My father and I finished his LED conversion this past weekend when i was home. He started with the alarm LEDs, going from a single red LED to dual blue LEDs. From there we changed out all of the turn signals, markers, and clearance lights to LEDs and wired them all to function as turn signals AND parking lights. After that, he created custom light arrays from super-bright LEDs to fill the light buckets for the dome lights, puddle lamps and the red door reflectors that, stock, are unlit. Next came light bars for the trunk and glovebox and a switch for the glovebox to turn off the light when it's closed. For the final touch, he purchased some sidemarker lights and modified them to house 10 super bright LEDs. He also modified the way the markers are mounted to the body. On saturday we mounted them and as you can see from the pictures, they look stock. He actually applied body paint to some of the housing to give it a very smooth look.


here are the pictures and some movies...you can probably tell from the filenames which movies are which...there are some walkaraounds of the outside showing the converted LEDs (turn signals F/R, sidemarkers F/R, clearance lights, added sidemarkers) . and some inside shots of the dome lamp, puddle lamps, glove box and customized door reflectors. finally, there is a shot of the trunk with the custom LED bar (pre-aiming)

on with the pictures.





















and the videos, please right-click and save.

http://users.wpi.edu/~dlmason/G35/LightBlinkers.MOV
http://users.wpi.edu/~dlmason/G35/DarkBlinkers.MOV
http://users.wpi.edu/~dlmason/G35/Ov...lsGlovebox.MOV
http://users.wpi.edu/~dlmason/G35/TrunkLEDs.MOV


in the interior video you can see 2 blue flashes occasionally, he replaced the single red alarm LED with 2 blue LEDs, it looks awesome on the light interior.

 

Here are pictures of the sidemarkers on the car.

 

Wow looks great! Is the light output inside just as good as stock or better? Next up he should consider converting the rear turn signals!

 

the rear turn signals are converted. it may be hard to tell from the video becuase of the slower exposure of the camera's CCD chip, but the rear has been converted. as far as the light output...take a look at the picture of the interior (the second one)...it was shot in a totally dark garage and the light on the seats is only from the overhead lamp. using an array of bright LEDs instead of a commercially available LED replacement bulb means that you can maximize the light output and - in this case - the LEDs are brighter than the stock bulbs.

 

Wow those rear signals are very bright. Was it very involved to get that to work?

 

the rear signal LED lamps are an array of rear firing LEDs with a ring of side-firing LEDs below them so that you get the direct light of LEDs pointed back and the reflected light of the side-mounts.

i believe you can buy the setup that he used on-line.



looks like you're in Bergen County...next time I am home (near Wayne), i can PM you and you can check them out.

 

if we have a north jersey mini meet you should definatly come i would love to see it in person

 

the G's daddy's car. but i'll make the trip down from MA with my Evo and drag him over there...it's always nice to cruise with fellow enthusiasts even if i have to play "the ugly duckling"

 

Nice, reminds me of all the LED conversions I did on my previous car (Maxima).

IMHO the side markers don't go with the car, and the trunk light's just plain don't have enought viewing angle (most led's don't).

I like the interior lights, and the under-the-door light..
I realy like the rear blinker LED conversion....any more info on it? More pics? I'm curious what kind of approach you and your father took.

 

it's funny. the trunk bar is depicted poorly by the camera in the dark garage. when you open the trunk you can see the light reflecting all around. it definitely has "hot" spots under each LED but the number of lights and the fairly diffuse (for white LEDs) angle of 45 degrees actualky makes the bar more usable than the OEM trunk light.

as far as the rear turns. i believe that he (after searching for a long time and trying as many as 5 different products) found these types of bulbs online. they are really bright and the side-aimed ones give a lot of reflectance making them basically as bright as incandescents, when combined with the rear-firing array. i'll ask him where he got them...i dont remember because i know he bought and returned a number of units.


i'm thinking about a G-coupe-like LED conversion for the Evo tails...utilizing the stock light buckets and an array of surface mount, wide angle LEDs...depending on how that turns out (as far as removing/resealing the lens) we may attempt to use custom LED arrays for the rear turns and reverse lights...

 

Oh ok, 45 degrees is about as good as you can get

Was it something like this?


If you need a starting point for doing your tails, I found this to be a good starting point:
http://www.nissanclub.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=124857

 

awesome LED thread! thanks a lot for that.

those are definitely NOT the bulbs he got ... we tried something like that but the light was too spotty.

i'll have him post the exact page/part number tonite when he gets out from work...if i remember correctly they were less than $30 for the pair and they're really bright...i strongly recommend them for a cheap/easy/quality rear turn signal mod. we also used the same bulbs (in amber) for the front turn signals. i think the difference is that the rear turn sigs are 7440 (single filament) and the front are 7443 (dual). as i said, ill get you all the info tonite/tomorrow.


the puddle lamps and interior lights are gorgeous...pictures just can't do them justice

 

No problem...

One more question, if you don't know, maybe you can ask him tonight...Did you just swap out the bulbs and that was it? I haven't done turn signals, but since LED's draw so much less current, didn't you run into the problem of them blinking really fast? What solution did you guys use? Load resistor kit or something?

Thanks!

 

haha, i thought about that like 30 seconds after i posted and i figured i would tack that information on with the bulb numbers. yes, we had to use load resistors to balance the current differences. since we went with LEDs in the front and rear blinker units I think we got away with 1 3ohm resistor per side (i forget the wattage)

if you go with just front or just rear LED blinkers then you need to go with a 6 ohm... or vice-versa...i forget...haha one more thing i'll check with him.

he's got a crazy binder full of stuff on the electrical/lighting systems on the car...i think he actually filled a 3-inch binder with info on tearing down the door panels/body panels, wiring diagrams, component calculations, specifications and formulas, etc etc.

I believe that you run with 1 6 ohm per side for just front or rear LEDs or 1 3 ohm per side for front AND back LEDs...reason being that due to the nature of the bulb wiring, 1 6 ohm in front and 1 6 ohm in back per side would equate to 3 ohms of resistance (parallel circuits).

 

wow, love the interior lights! not really a fan of the side marker, but its unique.