Woohoo !

[Joenavy85]

I found the manual online, it shows the tail-lights and dash lights on separate circuits. Both are controlled from the same place, so he may have tapped into the control circuit for them.

[d0sitmatr]

wow, thanks for all that research Joe !
I dont have a manual, so I havent a clue which fuse to look at, could you link me to the manual you looked at ?
havent had any luck searching mazda247....

I truly, truly hope its just a fuse issue, and that replacing it resolves my problem and not exacerbates it, if I knock out my brake lights, I am NOT going to be a happy person...
also havent gotten any reply from PO (sent him a txt this morning) and probably wont. while I dont think he was out to scam me on a lemon, Im sure he probably doesnt wish to deal with it since its no longer his car.

I was planning on having those foglamp covers finished today too... maybe I will get lucky and the issue with my dash/tails will be fixed easily and I can still get the covers finished. they are all painted up and ready to install, just have to run the attachment wires Im going to use.

[d0sitmatr]

nevermind, I found one
I found my tail fuse is blown in the engine bay fusebox, will be replacing that today, but the gauge cluster fuse is good, however I dont know if that fuse controls the gauge cluster functionality or the lights ?
Im really hoping replacing the tail fuse will get both working again, if so, I really am not going to mess with this again on my own.

[Joenavy85]

I can't imagine that the lights would be a separate circuit from the tail lights (since any time you turn on the parking/running lights the dash lights up) but the only way to tell is to try it out. Did you check the fuse for your Hi-Beams???

[d0sitmatr]

yes, hi-beams works on 1 lamp, but not the other.
its really not a big deal since Im running HiD in my lo beams. and that single hi really lights up the road, almost like a spot light and as mentioned, if I get my tail lights working I am not messing with it by myself.
and hence, my tails AND gauge lights are working again !
replacing that fuse got both on, so Im going to leave it alone until I can get with my brother in law's cousin, who is a mechanic, and between the two of us hopefully we can get everything sorted out.
thank you for all your help, it really is appreciated !

also got my fog covers installed.
they came out pretty good, but the coroplast truly isnt going to last very long, its already pulling through on 1 side (mostly my mistake...)
since this is what you might call a "prototype" Im happy with them, the next revision will be changing the coro with lexan, I have a couple pieces here that are the right size, so over the course of the next week or two, Im going to be cutting and shaping them for better fitment.
also going to try and find that paint I had before that matched the silver color of my car perfectly, I think it would look better than the black.
onto pix !

[d0sitmatr]

so over the course of working on these front end mods, Ive also been taking a good look at other things that I might be able to do to help both FE and keeping engine temps down.

but the problem is, Mazda already thought of most of the things I was thinking of doing.
there already is a front end belly pan as there are plastic covers under almost the entire front end. granted, I could throw a piece of coro or lexan, or even aluminum sheeting and smooth it out, but I highly doubt its going to net me any significant gains.
I also was going to route the air that flows from the grills into the rad to clean up that are flow and give me better cooling, unfortunately, that also has been done for the most part. the upper grill is almost a tunnel that leads right to the rad, and the lower opening leave less than an inch gap. so again, I could add to that and gain a marginal gain, but I dont think it would be highly noticeable.
looking at the full under side of the car shows it to be quite smooth, with again, marginal gains from going with a full belly pan.

so what Im left with is: rear skirts, wheel covers, extending the front air dam both down and out to include the front wheels, and maybe a kamback.
those thing might improve my cd by 10%, if Im lucky, and none of them would be really helpful for most of my driving as I hardly ever travel highway (maybe 10% of each tank is at speeds of 60+)
so Im left with pretty much 1 alternative for now.
gearing.

as mentioned in an above post, there is a diesel g-series trans available from Europe that has significantly taller gearing, someone on the mazda247 forums was able to get one shipped to him for $550.0, and while I may not ind a deal like that, I still think that is the only way Im ever going to see any noticeable gains in FE.