What did you do to your NA today 2015?

[Corifto]

I also decided to fix my gauge hood since I recently got a perfect one.

Broken 1991 gummy hood


All better


Bonus interior shot

[Big Red]

Installed new licence plates & finaly installed my carbing 3 point i've had for more than a year

[flooglemop]

I personally don't have the lettuce to acquire one of the fancy KGW gauge clusters, but I like the retro look of gauge rings and individual glass for each gauge. Like others, I went about to make my own.

I started with one of these stainless-steel faceplates sold on ebay:



As others discovered, it doesn't really work for this application, mostly because the smaller gauge openings are not even completely closed. So then I found another one on Amazon that seemed it might make a better fit:



This one had perfect opening for the small gauges, but the larger gauge openings would prove to be a hair too large for the rings, so I backed it with some plastic I cut out in order to reduce the size of the larger gauge openings, and it worked perfect.

I also bought this set of rings from ebay (this is one of the photos from the ebay ad):



These were a perfect size. There is another set of rings available from another site that sells Miata stuff, but those were too large for my taste. I preferred the slim rings like this. Shiny enough to look good, but not so large as to draw too much attention.

Finally, I needed glass, but after looking at so many pictures of these kinds of clusters, I realized there would be an issue with glare from the glass. Thankfully, RevLimiter sells glass for these, so he solved my problem of glare and of having to have these made. Adam made his glass sized for certain applications, so he couldn't guarantee they would fit on my home-made project, but I accepted the risk and bought them. They turned out to work perfectly for the way I mounted them. Here's the link to the lenses at RevLimiter's store:
http://revlimiter.net/store/glass.php

Finally, while I prefer the metal needle caps that are turned, I don't have $135+ for little bits of metal, so I opted for the chromed version from Goodwin Racing. Still not cheap for tiny bits of metal, but it saved me quite a bit. Here's the link to the one's I bought:
http://www.good-win-racing.com/Mazda...t/40-1208.html

So here's how it turned out (excuse the lousy iPad pic):


Yeah, that’s not the best pic and doesn’t look very impressive, but it looks great in person.

One thing I didn't do is use gem lamps for the dummy lights and signals. I honestly feel those tend to make gauge clusters look too busy, like a Christmas tree. Without them, I'm able to focus on just the gauges and keep things clean and tidy. I did, however, took the opportunity to install LED lights while I had everything apart, and that made a vast improvement which I highly recommend if you have your cluster out of the dash.

The only problem I face is that the fuel gauge no longer seems to work. I’ve repeatedly removed the needle and placed it back on, thinking that the needle might be pressed on either too loose or too tight, but to no avail. I’m wondering if the lenses are too close to the needle cap and binding it from moving. I’ll have to trouble-shoot it some more and figure that out.

And here's a little tip for those who might take this project on themselves:
The black gauge faces are susceptible to the oil in your hands, so touching them will leave a dark print. I knew about this ahead of time, but I still managed to touch the face on the speedo and left a dark spot. Since the spot was caused by the oil in my hand, my lovely wife suggested I use mineral oil to make the entire face dark. So I used a Q-Tip and wiped down all of the faces with mineral oil, and it made the black and red on the faces deeper and richer while eliminating the fingerprint. It actually looked better than before, like brand new gauges! It completely eliminated the faded look of the stock gauges while solving any fingerprint issues. So if you touch your gauge faces and stain them, don't panic. All is not lost.

Update: so I removed the cluster cover yet again and drove to the gas station to fill up, this time without the hood and cover. As I drove off to the gas station, the fuel gauge adjusted to reflect the actual fuel level. After filling up, it again adjusted to reflect a full tank. So it seems that the glass lens was the culprit. I placed a spacer between the gauge cluster cover and the actual gauges so that the glass won't press against the needle cap, and so far it seemed to work. So if you build your own gauge cluster cover, make sure there is sufficient clearance between the glass and needles, and if one of your gauges doesn't work, consider that it might be a clearance issue.

[Demon I Am]

Wonderful job!

[flooglemop]

So I installed the racing fuel lid from Zoom Engineering:



Before getting the Zoom lid, I purchased an OBX version on ebay which was a hunk of junk (though it did look nice, but that's as good as it got). It weighed as much as the Queen Mary's anchor and the fit was absolutely atrocious. Here's a photo of how the insert fit. It would not fit lower than this:



The Zoom part was very lightweight in comparison and fit so much better. And while it was slightly more expensive, it was worth the extra cost. Thankfully I got a refund for the OBX part. My advice for anyone interested in one of these is to get the real deal from Zoom.

[OBD1 kenobi]

I finally had a weekend of activity with the miata. The best part was getting the kids to "help" some and hopefully feed the love for cars. I finish my door revamping. I changed the window bushings and installed my Zoom CF sideview mirrors. Sometime ago I did the DIY quilted door cards, roadster door sills and Kenauto door delrin bushings so my doors are done.

The only other thing I did was changing the rear badges to "Eunos" and "roadster" badges from the original USDM badges. Here are some pics. Sorry for the potato quality. ImageUploadedByTapatalk1447126327.969681.jpgImageUploadedByTapatalk1447126341.750985.jpgImageUploadedByTapatalk1447126354.101513.jpgImageUploadedByTapatalk1447126362.385498.jpg

[RustRat]

Not finished yet, but I started making a diy Naca duct for my driver's side headlight cover

[flooglemop]

I'm not sure where to ask this, but I organized some pictures on Photobucket and now the images in my posts in this thread have disappeared. Is there any way to edit my posts to fix the broken links?

[Demon I Am]

No, you can only edit our posts for a short time here, for some weird reason or another.

[flooglemop]

Well that stinks. Sort of makes previous posts with broken links obsolete. I wonder why they don't give us control over our own posts?

[Slipstreem]

Did a compression check on Hakumei. Very happy with the results.

Dry: 150 on the nose in all four cylinders.
Wet: (1)200 (2)230-Too much oil (3)205 (4)200

I didn't have a way to actually measure the amount of oil otherwise I believe all four cylinders would have been a even 200. Not bad for 181XXX on the clock.

[Slipstreem]

Not finished yet, but I started making a diy Naca duct for my driver's side headlight cover

Write up on this once it's finished please.

[flooglemop]

Did you use a template for the NACA duct?

[RustRat]

I bought an ABS duct from ebay, used it as a template to cut my headlight cover, and I will attach it with rivets. I'm sure there were cleaner ways to install it, but I like the look of it with the rivets, and it will match the theme of the car.

@Slipstreem I will write a few words woth some photos, but the original ideq belongs to Adam @revlimiter. He has a blog post about it, I'll find it and post it later, too.

[—Martin—]

revvies's naca duct blog post

http://revlimiter.net/mods/duct.php