Finally, my new headlight assembly arrived for my Miata. I bought the flush headlight kit from Advanced Automotive Concepts. I had an average experience with the business. While the product was satisfactory (after some of my own adjustments), there were some flaws with the product.

After working with the product, I honestly don’t think the product was worth $600 for the full headlight assembly minus the xenon HID upgrade. It all began with a very lengthy wait for half of the product to arrive. I ordered my product back in January. I had to call the company several times to get an ETA, while I was given the standard “we’ll ship it in two weeks…” catch-22. Finally, I dropped them a very frank email stating that my carbon fiber hood was made from scratch and with a turnaround time of one month.

Giving them the credit for having such a product that eliminates the dweeby, cute, pop-ups is much due. The engineering and development is much appreciated. However, the manufacture could have been done better.

The driver side headlight apparatus (the carbon fiber and lexan component) were not made very well. They were somewhat mis-sized. The passenger side was perfect. I had to use my bandsaw to trim the edges around the lexan lens to make it fit the carbon fiber component so the metal clips could hold it onto the carbon fiber.

In the end, if it wasn’t for my adequate skill with manipulation of manufactured products, this product would have been sent back for refund or at the least the driver side of the headlight replaced.

Moving on…Here’s what I’ve done to my car…

I had been dabbling around with the idea of changing the gauge faces on my stock Miata gauge cluster but a few things came across my mind such as pros and cons of why would I want to keep the gauge cluster stock?

The pros of keeping the gauge cluster stock:
1. Simplicity
2. Already functioning
3. Legal (Motor Vehicle Division requirements)

The cons of keeping the gauge cluster stock:
1. Gauges aren’t 100% accurate
2. Tired and old
3. Starts to squeak more often with the speedometer
4. Needles warble more with new harmonics from the 5-oh motor.
5. Mix of mechanics and electronics…
6. Positioning of tach and speedo are reversed
7. Oil Pressure Gauge doesn’t function accurately
8. Coolant gauge doesn’t function accurately

The cons won. I figured that I would go ahead and create my own gauge cluster with gauges that i could use and not have lame duplicates. I already have a vacuum, oil pressure, and coolant temperature gauges on the a-pillar. I had acquired them with the intention to provide me more accurate information of what’s really going on in the engine. To support the con number 7 and 8, the autometer gauges I have read back 40psi for oil pressure at warm idle. The miata oil pressure gauge reads between 55 and 60. I know this is a simple resistor issue, but if I can’t have a trustworthy gauge, I don’t want it. The coolant gauge on the stock gauge moves like a millimeter for every 40 degrees. This is unacceptable. I need something more accurate for my own peace of mind.

With the autometer gauges in the pillar for vacuum, oil pressure, and coolant… I figured that I would go ahead and make my own gauge cluster with gauges that could be of use and flip the two gauges, the tach and the speedometer.

Here are the pictures of what I’ve done: