I’m not a big fan of the white dial faces on my 2005 NBFL, I much prefer the more classic black dials on the early MK2’s. I know most people swap the other way round but does anyone know if it’s a straight swap for the faces or are there warning lights that were added on the NBFL that won’t show up if I swap for earlier faces?
current:
early black dials:
I can’t help you with your technical request.
Must say, though, I agree with your viewpoint. For me, those white instruments conjure up
visions of ultra lowered springs, 12 wide wheels, flared arches, 6" knob extensions to the gear stick etc… Really tacky. I guess the white instruments go well with the fake oil pressure gauge ?
Yep that’s where my mind was going! I might just take punt and buy the whole early cluster on eBay, they’re pretty cheap. Mazda must have been going through a MaxPower stage in the early 2000’s 
I hope they do swap straight over but I have a nagging doubt in the back of my mind that the electronic connections might differ. 
I thought I’d seen something about it on a YouTube video but it could equally have been an NA to NB swap.
Good luck 
I don’t think I’m going to use the cluster, just take it apart and retrieve these from it, however as you can see there doesn’t seem to be any of the five round warning light circles inside the rev counter & speed like the white one, although the bulbs will still be there.
I don’t think the black dial mk2 cluster is a straight swap for the white dial one. I seem to remember reading somewhere that early NBs don’t have a check engine light. There may be other differences.
This American site has lots of dial faces; quite expensive though!
This is the 2000 NB (black dials) owners manual, looks like they might be underneath the black face, but missing the second light on the right. Just need to find out what that is for
That’s the seat belt light on my 2005.
I bought an early NB cluster from eBay for £12+ postage! and removed all the warning light bulbs to shine a torch through and check what the warning lights were. It was an exact match for my mk2.5 so I made the swap over. It’s quite straight forward but essential you make a note of where the dials are set before you pull the needles. The Speedo and Rev counter need to be prised over the stop needles and they then rest at the true point you need to refit. It took a couple of goes on the fuel gauge (four to be precise!). I love the result though, I used a mix of mk2.5 and mk2 components:
Early donor cluster with white needles and the black faces on the left that are going to be swapped over
Half way there
installed
No more max-power dials 
Really pleased with the result, the orange needles and silver rings are a bonus over the standard NB cluster and it suits the car + matches the VDO dials. The donor mk2 cluster mileometer was green whereas I’ve kept the mk2.5 orange one that matches the needles perfectly. An added bonus is at night the black dials are a lot easier to read than the white ones. I did briefly try keeping the red bulbs but this made the numbers hard to read so stayed with the white/lightish green illumination bulbs.
Looks great. 
I agree with Terry, they look great 
You may have given someone an idea with that “halfway there” image. I wonder if anyone has done a similar thing but kept one of the dials, like either the tacho or speedo, white?
Very neat job
