This is a very easy mod.

TIME REQUIRED: APPROX 1 HOUR

TOOLS NEEDED:
Philips screwdriver
Flat head screw driver
Snips
Pliers
Junior hacksaw

Firstly, remove the clock/dial unit from the dash. Thats pretty easy itself. Its not really part of the scope of this guide but ill give a quick run through;

Remove the ashtray, lift the gear gaitor and surround trim. There are 2 screws where the ashtray was, remove those. Remove one screw from either side of the steering wheel. These screws are under the dash, facing upwards, holding the lower section of the dash to the console/clock surround trim. Carefully remove the centre dash trim by gripping firmly at the vents on top and around the heater controls. Unplug the hazard switch and two plugs to the cig lighter. Remove the lower clock surround trim, this trim is the one that contains the ignition assembly and driver side vent. Now remove all four screws holding the clocks in place and the last thing to remove before the clocks is the upper clock surround trim. Its just a strip of plastic held in with clips, so carefully grip it and pop it down and outwards.

Now, on to the actual how to.

So you have the clocks out at this point and ready to go:

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Firstly, remove the clear plastic clock unit facia. Using the flat head screw driver, gently prise the tabs in and work your way around, pulling the lense away from the rest of the clock unit. It comes away pretty easy, wont take long.
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Next, remove the black inner housing in the exact same way that you removed the clear facia:

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The new Plasma dials just pop on over the old ones, no need to remove the needles, just overlay them and sit the black inner housing back on. DO NOT send it all the way home though, just half way as you need to mark out notches to cut away to allow the dial wires to exit without being crushed.

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The dials come with a strip of super thin double sided tape to hold the plasma dials in position. You can use this, but I chose not to, didnt want to leave all gluey marks on the original dials, for easy anti-mod if ever needed. Of course, if you dont fix them down, they tend to float around a bit and its really tricky to get them to all sit right, straight and centred whilst trying to fix the housing back in place. An extra pair of hands is....well.....handy...sorry.... :blink:

See below, pic quality is not great, but you can see on either side of the wires, little white marks I made where the dial wires exit the clock unit. Each dial has its own wire, so there will be 5 in total. You neet to cut out notches both on the black inner housing and in the corresponding location on the white main unit to allow the the units to lock back together without crimping the wires. The white plastic is quite soft so you can easily cut away with a snips, but the black inner housing is quite brittle, using a snips may cause a large split through it. So I recommend making small "incisions" with a junior hacksaw and then just snap out the bit in the middle with a pliers:
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Once you are happy that the black housing will sit firmly back in place without crimping any of the wires, go ahead and send it home, making sure that the dials are all straight and centred before the final click. Should looky likey this:
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Tie up the wires neatly to either side, depends where you reckon you may take your live and earth from when wiring them in to the car. Also, click the clear facia back on:
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At this point its really done, simple as that. All you do now is stick the finished unit back in the car, wire in the live and earth and put all the dash back together. When wiring, the earth can be taken pretty much anywhere, but using an auto(car) phase tester, probe for a live. Best to take it from a source that comes on as you switch your lights on, therefore, the dials will come on and off with your lights. To help find this source, remove key from ignition and turn your lights on. Now any live you will find will be lights only. I personally wired them to the light in the cigerette lighter as this comes on with the lights. It was also very close and very easy. Test the function first before making a permanent connection. Make sure that when you turn the lights and dials on and off, that nothing else is "dimming", like your stereo for example. If there is any dimming, you are overloading that circuit and could easily and regularly pop a fuse. Try somewhere else and when its all good, make the permanent connection.

Job done, enjoy! Below are some sample photos of mine in place.

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While doing this, I relocated my turbo timer to underneath the steering wheel cowl. Neater and out of the way. I also mounted the control switch for the dials on the front of the steering wheel cowl. Easy access and the only really flat surface in that general area.

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More pics:

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Another thing I did while installing the dials, was split the heater control unit down and replace all the green bulbs and leds with blue hyper leds. I put red ones in the A/C and Econ buttons to alert me that they are on. Same job also for the cig lighter surround light and the ignition switch surround light:

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Last but not least, a shot of the dials switched on. They are actually much clearer in reality, they seem to flare up on the camera.
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Looking at the pics, I really need to paint the clock and passenger side vent to match.

Well Ray? Bring it on, I can take it!

Fair play to you Swagger for the how to. KC +1 for you and it looks great

Cheers Quandry, appreciate the comment even more, knowing your personal taste is for the stock interior.

Oh god what have you done to your poor car?


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But seriously, nice job, I didn’t realise it is that handy to take the gauge cluster out.
KC coming at you Swagger, a worthy addition in the How Two section.

Now for the How Two verdict,
Quality: 0 out of 2
Content: 0 out of 2
Photo’s: 0 out of 2
Instruction: 0 out of 2
End result: 0 out of 2
Total score: 0 out of 10

However the use of the medical term "incisions" while dealing with an MR2 means you receive the bonus points

Swagger Total Score: 14 out of a possible 10, good job man.

Nice job on those dials. Your interior interior looks great. Really good how to, nice to know how to get in at those bulbs behind the cluster

Looks class swagger...and the pepper grinder looks key to success

@Ray, Jesus man, I got off a lot easier there then I expected. I know this sort of thing is not to everyones taste. Yourself and Quandry are into playing it down and keeping it stock, so the kind comments are honestly very pleasing. Cheers! I always use medical terms, but I am aware that it does not make me any more intelligent!


@ Junior, cheers buddy, although just changing the bulbs is even easier, you dont need to open up the dials, you dont even need to remove them from the car. Just remove the dial surround and pull the clocks out a little, rotate them upwards towards the windscreen, leave all the plugs in. You will see loads of little bulb holders. There will be five big ones, they are the main backlights for the clocks, all the little ones are warning lights, indicators etc. Just twist out the big bulb holders and they will pop out with the bulbs in them. The bulbs are just standard sidelight bulbs with green rubber covers, you can replace with normal sidelight bulbs or blue LED's etc.

@Scooby, that grinder has gotten me through many a hard day!

Great write-up steve

Thanks Dave, but credit to you, I practiced on yours first!

Just have to said Thank you to SWAGGER for writing this "How 2"! Just fitted mine this afternoon its Mint!

yep fair play Swagger, KC for both

Thanks lads! Glad it was a help to you Devilly. These dials look the muts nutz IMO.

If you get a chance, bang up a pic or two. Be nice to see what way you designed your own.

Here it is! personally love white dials so went for white dials, its a Rev5 so keeping the Red scales on it, then just finishing off by sticking my name on it!

I bought these straingt from speedhut through mr2oc GB. In the pic you can see my rev counter doesnt have speedhut printed on???? I'm not complainting, but just wondering why?


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Very nice man. I like the way you kept the REV5 red markings alive there.

I love white dials myself, in fact that is what I really wanted, but the white dials don't light up very blue, more a pale greeny colour, so I had to get blue dials to get a deeper blue when lit up. Just me being fussy maybe, but with my car being blue anyway, they don't look too out of place IMO. Of course, you can dim them and turn them green at the flick of a switch too....

Don't know why the speedhut logo is not them though. Seems odd to me, but makes no difference anyway, so I wouldn't be bothered by that.

Oh, just noticed you went with the chrome dial rings too!

Good job man!

I actually like it without the speedhut logo! Its the warranty I worry about. And yes! fitted some dials rings while I was at, it's a nice upgrade!

Was originally goin for a carbon fibre surround like yours swagger, bought them from carbenfibre on eBay, them he reply me say: ur item was damage during postage as we have non in-stock atm. So he giving me a full refund. After 2week I check for them again to see is it in-stock again, I notice nothing but the price had gone up £10 was £25 now £35. So I bought these rings instead! Happy enough!

Well done to both of you. Great mods.

guys this may be a stupid question but i have to ask it none the less since i want to install these.When you converted from kph to mph facias will the speedo still be accurate?I know it should be in theory but just want to make sure love yer clocks lads class

also if you sell your car it looks like milage is high because its in mph not kmh