This is a pathetic excuse for a "mod," but I thought I would share my experience so that others would learn to love, and not fear, LED lighting. Although I have heard horror stories of LED lighting disrupting the sensitive electrical systems of various cars, I have had NO ILL EFFECTS from this mod and there were no changes to my turn signal flash rate nor my hazard light flash rate.

On to the "mod."

As many have done, I bought the cheapo $24 "clear side marker" lenses insead of the $124 JDM ones that come with the side lenses that I would simply toss out. The $100 I saved is $100 closer I am to that Cobb reflash I am going to get!

However, I noticed a problem: when I installed the side markers, you could see both the black lightbulb socket and the orange/amber bulb right through the lens. This was exceedingly ugly. To make matters worse, I discovered that a long drive at night was enough to heat up the lens to the point of melting, or at least cracking. Yes, I did feel my side markers -- you would do the same.

So, I have this LED flashlight which is bright as all hell and very cool to the touch. Could LED lighting be my solution to this heat problem? I-Club poster "Sisqocqk" turned me on to http://autolumination.com/ which has a ton of direct plug-in replacement LEDs for all sorts of sizes and shapes of bulbs.

So, I gambled on two Type 194 6-LED "wedge" bulbs that are drop-in replacements for 194 incandescents. Unfortunately, they came with BRIGHT YELLOW BASES that were very obvious through my cheapo aftermarket clear side markers.

So, time for some Krylon! I got a can of shiny silver paint, wrapped the LEDs in ordinary masking tape and mounted the bulbs as seen below (obviously you do not want to paint the electrical contact areas):

http://homepage.mac.com/meilers/.Pictures/0.jpg

Once they were painted and dried, I simply followed the procedure for changing the side marker bulbs (it is listed in your Owner's Manual). My personal technique was to grip the side lens with an old rag, and just pull gently from the bottom up; they came straight out.

I just pulled the old bulbs and plugged in the new ones, and we were in business. I'll include a few more shots to show the "after."

Here is a daylight image, from very close up:

http://homepage.mac.com/meilers/.Pictures/1.jpg

Here's an image at night; unfortunately my flash went off and closed the camera's shutter down, so you can't see how the nice amber light fills the entire clear lens area.

http://homepage.mac.com/meilers/.Pictures/3.jpg

Here are two more, showing night-time images. The first has the same effect from the flash as noted above; you can't really see how well they light up the entire marker. The LEDs are extremely bright and I am very happy with their overall visibility.


http://homepage.mac.com/meilers/.Pictures/4.jpg

You can just barely see them to the sides in this one:

http://homepage.mac.com/meilers/.Pictures/5.jpg

Have fun! Thanks to "Sisqocqk" for his inspiration and Autolumination (http://autolumination.com/) for their fast delivery.