper and practice sticking the needle stopper to it. Make a mark with a pen and try to stick the stopper right over top. If there's any excess glue around the edges, remove it and wipe off all the glue from the back. Then re-apply the dot of super glue and try again. After all, it's easier to ruin a piece of paper than your new tachometer face.



That's what you're after. Just a little glue. Let it dry for a few seconds according to the glue directions and then pop it in place. Good luck!



Swing your speedo (or tach) up a little ways. Hold it in place. Then place the needle stopper onto your gauge face with the other hand. Continue to hold the needle away from the stopper until the glue has setup. For superglue, this is around 10-20 seconds.



And that's it. All that's left to do is snap the cluster glass back on and reinstall the gauges into your car. Of course, there's the celebratory test drive (much longer than the needle setting test drive) followed by the celebratory beer, celebratory photos, and celebratory posting to your favorite Miata board.