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one thing that's been bugging me ever since i bought my NA8 is the idiot light oil pressure gauge.

there are a couple of write-ups about replacing the stock oil pressure sender in NA8+ cars with a VDO unit with decent results, but stock idiot light gauge is not linear and has its needle movement heavily dampened (it reacts very slowly to changing electrical input). i want my oil pressure needle to react instantly, like the tacho, so i know that i have x amount of oil pressure at x rpm.

after reading the article below, i thought perhaps it's easier just to replace the sender and gauge from an NA6 - is this as straight forward as it sounds?

http://www.miata.net/garage/opg.html

does anyone know if:
- the NA6 oil pressure sender bolts up to the NA8 block without mods/adapters
- the NA8 oil pressure sender electrical plug/sockets are identical to the NA6
- the NA6 gauge fits into the NA8 cluster without mods/adapters

ajay, what would it cost me to source an NA6 gauge and sender from mania (PM me if you prefer)? i might pop over on saturday.

Yes. I put all the NA6 stuff in my old NA8. Everything just fits together like it's meant to be there. The oil pressure switch on the block was a bitch to get off without removing the oil filter but I managed, the NA6 sender unit was much easier to reinstall and everything worked like it was supposed to. I wish I could do the same to the NB8B.

Garry wrote:Everything just fits together like it's meant to be there.

awesome!

what did it cost you and where did you source the gauge & sender?

I cant remember the prices, it was about 7 years ago. I do remember getting the gauge and the sender from a wrecker but one of them was faulty (cant remember which one) so I ended up replacing the faulty bit with a new one from Mazda. So it wasn't all that cheap.

edit: My memory is coming back.....

I could only get the sender unit at the wreckers. He wouldn't break up a gauge cluster so I got the gauge itself from Mazda. Sorry for the confusion.

ahh ok.

thanks for your help. i'll update this thread when it's all up and running.

hope i will be able to get the old sender off without too much trouble.

bought all the bits today (thanks ajay!).

tried to remove the stock sender for about an hour with little success.
sender 1 : locutus 0

going to try and source a deep socket tomorrow to try and get the bugger off.

had to go out and buy a set of deep sockets (the socket that i wanted was twice the price if i bought it alone!) but they worked a treat.

everything's now in and i've now got a REAL oil pressure gauge.

thanks again Garry!

Glad it worked out for you