revlimiter Gauges - A completely custom gauge set.

Details

• If you can imagine it, I can probably make it.
• Any style you want. It could be based on an existing car or on something you've imagined.
• If you request a certain font style, you must have that font in your collection to send me.
• Sure, I can do white-faced gauges for you. Or any color in the rainbow.
• Select any backlighting color if you like. I can probably make it. But if you want me to match an exact color ("I want the blue on the MK4 VW Jetta" for example) would be pretty hard and take a long time. Things that take a long time cost money.



• Price: Custom gauge sets start at $289 each. Depending on the complexity of your request and the time required to complete it, the cost will go up. I charge time on an hourly basis (4 hours of design time are included in the price). This isn't often cheap, but I guarantee you'll be happy with the results.

Go to the Custom Order Form

Benny

This set of gauges belongs to Peter, one of my best friends. He wanted a set of gauges that was inspired by and related to a watch he's had on his wrist for over 20 years. The gauge set is also a tribute to Peter's brother Dan, who passed away but infected his bro with a love of Miatas.

If anyone is curious, the watch in question is an Omega Speedmaster Automatic with the black dial.
The first thing you probably noticed is the center. That's a raised guilloche pattern done with gloss clear to mimic the center pattern on the watch face. There's no extra tint. Just gloss sprayed onto the face to finish it off. The numbers (slightly yellow to mimic aged lume paint) are also finished with a gloss coating.



The inner and outer scale on the tach and speed are rather different. The tach scale is as faithful to the scale on the watch face as possible, up to the point of being somewhat unusable. But it IS accurate, at least on the 1000s marks, and the big digits are enough to give an idea of how high the engine is revving.



Each small gauge has a different design. That's because the chrono dials on the original watch all have different designs. And in the center of the tach face is an extremely personal touch - Dan's initials.



The raised pattern alternates between visible and invisible depending on how the light hits it.



Lighting is crisp and even. Peter will be using OEM bulbs for that warm incandescent glow, but I used LEDs for these night shots to make the red pop.



Thanks for letting me help with such a personal modification, Peter.

TIE Fighter

This set was ordered by Evan, a long time Miata buddy and the person who first commissioned the 10AE gauge set. This is the 2nd set of custom gauges for his own 10AE.

Evan approached me with a request for some Star Wars inspired gauges and sent me a pic of the TIE Fighter targeting computer. He told me to go nuts. Design whatever I wanted as long as it was somewhat inspired by the TIE. I... panicked.



I usually like an open-ended order. But the subject matter for these gauges is SO broad... I demanded that Evan help me along the way and keep me pointed in the right direction. I started work on the simple gauges - the small gauges.



This water temp gauge was first. I'd done a version of this for a previous custom order and brought it in for the TIE fighter set. Star Wars nuts will recognize the Death Star tractor beam control panel. The temp gauge really seemed to need a traditional gauge layout. The tractor beam art is so pretty. It was easy to modify for a Miata gauge sweep. The text reads "low" and "high" in aurebesh.



The oil gauge is modeled after the radar display in many of the X-wing and TIE games of the late 90s. I personally loved those games, as did Evan. This one shows some red characters above the half way mark which show good oil pressure, high pressure, and anything below the half mark as "uh oh". An off character is shown as well.



The fuel is the 3rd gauge I designed. This one is based on the display in Anakin's starfighter in the 3rd prequel. I'm rather proud of the design work in this.

The circle marked "high" shows a full tank. The tall line in the middle is the 1/2 mark. The red line next to that is the 1/4 mark. The white dot on the far left shows empty. And the gauge can also show the "below empty" zone with the red line right under the E mark.



This IS the targeting computer for the TIE fighter essentially. The blue lines are screen accurate. This tach shows 0 RPM, 3000, 6000, and 9000 with the long blue bars. The red line on the top right shows the OEM red zone. The top edge lines up with 7000 RPM and the bottom edge shows 8000 RPM. Additionally, the red characters on the bottom left show the idle zone. The far right character is 1000 RPM. Evan's 10AE build sequence is the 1027 number above. Finally, the high beam indicator is shown by the "BEAM" text and artwork between 3 and 6000.



Finally, the speedometer. This one wanted to be a more traditional gauge, so I used the same style as on the water gauge with a blue mesh background. I used a bit of artistic license on the numbering (.4 and 8. instead of 40 and 80). 100 mph is identified by "LIGHT" (or hyperspace) in aurebesh. There's a DANGER zone for traveling above light speed.



Night lighting. They look positively otherworldly in person. Hell, they look FAKE in person. It's the best lighting effect I've ever done on a gauge set.






My inner 5 year old is squealing in happiness. Seriously... I can't believe I got the opportunity to make these. For a life-long Star Wars fan, this was pretty much the most fun order possible.



Thanks again Evan. Enjoy blasting the rebel scum on every drive.

Nyan

I've made doggy gauges... but what about kitty? Is there no love for the kitty? This was an order for some NYANCAT gauges. The owner liked what I'd done with the MLP set and wanted something similar with Nyancat. She supplied me with some sample Nyan-art since I wasn't really up on my Nyan-trivia. I went to work.



I brought up my layout template and drew a Nyan with rainbow streaking across the tach and fuel gauge. A few stars and the right dark blue made these really pop. Then I dropped a scale on and added some rainbow magic to the fun end of the tach. It was all coming together.



The speed/temp gauge had a few different versions. One had a small NYAN streaking out of the cloud's rainbow vomit and across the two gauges. It was cute, but the kitty with pile of treats was way better. I added a rain cloud to make the water gauge make sense.



How to link night and day? With a gradient oil gauge (or rather HAPPINESS!!!) and a floating balloon Nyancat.



And then night falls and the Nyan-insanity turns up to 11.



I'm calling this lighting effect the "electric rainbow madness" because it is. It's nuts. I came up with this on the fly. It looks absolutely otherworldly and maybe even a little fake in person. Like too perfect. But it really looks like that.



The clouds also got the neon border effect and I dimmed Nyan-treat-pile down a ton so that it wouldn't outshine the scale and numbers. With the NB's super-even lighting it looks fantastic.

But wait... that's not all.



Here's a day-to-night animation of the electric rainbow madness. I'm so very very proud of this. Thanks for the awesome Nyan-order Tiffany!

TRON

This order came in immediately after the TIE gauges above. I believe this is Tony's THIRD set of custom revlimiter Gauges. I think it's also his 4th Miata. To say I'm honored to keep having such awesome repeat business is an understatement.

So... ordered right after the TIE gauges. You'll notice some similarities between the TIE and the TRON.



Tony sent me a bunch of TRON artwork that inspired him. I immediately latched onto the light disc design and wanted to use it on the tach. It's just so... pretty and simple.

Like the TIE gauges, this one shows 0 rpm, 3000, and 6000 at 6:00, 9:00, and noon. Instead of a standard tick mark, I've got a sort of range that the needle falls in. The range does indeed encompass the 3000 and 6000 OEM calibrated marks. Redline is marked with... a redline (very creative eh?) and the 1000-2000 zone is marked with a corresponding aqua line. This allows the gauge to show an idle range.



The speedometer was the biggest challenge of this order. Tony wanted one that basically didn't have numbers. I took up the challenge and designed something like 8 different versions. This was the winner.

The scale shows different speed ranges. In one version they were color coated, but not especially useful. I had some with numbers in different spots. Putting a very small square number in the middle of the tick mark allowed the gauge to still be visually clean but have a reference number if needed. It's small, but it works. I'm pretty proud of my almost-numberless gauge solution.



Fuel! The battery icon was a no-brainer. The scale is mostly from the Rocket gauges, with a bit of modification to allow the arcs to go all the way around each small gauge and form circles. With the red zone on each, no numbers are needed.



Oil drop icon.



And, of course, a unique water icon.






Night lighting. The aqua glow didn't get picked up by the camera as much as I wanted, but you get the idea. These look like they fell off the movie screen in real life.



The odometer housing itself gets trimmed a bit to allow the whole tach to light up. It's not an easy mod but worth it for uniquely designed gauges like these.



If a light bike came out of Mazda's factory...

Pandora Strikes Back

Chase owns Pandora. He's been building the car for a good while. This is his 2nd set of custom gauges.
2 sets for the same car. Needless to say, I was honored to receive the order.



This set is completely custom. It shares nothing with any other gauge design. We went for a very vintage look. Very luxurious. And also something that would work with the Jass metal centers.












Purple lighting with white LEDs. The purple backlight really pops.



I'm extremely proud of this gauge set. Thanks Chase!

Dart

This set of gauges was inspired by the Dodge Dart. I was a bit uncertain when the order came in, but really, great dials can be in even the most humble car. After all, a Miata is pretty humble in itself.



It took a while to get my brain wrapped around the technical "how to do it" part of the order. But the gauges are actually quite simple. They just look rather complex.



This is the biggest difference from the Dart stock gauges. That speedometer is a mess. I stared at it for a good 15 minutes before figuring out exactly what number belonged to what scale mark. My version is significantly redesigned and simplified.









White lighting was the only choice. The reds and whites really pop with white LEDs behind.

ZX12R

This was a fun custom order. John, a long time customer and owner of a few sets on this page (yes, a FEW) ordered a set for a Miata he was building for his dad. This set is inspired by his dad's favorite motorcycle, the Kawasaki ZX12R.



If you've never seen a ZX12R, don't worry - the gauges look exactly like this. Slightly different limits, but everything else is the same.



While perusing the photos John sent, I saw the blue inner scale on the speedometer and just fell in love. It's just lovely. I couldn't wait to make these.









The three small gauges were a bit of a challenge. The ZX12R doesn't have them. But it does have abbreviated fuel and temp gauges as an electronic readout. I took that style and made it into a analog faces.



Night mode is incredibly crisp and satisfying. The LEDs really give it a lot of vibrance.



Not a hotspot to be found. I love the NB cluster. It's so much better lit than the NA. And thanks again for the order John!

Disco

Here's an set of custom gauges that expands on a manufacturer's OEM offering. This was an order for a set of gauges done in the same style as the Disco Touring Volante. But that car? It didn't have any smll gauges and the speedometer didn't have a dual scale.



The base-3 tach is a neat feature. And, thanks to the customer's engine mods, I was able to put the redline at 7500 just like the original Disco gauges. A Jinba Ittai on the 6000 mark rounds out the style.



The speedometer is where most of the work went. Shoehorning a dual scale into the speedo and making it look natural was not easy. But the end result... I'm SO proud of it. It looks as good or better than the original.



For the small gauges, I took the Rocket arc and modified it a bit with the Disco text style.



The design really works well together. It all feels very harmonious to me.



Night lighting in amber with LEDs behind. It's super crisp. And that dark spot on the tach can be eliminated by slicing off the front edge of the odometer housing.

Okami

This was a fun order! Anthony wanted a set of gauges centered around this Dog Spirit dude named Okami. I confess, I have no idea who or what Okami is, but the style is lovely. The customer provided all the artwork for me. I was impressed by his artistic prowess.



Getting the right font on these took me a while. I downloaded around 30 fonts and also went through my collection of a few thousand. This subtle eastern-look one fit best. The rest of the gauge style is based on the 1001 gauges. It is pretty, but subtle and allowed enough room for the artwork to be visible. The 9:00 zero point was a special request.



Much fuel. Very gas. Wow.



Such a serene scene. It fits perfectly on the speedometer.



The three small gauges use a light grey background to allow the use of white needles and help the white numbers and scale stand out better.






Night lighting for the Doggy Spirit gauges. I tried to keep the art elements from overpowering the scale while still lighting up as much as possible.



A hidden WOW.

Sunrise

A friend and long time customer named Star ordered these. It was just about the most open ended order of all time, yet with the most constraints. She had a piece of art that she wanted translated into a gauge set. Or rather, just the feel of that art. Something similar with similar colors, but not a copy. The artwork showed a sunrise scene over a lake with a group of cranes standing serenely.



I've been a photographer for a long while and like to visit the Bosque Del Apache nature reserve yearly. They have cranes there. The best time to visit is at sunrise. So... by coincidence, I had many photos of a similar real-life scene that Star's artwork depicted. I started work transferring one of those photos to a gauge set.



When these rolled out of the plotter and I got a look at them, my heart beat faster. That's never happened. The colors were PERFECT. I was suddenly standing on that frozen dock next to my dad taking photos of birds. The photos, while lovely, never generated that sort of response. But seeing the same scene with a gauge scale over it? Surreal.



The only non-real part of this scene is the haze in front of the mountain. That misty brown fog was a special request, and one I was happy to supply. It turned out beautifully and is not something you'd suspect wasn't real.



This is the most personal set of gauges I've ever made. It was a lot of work, but it was also a complete pleasure. Thanks for letting me bring these into the world, Star.



At night, the sunrise becomes a sunset. I've never achieved perfection when lighting up such a large area and... I still haven't. But the result is quite good. The few dark areas are easy to overlook. And the red sunset tones... I achieved exactly what I was aiming for.



Here's an animated day to night transition. You can see the clouds appear in the sky as the sun sets. The lighting is using the stock incandescent bulbs in these photos. While LEDs give more vibrant colors, the stock bulbs are much better suited for a moody sunset in my opinion.

Little Fox

This was an order for some "Fox" gauges with some ghosted lighting. My reply back to the original order was something like "so, like a cute fox playing?" Then the cartooning started.



I drew the fox jumping on the tach and put him against a snowy background. I dropped a few dozen snow flakes over top and then started work on making the other four gauges snow.



The customer wanted some tree elements. I drew this big one to give the sleeping fox a bit of cover for his nap. A bit of distant mountains helped round out the gauges.



The sky gets a bit darker toward the top. It's a snowy afternoon.



Since these gauges were white, I had the chance to actually ADD an element at night. That doesn't work with black gauges since the black is opaque. But with white, I thought I might try to add a moon rising over the mountain and lighting up the fox scene.



There is actual crater detail on the moon (the moon is borrowed from Corifto's Lobo gauges). The lighting around the scale and numbers looks a bit uneven, but that's because of the sky gradient on the face getting darker toward the top.



The sleeping fox looks quite peaceful under his tree. The branches are dimly illuminated by the rising moon.



Here's an animated gif day-to-night transition. Give it a moment to load.

This was my most technically challenging gauge set to date. I had to print it seven times to get it right. I don't think I actually broke even on this order. But the result is glorious. I don't know if I'll equal the Little Fox gauges any time soon.

SuperMiata

Emilio of 949Racing ordered this set of gauges for his own K-swap race car. It's completely custom and is designed to be of maximum usability on the track.



The car will have a redline of 8800 RPM. That's rather high and specific, but there's enough room on the gauge for a 10,000 mark. The font is as close to an OEM Honda font as I can achieve and the redline wedge is as close to 949's proprietary orange as I could get.



Orange zones and branding everywhere. There's no doubt which shop owns this car!



The fuel gauge BEGGED to be in lbs. Much more fun (and useful) than boring old F and E.



The Honda design elements are unmistakable.


Emilio requested red lighting on these. It's a nice contrast to the orange zones on the various dials.

Fulvia

The Lancia Fulvia - It basically has the gauges you see in the first shot above. I got an order for a set of replica Fulvia gauges with the request to get it as exact as possible. Down to the line width. Down to the exact font. Every detail as exact as possible. I worked.



The original gauges were made by Veglia and are extremely lovely. Very easy to read. Stylish, but rather minimal.



So why two sets? The original order called for redline to be at 12:00. In my normal workflow when replicating a set of vintage gauges, I copy as close as possible and then I modify to the required specs. Having a strong foundation makes the final set that much better. And, in this case, both the original replica and the modified design were so pretty, that the owner had produce both sets so that he could mix and match later.



The horizontal scale took me a while to design. It seemed like an odd idea, but once off the screen and behind the gauge cluster glass, this scale looks fantastic. Very period-correct. I like it more than the traditional rounded scale.














Lit up with my favorite white LEDs. They're crisp. But... the original car didn't have LEDs...




OEM bulbs, red condoms installed. Vintage lighting as ordered.

Blackout

What you're looking at is the result of a year of collaboration. The original request was for some TF-inspired gauges based on the OEM+ design. I, as many of you may know, am a Transformer nut. I've been a huge fan since I first saw Optimus Prime in 1984. It was a lot of work, but this was maybe the most fun order I've ever had.



A faint Con logo is in the background of each gauge. It's slightly purple, just as it shold be.



If you look closely and your monitor is bright enough, you can see the purple grid. This is inspired by the G1 box art. A grid of purple or red sat behind the bot's artwork on the packaging.



The car that owns these gauges is a Mazdaspeed. The customer wanted the logo somewhere and the OPG seemed like the best spot. A last minute suggestion by the customer was a bright G1 logo on the oil gauge instead of the faint modern Con logo.



Blood, Sweat, Energon. Collaboration generated these ideas. I can't claim all the credit, nor can I give all the credit to the customer. It's really awesome when there's a lot of commuication and ideas. Some really cool stuff can evolve that wouldn't have come about without both parties working together.



Nothing beats a flashing STATIS LOCK indicator. Well... except having a car that runs nice. ha!



White lighting on the gauges allow for the color to be changed. The owner is planning some purple LEDs.



The lighted G1 symbol is my favorite part. It's so crisp and vibrant. Such soul. It was very hard to pack up these gauges and send them out. I got attached. I might have to make a set for myself.

Super Changebots

An order for a set of TF-inspired gauges. It's something I've done before, but not quite like this. The customer wanted a half and half set - Red on one side and Purple on the other. AND! He drew the artwork for the large gauges himself.



Galvy on the tach. I suggested Megs, but the artist/customer wanted a bit more color than ol' bucket-head's greyness.



Prime on the speedometer.












Night mode - My first attempt lighting up an area this large. I dimmed the faces down a lot, but lit the whole things. Without dimming them, they would have been much lighter than the numbers.



Tach side at night.


Speedometer side at night.

MLP

There's exactly two cartoons I watch over and over on Netflix - Transformers (Beast Wars) and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I know folks will judge after reading that, but I love both. And getting to do gauges based on both of those shows? Like a beautiful dream.



The order was for some MLP-centric gauges with the Prototipo rotation. I asked about putting cutie marks in each gauge's background and the owner agreed. The tach has Rainbow Dash and a rainbow redline.



Every car needs a party gauge. Especially a Pinkie Pie party gauge.



A Rarity oil gauge.



Fluttershy takes care of the water. For water and oil, I chose to not try coming up with cute indicator text. It seemed like less was more and it would let the Party/fuel gauge really stand out to have it be the only one altered that way.



And Twilight Sparkle on the speedometer. I think it's especially fitting since she grew wings.



The lighting on the pony gauges uses outlines on the cutie marks. If they lit up fully, they would be overpowering. Leaving them blanked out would be... well, boring. But outlines? Perfect.



I used white LEDs on these. They seemed the perfect choice to keep the colors crisp and true.

Monda

You're looking at a set of gauges to be installed in a Honda-swapped Miata race car. You might call it a MONDA, or a Mazda-Honda. The owner did. I think it's a fantastic name.



The main design inspiration was a set of Type R Honda gauges. The owner wanted something with a Honda feel for his gauge cluster. I started with my F1 gauges and went to work from there. Every piece was modified.

On the redline - it's a dual stage. 6000-8000 is red to keep the car in the VTEC zone through corners. The actual fuel cut is north of 8500, allowing you to rev into the red wedge a bit.



Happy Laps is an Australian term, and these gauges are going to a car in Australia.



The owner requested a 180 kph speedometer, even though his will read up to 260 km/h and above. That gave a bit area at the bottom with nothing in it, so I drew up this little logo. It was a spur of the moment thing and took me all of 10 minutes, but the owner loved it and had me put it on some badges.



The traditional Honda gauge cluster - in a Miata. Just what was ordered.


Amber lighting to match the NB2 interior.

DOGE

The themed gauges may have hit their peak with this one. DOGE GAUGES!!! The infamous DKWolf of the Miata forums ordered this one. At first I was a bit unsure. Doge is one meme that I wasn't completely up on. I'd seen it, but I hadn't bathed and lived in it like lolcats or MLP. And then I started working on the design...



The tach was the first gauge I did. It begged for the full shibe background. And the comic sans font? Painful to me as a designer, but the only right choice for doge gauges. DK helped me quite a lot with this one. Then the DOGE started to seep into my veins. The other 4 gauges just flowed like poop out a chihuahua.



The NOMS gauge. Every car needs one. Even cars with a Party gauge. Also, I had a ton of fun drawing the hot dog and putting the shibe face on it.



I wanna be humble, but I think the speedo is a masterpiece. The moon, the stars, the rocketDOGE. Wow.



I was inspired on the oil gauge. Just a face and WOW everywhere. I drew it up. Rainbows shot out of my monitor. Wow.



That's right - it's a water bowl.



Lighting them up... The DOGE magic really hits 11.



I blanked out certain parts. I lit others.



Such doge. Very lighting. Much design. Wow.

Project 707

Flyin' Miata fans will recognize the name "Project 707." It's the car that Keith built for his buddy Eric with lots of Porsche inspired details. It's a great project. I was a faithful reader when it was being built. Like all good projects, it was never really finished.



I was super excited when Keith contacted me and asked to me to make some gauges for the car. He sent several dozen Porsche gauges to be used as inspiration and had some favorites picked out. That gave me a great starting point from which to design.



This is my version of the original VDO gauges. I think I did a pretty faithful recreation.









These turned out so simple. So minimal. So perfect for the car they're meant to live in.



Night mode is very simple. The original VDO gauges used reflective lighting (where the light goes around the edge of the metal dial to illuminate the front) and the Miata uses through-the-dial lighting. I think if they had the technology, the original 911 gauges would have lit up like this.



The warm glow of the factory bulbs also duplicates the look of the original VDO gauges. I just love it. I nearly converted Sharka's lighting over to white last time I changed gauges. I might have to follow through with that next time.

Kitty

A set of Kitty themed gauges for a girl's pink pride and joy. Brooke calls the car "BarbieMX5" but it has a kitty theme on the inside. I went to work.



I always do the tach first. On this one, I went straight for the kitty wallpaper theme. Brooke requested the same font as the MLP gauges below. Brooke also had the idea for kitty faces at the top of the tach. Both were excellent ideas. I made it happen.



The fuel gauge had the most revisions. I think I did 6 different versions. The winner was this kitten/Hulk set.



The oil gauge carries the car's name.



Nothing like a refreshing dip on a hot summer day.



Kitty driver NEEDED to be on this gauge.



Night mode - I chose to light up most of the design elements. The bottom of the speedo is a bit dim, but everything else is quite evenly lit. And those redline faces... yeah, they rock. The needle sweep on the tach is particularly awesome. You can see the pink wallpaper light up as the needle moves and sends light down on the face.

Cermivelli

An order came in for a set of "Baroque" gauges to match an interior. It was pretty open ended except for the requirement that the Jass Performance metal centers could work with the design. And that... did not make things easy.



The owner of these is a big fan of Spyker, so I went for a Spyker-inspired design. There's a few small design differences, but the Spyker really did give a great template to work from for a design that could integrate the metal overlays.



The red centers on the small gauges echo the red elements in the owner's car. And that LE red is a stunner.



They may have been hard to design around, but the metal really is stunning.






Lit up with OEM bulbs to get a bit of baroque feel. The needle reflection on the metal is really pretty.

Bacon

This was a custom request with a lot of ideas about the final product, but also a lot of freedom with the design. I worked back and forth with the owner creating over 20 different versions over 8 hours. This is the result.



The owner of these agreed to let me put a slightly modified version in my store. It's called Version Alpha.






The text has white lighting, the scale and design elements have OEM green. The redline lights up red. It works very well together.

Cooper

This was a very open ended custom request. The owner asked for a "revlimiter original." I'd had the idea for something with grey circles and arcs for a while, so that's what I went with.



I was allowed to put a flavor of this custom order in my store. It became Version Stirling. Sharka proudly wore those for over a year.









I also created an HVAC panel to match the gauges. This was one of the first custom HVAC panels I ever made.

Stoly

This was a completely custom request. This customer wanted a very minimal style of gauges. A few weeks later, this was the result.









This is "white" backlighting, or backlighting without any pigment. It will be whatever color your bulbs are. My test cluster that I use for all these shots has OEM bulbs. It gives a sort of yellowish glow which is quite pleasant and vintage-y.

How to Order

Orders are done via email. The gauges are hand crafted, one set at a time. They're made by one guy, the dude who runs this website and drives Sharka. Please be aware that you might have a short wait time between placing your order and when I'm able to make you a set of gauges.

Go hit the custom order form and we can get the process started.