Has anyone replaced the regular 74 (small bulbs) and 158 (big bulbs) in their instrument clusters with the LED equivalents?

I want to but I found they have different ones which have a different number of LEDs on them as well as colors.

I have a 98 which has the blue gauge clusters and I imagine that getting different colored LEDs could drastically change the illuminated color through the gauges so I figure sticking with clear or a blue LED would be best. I figured the clear white would just make it all brighter whereas the blue would enrich the already blue gauge markings.

I found this site which has lots to choose from:
superbrightleds.com

Are the backs of the gauge faces blue? If not, you should be able to use just about anything, keeping in mind that the colors printed on the faces will act like filters. Blue LEDs might turn your redline purple, ya know? For my GVR4, I just installed a couple strips of LEDs around the gauges themselves. It's crazy bright, red and white, but I still need to do something about the needles, which I can no longer see.

I guess I am not sure about the backs, I think from what I can recall its white plastic then the gauge face which the negative space is black and the markings are blue but yea where the RPMs are red I was wondering about that.

IIRC on my gen II it uses type 74 mini bulbs? I bought a full box of them but don't have them with me so I can't confirm the p/n.

The bulbs sit in a plastic bulb holder which is inserted into the gauge cluster.

Unfortunately I don't recall how the gen I's are set up but I would think it's pretty similar.

The ones I want to replace are in a GenII. I know what the parts are but what concerns me is color and amount of LEDs on one bulb and the location of said LEDs which might cause light to flood into other areas they shouldn't.

And Yes the GenIs and GenIIs use the same bulb types.

Yeah, can't answer that one. Try and see is only thing I can advise since mine are still incandescents. I do run LEDs for all my other interior lights with the exception of the center 2 individually switched map lights up front and the visor lights.

Do some research on the candlepower of the bulbs - you'll generally need the brightest LED you can buy in order to get the equivalent brightness of the original incandescent bulb.

If you decide to install colored LEDs, you will lose any color in your gauges other than the color of the LEDs. A blue LED only creates light in the blue spectrum, so if your redline is designed with a red filter to allow it to show as red, you'll no longer see it because the LED doesn't create any light in the red spectrum to show through the filter. The crappy cell phone pic of my Miata's cluster below shows what I'm talking about.



The OEM gauge markings have a slight green filter on them (as you can see on the HVAC controls) and the aftermarket gauges have no filter, which makes them far brighter. The redline markings on the tach are virtually invisible now. Since I took this photo I replaced the brighter LEDs in the aftermarket gauges with some slightly lower power LEDs to balance the light levels a little better, and installed LEDs in the HVAC controls also.

These are the two different LED types I ended up using - ordered them on Ebay from a seller in Hong Kong, which took a few weeks to get here but was half the cost of SuperbrightLEDs.com.

I got the LED lamps from Superbright. For the five lamps needed for the 2WD/4WD/CDL display, you just need white. Brightness is no concern; mine now work exactly like they're supposed to.

I also got some blue lights for the guages but took them out immediately. The light distribution pattern was much too focused (not diffuse enough, large parts of display were dark) and parts of the guage disappeared with the blue lamps.

I'm very happy with the others, though.