RevinRx7

iTrader: (3)

Again as I stated in my other thread, "My goal for the car is to have any aftermarket gauges/tech mostly unnoticeable except for some avid enthusiasts or people that know what they are looking for/at.
Since I did a bunch of searches on the forum and found nothing that really interested me with gauge installs, ie hacking up the stock cluster or having an a-pillar gauge pod. There is nothing wrong with them, just not the direction I'm looking at going for this build. "
So, I had an idea... since I'm not big on A-Pillar gauges, Mickey mouse ears, vent gauges, or ones that require me to look away from the road.

This happened:


Below is the install pics, but its pretty obvious and works out nicely. My first thought was to mount the gauge to the black base in the gauge cluster, but like many other people on the forum I couldn't separate the clear plastic from the black backing. So this happened instead.

Pull the stock cluster out, FSM details that pretty well.


This is a later picture, but remove the 6 screws in the center and the Tachometer drops out.



This is the back of the tach, as you can see there is a light pipe for the high beams and the "shift up" light. I could see where the square from the light pipe was, so i dremeled that out and checked my work. The hole doesnt need to look good, but square it up so the gauge connectors fit.



Completely disassemble the Prosport guage. Pry up the decorative ring, toss the lens and white spacer out (the gauge won't fit otherwise, not enough clearance). Once you have the aluminum bezel free, check your work. If the square lines up, Use a Sharpie to mark the screw mounting holes and drill. You can see the two holes i drilled.


Insert the stepper motor part of the gauge with the mounting screws in the back. Don't worry it surprisingly doesn't interfere with anything! At this point, You can rotate the gauge to any 90 deg orientation you would like.


Plug both your power wires and sensor wires in and run them through the light pipe. (This is also a good time to remove the "High beam" bulb and socket for good)



Close everything up and test fit!

RevinRx7

iTrader: (3)

Here's how I sourced the power and ground

MazdaMike02

iTrader: (4)

Awesome work dude.

I wonder if you could color in all the white on the prosport gauge with an orange sharpie or something lol or maybe some model paint? Lol I just think it would look better matched.

88fc3sT2

iTrader: (1)

Wow that's a clean install. Nice work

RevinRx7

iTrader: (3)

Yeah that could be tough, but I like where your head is at. I may even paint that outer shell flat black just to match the rest of the cluster too.

TRRAPLN

Nicely done.

Could you mount the Prosport gauge over the existing boost gauge? Is there enough room?

Maybe use a mounting panel instead of the OEM boost gauge to fasten to?

That OEM boost gauge is now redundant and takes up useable space.

RevinRx7

iTrader: (3)

If you were to remove the needle, absolutely you would have enough space depthwise to mount it similarly to how I did it. The Prosport gauge has to have the spacer and lens removed though otherwise it doesn't fit behind the radius of the clear plastic. The other trouble with a mounting panel is accounting for the depth of the fastening screws on the back, while I presume you could remove those as well I wasn't $102 dollars confident enough that I could separate the needle from the stepper motor without damaging my brand new gauge.
I also found mounting it over the stock area visually unappealing for my tastes after mocking it up similar to how the S5 guys do it.The 1/4 round gauges don't really lend themselves well to modification. Another reasoning I chose this space was that its easy to view from my peripheral vision when I have the steering wheel located when driving.

I totally get your point though redundancy is unnecessary in this situation, but again, my motivations were strictly to keep my mods from being obvious. Possibly when time and customization allows, I would like to create a custom setup entirely in the stock location.

**Edit: upon install and test, it appears my orange lighting wire was not connected properly, or cannot see 12V. The gauge started up fine, but did not backlight at all

RevinRx7

iTrader: (3)

https://www.facebook.com/shiznabot/m...3800466&type=3
Hopefully a link update to the pictures