LED red lensed tail light project I've been doing

haknslash · Post by **haknslash** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 10:04 pm

Some of you might of already known I've been working on this behind the scenes. Basically I got the clear LED tails because I don't like the stock ones and I'm a lighting buff so I wanted LEDs. However, I hate altezza and euro-clear type tail lights so I decided to do what I do best and customize it to my preferences. So in came the idea for the red lensed tail light to have a more oem appearance and to better blend with the car.

This is how they come in stock form all clear and out of place looking IMHO:

Here they are with my modification on them. Well one at least heh. I'm not entirely done with it just yet. Still need to heat shrink the material a good bit but this will give you a better idea. Mainly I'm still testing and fiddling with it to get it perfectly smooth. I also haven't cut out the reverse light section but it will be removed to allow it to be clear there. So far so good. I'm very pleased with how its coming.

The end result will look like this:

03sxt · Post by **03sxt** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 10:17 pm

Those look nice modified like that! Good job!

I'd definitely consider doing something like that if the black one's they're releasing don't look as well as planned.

BTW, how do those blink when the turning signal's on? A single strip of the LEDs or does the whole set of LEDs blink? It'd be cool of one strip of LEDs were amber and they could flash when the signal was on...

haknslash · Post by **haknslash** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 10:26 pm

03sxt wrote:Those look nice modified like that! Good job!

I'd definitely consider doing something like that if the black one's they're releasing don't look as well as planned.

BTW, how do those blink when the turning signal's on? A single strip of the LEDs or does the whole set of LEDs blink? It'd be cool of one strip of LEDs were amber and they could flash when the signal was on...

Thanks.

All strips light up and blink just like they are supposed to. No rapid flash annoying cheap crap heh. They are also high quality bright LEDs, not the dim cheapo ones found on those replacement bulb type LED things. I too though about taking one strip on the outside and making a dual colored LED to have all strips light up red with brake and then that one strip light up amber during turn. It wouldn't be hard to do, but the lens is a PITA to get off and on I believe. I originally was going to remove the lens and paint the inside of it translucent red but I wanted to test all my options first. This material I'm using now is the far easier and more uniform approach by far.

If your interested in seeing nice detail pics of them in stock form and hearing my impressions on them, go here for a good thread http://www.srtforums.com/forums/showthr ... 935&page=1

BlackRoseRacing · Post by **BlackRoseRacing** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 7:14 am

what about having the led's light up like a sequntial flasher

one strip, then the next strip, then the last strip...then all over again..

Those tails definately look better than they did before you started....not as flashy....

03sxt · Post by **03sxt** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 8:03 am

BlackRoseRacing wrote:what about having the led's light up like a sequntial flasher
one strip, then the next strip, then the last strip...then all over again..

Law enforcement would love that.

Reminds me of the old school Cougar's and Thunderbird's taillight mods where they do the sequential flashing... Looks a little to hillbilly for me.

Smoke · Post by **Smoke** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 9:48 am

looks awsome, much better looking now, not too over the top like they looked stock.

SILVER-ES · Post by **SILVER-ES** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 10:46 am

Looks great and they are going to look amazing. Makes me wish they made them for the 00-02 neons.

haknslash · Post by **haknslash** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 12:54 pm

Thanks for the compliments guys!

TNK · Post by **TNK** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 5:41 pm

that's pretty phat d00d. me likes.

SupaDawg · Post by **SupaDawg** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 7:03 pm

i dont want to sound like an ass man, dont get me wrong, they look great... but a good spray of red krylon fusion and some waterproof sealer would have had the same effect... and u could have cut a vinyl circle for a perfect back up light.

haknslash · Post by **haknslash** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 7:19 pm

SupaDawg wrote:i dont want to sound like an ass man, dont get me wrong, they look great... but a good spray of red krylon fusion and some waterproof sealer would have had the same effect... and u could have cut a vinyl circle for a perfect back up light.

Krylon fusion is not translucent. It would not give the same effect at all. It is a one step paint that can't be thinned and doesn't at all come out translucent to allow light transfusion. If I were to paint the chrome area with krylon fusion, for one it would look like a regular red painted plastic surface vs the more oem look of a chrome surface with red translucent look to it. There is a big difference between the two finishes. If I were trying to colormatch and didn't care for translucent look, then I would use krylon fusion. Imagine standard red car paint, next to red anodized painted surface. That is the difference. I'm ditching the film and opening the lens and painting them with a dab or red mixed in with some clear in the spraygun. If you've ever held these in your hand you'd know what kind of sealing issues your going to face. Its not as easy as you'd think it would be.

SupaDawg · Post by **SupaDawg** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 8:39 pm

I like that idea too. I think i saw someone at srtforums who did something similar... can't remember now.

like i said, they do look good thou.

05srt4clone · Post by **05srt4clone** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 8:43 pm

Looks great man.

SILVER-ES · Post by **SILVER-ES** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 11:25 pm

SupaDawg wrote:I like that idea too. I think i saw someone at srtforums who did something similar... can't remember now.

like i said, they do look good thou.

That's also haknslash. He's been posting about this for a while over there.

haknslash · Post by **haknslash** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 12:01 am

SILVER-ES wrote:
SupaDawg wrote:I like that idea too. I think i saw someone at srtforums who did something similar... can't remember now.

like i said, they do look good thou.
That's also haknslash. He's been posting about this for a while over there.

SupaDawg · Post by **SupaDawg** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 12:09 am

haha, thought I remembered that orangie.

02R/T-NY · Post by **02R/T-NY** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 12:04 pm

Hey haknslash, let us know how it goes with the red paint, I have a 02 R/T with a cracked rear bumper. I would upgrade to a 03 bumper if I could get these with the oem red look. Nice look.

haknslash · Post by **haknslash** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 10:06 pm

Took these out of storage tonight and decided to work on one. Cut out a circle for the reverse and here is the final look of one of them. Comments welcomed!

03sxt · Post by **03sxt** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 7:56 am

Dem look niiiiccee! Good job!

03_SXT · Post by **03_SXT** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 2:13 pm

So is there anychance that I can buy a set of the chrome version, send them out to you, and have you put a translucent black film on them? I like the black anodized finish, or black chrome.

Nothing is free, so name your price. I know you do quality work, I have seen it, and wouldn't trust many others to do something like this.

~Amit

BTW: The red ones look great (as does everything else you make).

kirktalife · Post by **kirktalife** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 9:20 pm

that is SWEEEEEEEEEET, good job man

nodestiny · Post by **nodestiny** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 2:44 pm

yeah i wouldnt mind a set of those myself

If you end up selling them or buying another pair and doing the same, lemme know the price so i can buy them!

Post by **Diablo0** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 1:57 pm

bump it up... haknslash... mind sharing what type film you used?

haknslash · Post by **haknslash** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 3:57 pm

Diablo0 wrote:bump it up... haknslash... mind sharing what type film you used?

Its PVC translucent red film. Its NOT for the impatient to work with though so I will warn on that. Its a very time consuming issue to get all the wrinkles and bubbles out because you can't really use the same techniques used in tining say a window when you working with something that isn't as pliable plus has a very complex curvature going on like the tails shape does.

As far as selling any of these, well, I've never really wanted to since the are still in the progress stages. I have pout them again on the back burner for projects to finsih. I would like to add a nice translucent red surround "gasket" to flow around the edge to ensure nothing could ever possibly remove the film by "accident" say if you went into a high pressure spotless car washer or soemthing like that.

stang892k5 · Post by **stang892k5** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:56 am

damn look nice!!!!sucks that they dont fit 00-02 models