i am looking into getting a jdm fd, however as with all jdm vehicles the speedometer is in kph. my question is, is there any way to get the jdm speedo to read mph? to clarify my question basically i want to keep it jdm for use at shows (looking at the speedo and seeing it says kph and not knowing any better), but when i take it out for a drive it actually reads mph.

any positive input is welcome

also difficulty rating would be great, scale 1-10 (1=starting a car-10= 20b swap)

 

If you live in the US, buy an American FD. If you're buying it exclusively as a show car, then don't worry about the fact that it is in KPH. You're rolling the dice if you want to try to get it legalized to drive on the streets.

Anyway, to answer your question, FDNewbie calibrates KPH speedos to MPH. Difficulty scale would be like a 2. Remove your gauge cluster, send it to Ramy (FD Newbie) and reinstall it.

 

Fdnewbie can hook you up for the speedo re-calibration. You can also get a mph speedo from a US model and do a swap. pretty easy process. Takes about an hour (or less depending on your skill) if you have the speedos in hand

Note that 93-95 jdm fds are the same as the Us ones in terms of the illumination(amber). However 95-98 the illumination is green so if you have a 95-98 fd you need to find a matching illumination speedo unless of course u dont mind

 

Hey man, if it's a show car I have an idea for 2 birds with 1 stone. Buy an indash (double din) touchscreen with GPS and a speedsense, you can have it tell you mph/kmh. It'll also tell you lateral Gs, acceleration Gs, slope, etc.

I have the pioneer D3 and I really love it. It looks perfectly flush with the dash. Here's a bad pic of it, before I sanded/plasti dipped the interior panels:

 

jdm rx7 clusters are like honda clusters. they only go up to 180kmh which sucks as the fd goes way past that alot!. the mazdaspeed cluster goes up to 300kmh but its in a blue color with a red needle! while the american fd cluster is at 280kmh