Selene - Nev's NB SE

[Nevyn72]

Excellent idea with the oil and fog light! Wish I had thought of that.
Might still go back and do the fog light one though
Have fun cutting the boost gauge up, not for the faint hearted!

Hahaha, recognise where I pinched the picture of the oil LED do you?

I've got a few spare bulb holders with wires for the fog light/oil light fitting to the rear of the instrument cluster if you want one.....

Yeah, really looking forward to 'adjusting' the case for the Boost gauge, will tackle that one tomorrow.

[track_addict]

Great idea with the oil pressure warning and fog light indicator. Ill definitely do those when I have the dash out for a boost gauge, like you're doing.

[Nevyn72]

Well at least people seem to be impressed with my functional fog light indicator.....

[Nevyn72]

I had a fairly productive day today.......

First up, well looky, a Boost gauge!



I'm not going to do a detailed write-up on this as it's been done before by;
Lokiel -> viewtopic.php?p=591352#p591352
Roadrunner -> viewtopic.php?p=783704#p783704
And the main thread over at Mazda-speed.com -> http://www.mazda-speed.com/forum2/index ... 678.0.html

I will however add a few notes to these descritpions......
- Unlike others I didn't cut off the large connector to disassemble the gauge, I enlarged the hole in the base a bit to allow it to fit.
- I must have ground a lot less off the outside of the casing (maybe the design has changed?) but mine fit snugly and appears to be nicely centred.
- I used Roadrunner's technique of testing then rotating the gauge housing to align the needle rather than removing and re-indexing it. I also had to power cycle the gauge about 10 times before it had a stable '0' point. You will need to have the boost sensor plugged in for this test/adjustment.

Otherwise I did it pretty much how it was described in the links above.

Next up was the rest of the wiring for the other gauges plus I had to route the boost gauge wire through the firewall as well.....

I used the small grommet located just below where the throttle cable passes through the firewall, I had previously punctured this one for the wire for the daylight running lights so it easy to relocate from under the dash. Now each of the gauges with senders in the engine bay are electronic with largish fittings on each end so I had to cut off one end to feed the wires through. Even still, with three sets of heavily sheathed wires plus the wire for the DRLs I was only just able to squeeze them all through after removing the grommet!

So once all the wires were through I had to re-solder all the plug fittings back on after shortening each wire to a more appropriate length.
Next up were the power and illumination supplies for the gauges. Because I ordered 4 gauges they supplied a long daisy chain for each set so I started near the fusebox, ran up behind the instrument cluster (for the boost gauge) then down again and in behind the centre part of the dash where the other gauges are going. The two 'chains' were both just long enough to do the loop across so I didn't have to add anymore wire to make it fit.

Here's the mess of wiring in it's initial fitting.



Next up was to plug everything in to make sure it all worked, gauge function, illumination, dimming ability, etc...

Here it all is plugged in with the engine running up to temperature.....



I'm pleased to say I all appears to be working perfectly, although the AFR does wander from side to side a bit, from ~14.3-15.1 at idle.
If you rev the engine they all appear to do the appropriate things but the water temp gauge doesn't show a reading until the thermostat opens which is to be expected I suppose given where the sender is mounted.

So with all that looking good I tidied up some of the wiring under the steering column and had to find a home for the rheostat that controls the speedhut gauge brightness. This operates independently of the normal gauge dimmer as the illumination technology is different. It does however allow you to exactly match the brightness levels which is really good with the boost gauge being in the middle of the cluster!

I ended up deciding to mount the rheostat just to the side of the internal fuse holder, thus it's easy to reach and adjust when you need to but hidden away behind a cover when you don't.

Here's how it looks.



So the next job is to sort out the gauge mounting for the centre dash.....

I had a brief look at it and ummm, well, see for yourself.



The threaded collar used by the speedhut gauges isn't long enough to fit this housing!

So the first job for tomorrow is to try and modify the gauge holder in some way so that the speedhut gauges can be fitted and secured....
Wish me luck or I'm going have to go shopping for another solution!

[Mr Sexy]

Thought about using sikaflex to hold them in? Just a little dollop inside the gauge holder would easily hold it in place. Sikaflex is pretty strong!

[Okibi]

Seen these: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/CD-Din-Dash- ... ebf&_uhb=1

[Nevyn72]

Seen these: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/CD-Din-Dash- ... ebf&_uhb=1

Yep, I almost bought one and will be the sort of thing I'll look at if I can't get the holder I've got to work.

[Nevyn72]

Just a small update today......

A little trimming with the trusty Demmel resolved the issue with the gauge holder. I only removed as much material as I absolutely had to as I didn't want to weaken the structure of the holder too much. It's a cosy fit but it works!

The main issue is the way the speedhut units are designed, rather than use a clamp like most other gauges they use a locking ring. The width of the ring is actually larger than a single DIN fitting so you will encounter similar problems no matter what type of holder you use. The angled holder Obiki linked earlier also wouldn't work as the 'steps' for each angle don't allow clearance for the locking ring either.

With the gauges installed the locking tabs on each side were held fast and it was slightly taller than single DIN where the rings are but a test fit proved it would work ok.

Here's how it looked modified with the gauges fitted.



Now that was all sorted and ready to go the next item was to start installing the radio. I cheated horribly and just bought the ISO adapters for the wiring, it makes life so much easier and allows me to change the head unit out down the track with minimal fuss when a suitable DAB unit becomes available.

I pinched the rubberized locating pin from the OEM radio and that screwed straight into the back of the new unit, then pre-ran the USB extension lead behind the HVAC controls and underneath so it could be threaded through and into the back of the centre console's govebox. Then I simply used the supplied locating collar that came with the new radio, placed it into the opening and bent as many tabs as I could find to lock it into place.

Once this was all done, I then made the connections to the rear and slid the main body of the radio into the collar (the locating pin lined up perfectly) and pushed until it locked into place. With nothing else to do I turned on the ignition and it fired up first go, I love it when things just work!

With the radio appearing to be finished I grabbed the gauge holder, made all the connections and pushed it into place..... Perfect.
Once again I fired up the car to confirm the gauges were operating as they should, which they were, so now that bit's done, YEAH.

Here's how the central part of the dash currently looks....



So now it's a bit of a waiting game....

Waiting for parts
Waiting for paint to dry
Waiting for glue & silicone to cure fully....

[ManiacLachy]

Looks awesome nevyn, great work. I think you've sold me on speed hut, even with the foment issues.

[Nevyn72]

Hehehehe....

Don't mind me, just passing through and thought I'd leave these here.....

[ManiacLachy]

Looks great Nevyn! Going to get some blue needles?

[Nevyn72]

Going to get some blue needles?

Hell no! The red needles provide great contrast and visibility.....

Besides, there's an awful lot to replace (if you could find replacements) using two different types of lighting technologies.
The interesting thing is that the ones in the instrument cluster, now having blue backlights, are actually quite purple in colour which might take some getting used to.....

[Nevyn72]

So the interior mods are finally done, Yeah!

This is only going to be fairly brief for reasons that will become apparent in my next post so just some pictures for now.....

[MINX]

Looks great


Stuart

[ManiacLachy]

Interior looks amazing, excellent work!