Is there a way to make it any brighter ? Can all the little bulbs be replaced with higher wattage bulbs ? Will they take any higher voltage without burning out ?

I like the stock interior, but the dim orange lighting is getting old. It's even hard to find orange readout stereo equipment these days ( remember when it was orange or green ONLY ). I had to go to red with the new Sony head.

Has anybody either found a way to brighten up OR change the color scheme of the interior dash and instrument lighting ?

 

you could get new gauges, they wouldn't be orange at all and seem to be a lot brighter..

 

I assume that you tried adjusting the lighting using the little **** to the left of the steering wheel, right?

 

Yes I know about the dimmer LOL, I just wish it would go about half way around clockwise.
How about some pics of some mods and where you got them ? Please ?

 

I got those silver face reverse indiglow gauges off of ebay, of DAMN those are BRIGHT!!!!

It took me a while to get used to them. For 30 bucks you cant beat it

 

I heard somewhere they stopped using alot of red and orange in instruments because the color-blind couldn't see them.

 

You dont need to see the panel at night, its merely a suggestion. Like road signs, and speed limits.

 

Overdrive the dash bulbs w/ a dc to dc power supply. I'd say 18-20V would make em brighter without having to disassemble the dash......at least until they pop!

 

I know pratch changed his cars interior light colors to blue. Looks really nice. I dunno if its any brighter though.

 

anyone have pics of pratch's lights.. i searched :-D couldn't find them

 

I prefer dimmer and orange dash lights. With most cars I drive I generally dim the interior lights when driving at night. The 7 only gets turned up so i can see the guages during dawn and dusk when its bright outside the car but shadowy inside. I've learned to check my speed and revs simply by catching the needle position at the bottom of my vision or by sound.

Having a lower interior light helps your eyes adjust and see things out in the dark better. You also don't have to readjust after a glance at the guages. The orange/red coloration helps too. The military uses red filters on maplights because you can see what you need to see, and your eyes dont have to readjust as much as with a white light. RX-7 guage orange is close enough to red to help out.

In short, you can blow a lot of time and money making brighter lights but you can take some time when you're driving anyway and get used to it.

 

Bimmers and the new Mazda 3 and 6 use em.

 

here ya go... white indiglo gauges on ebay...

 

Alas, back to the '79 - '83 dash dilemma...

Time to bump something for Manntis....

 

what he said

 

Heres my glow gauges!

 

Why oh why don't the indiglo ones come in orange/red?















sigh

 

That won't work.

Mine is an '81 with a new gauge cluster with the speedo to 160 and the gear change. I'm not changing it physically or mechanically.

 

By far, the best looking interior lights are the red and blue that Volkswagen does in the Jettas. They might be doing the other cars, too but I had a TDI for about a year and know for sure about them. Not too bight, but clear and crisp from the doors to the dash to the console. Gorgeous !

 

I just wish mine would FKN work period.