I had the Alta dual guage pod in my R53 and was pretty happy with them. But now I have an R56 and I want to do the same. I really love the changes between the interiors on my '11 vs my '03, and I'd like to make them match as closely to stock as I can.

So...what kits look the most like OE? TIA

 

I put the Marshall water temp and oil pressure gauges on my mini. Now I see you have an '11 and I have a '08 but their both R56. There may be differences in the gauge face, I'm not sure. There is a thread in the R53 forum about gauges, but on pages 12-17 there is quite a bit of comments and pictures of gauges in R56 minis. I checked it out closely before I bought my gauges.

My gauges match the mini and work great.

The link to the thread: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...gauges-13.html

 

Yesterday, I installed CravenSpeed gauge pods, with Marshall oil pressure and water temp gauges.



I am disappointed that the gauges are LED illuminated, so they will not dim with the other instrument lights. As a matter of fact, as soon as I dim the instrument lights a couple clicks below full bright, the auxiliary gauges go out completely.

Not sure what I'm going to do about it. Perhaps I'll just hook the orange wires up to the same lead as the red wires (switched 12v) and have the gauge back lighting on at all times. They're LEDs so they still should last the life of the car.

 

Here's mine, Marshall gauges and my own home made 1/8" aluminum gauge holder.

Boost/vacuum, oil pressure, water temperature and oil temperature.



Dave

 

Very cool, thanks Greg. I even found a photo of them at night. The two things I was most concerned with was the color of the faces during the day and the color of the backlighting at night. The Marshall gauges seem to be spot-on with the OE instruments, and I like that.

 

Sorry, Iphone pics...

 

VEI High res digital boot/vacuum gauge on a Craven Speed "W" mount. The gauges now come in orange to match the MINI interior.

 

Abe, your welcome!

trwxxa, yes the dimming is a problem. I did what you mentioned and hooked up the wires so the gauge back lighting is always on. You can go to the link above and there is discussion on the bottom of page 19 and page 20 about adding a dimmer for the lighting. I didn't think it was worth the bother.