430 Rear light mod.

I've studied also the led bulbs which you can open in a star. But practicaly speaking, it's impossible to open them while you're fitting the bulb holder part back to the taillight. Or even if you can manage it, it would be very difficult to get them back out I'm afraid.

The 60mm rings are interesting though. But actually, we would need half rings to fit them and they must be glued inside the taillight with the leds toward outside, hmmm not easy.

Thanks for sharing Anders

I received my new SMD 3528 and SMD 5050 led strips. They are extremely bright, very impressive. I bought them from a compagny specialised in home light systems and with these strips, you can easily light up a room. I'll use the SMD 3528 to glue them inside the taillights, half by half. It will be challenging though. The SMD 3528 have a led each 0,5 cm which is perfect to do this job. They can be cut every 3 LED's.

Here's the idea :
Outer taillight:
left half=position light
right half=brake light
Inner taillight:
left half=brake light
right half=position light

Result: Position light reinforcement with led strips will be half left + half right. Brake light reinforcement with led strips will complete the inner circles.

Anyone else who has a better idea is very welcome
Stef

 

Stef, you never answer my question if the 430 ECU monitors brake lights on manual cars, as installing any LED bulbs would trigger a dash light due to their lower power consumption. I have my lights apart at the moment, and am about to unscrew those black bases to see what I find. Unfortunately, US cars are very different than Euro ones, with parking/brake lights only on the outside lights, wtih inner lights reserved for turn signals. Since you just can't reposition bulbs, only way to modify it to inner round light for turn signals and all 4 for brake/parking lights would be with cutting and splicing factory wiring, which I wouldn't do.

Will probably leave things alone... unless adding the screw to the outer lights for double the output somehow doesn't blow the fuse. Take care.

EDIT: US cars have BOTH outer halves connected for parking and brake lights. And inner round light has no socket, so can't be converted as turn signal. Oh, and both turn signal bulbs on the inside light up as well.

Hey, is my car the only one with washers (1, 1, and 2) on the outside left taillight? Still need to pull the right ones, but seemed strange. Thx.

 

JC, replacing the normal BAY15d bulbs by led bulb won't affect at all the Motronic ECU on F1 cars or manual. I have the electrical schema in front of my eyes and the power consumption isn't mesured. What matters though is not to overload the stop light with extra normal 21W bulbs. This would blow the fuse. No problem for the manual though but for the F1, it would.

No doubt, if you want to make use of the inner lights (which seems to be empty in the USA- no fog lights), you have no other choice than splitting the wires. Not a big deal but that's up to you how far you want or don't want to go

Cheers,
Stef

 

Hey Stef, just opened up the tails but didn't edit my post quick enough . The inner lights are NOT empty; BOTH halves light up with the turn signals (dual 21W bulbs there). Just checked. The only unused portion of the entire rear lighting is the inner portion of outer lights (there's no socket), where the Euro turn signals reside.

Euro conversion would require 2 new bases with sockets for the inner lights, plus TONS of cutting and splicing. I could easily do it, but am not going to on this car. Probably not even on a Civic, as I'm pretty anal about modifying the electrical system on any car, especially with a CAN electrical system. I was hoping to achieve the job only modifying the bases, which could easily be replaced, but it's not possible. Bummer. Thanks for your reply.

 

Voila, the mod is finished and I'm very satisfied with the result. There will be no version 2 as it is too time consuming and too challenging to glue the led strips inside. The reed relays do a perfect job in switching between the fog lights and brake lights. No more heat neither in the taillights and I can now leave the position lights on with a very low power consumption. Together with the headlights (led strips) + taillights, the position lights will consume less than 500mA ! You can leave them on for days without fearing a flat battery.

I was very glad to share some thoughts and info about this mod. Let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers,
Stef
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Looks great man; exactly the way they should come from the factory. It's unfortunate that US cars are wired so differently. At least both halves on each taillamp light up in both parking/brake lights (outer ones) and turn signals (inner ones). I'm going to leave them alone. Maybe just LED bulbs in the future, since they shouldn't trigger a dash 'burned out bulb' light on 6MTs, but that's it. Take care.

 

Thanks very much JC. I agree that it's a pity that the US cars are quite different compared to the non-US standard. Having the turn signals using entirely one taillight, it gives few options to upgrade them.

Thanks Anders. I'm very glad you've done succesfully the mod too

 

I couldn't finish this thread without a final touch! Actually, while I was modifying the taillight wire harness, I integrated a wire extension for the...engine bay light.

In following pictures, you can see how from the taillight wire harness I added a new connector (picture 1) on the LH side, then wired up to the front of the engine bay following the existing main LH side rear harness (wires are isolated in a thermal protected conduit). There, I added another connector which can be easily accessed (picture 2). The connector makes the link with the SMD Led strip which is glued directly on the black part of the engine bay window (pictue 3). When glued close to the edge on the black part, the LED strip can't be seen from outside and light is directed only on the engine. I used a SMD3528 LED strip, waterproof IP67 and heat resistance up to 85 degrees Celcius. Power consumption: 550mA. Size: 700mm (approx) x 10 mm x 2 mm
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Now the result pictures of the extra mod. It's very difficult to make a good balanced picture of LED lights but it gives I hope some good idea of the result. The main thing is that the light is totaly directed on the red intake manifolds.

I took also a picture from inside. Once again, it looks brighter than the reality. In fact, it does not blind the read window at all and no light goes into the passenger compartiment.

The most interesting thing is that I found this light extremely usefull when I need to work in the engine bay as the light is very white.

I promise, this is now the real end of this thread

Enjoy
Stef
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That's the best display of a 430 engine bay I've ever seen! Fantastic!

 

Thanks very much, I really do appreciate.

I regret that on such concrete DIY threads (including a couple of others Anders&myself having been intensely contributiing), which represents real work, the level of contribution is almost close to nothing but a loooooots of views though !!! Lazy lazy lazy people ! Maybe my next mods will be only communicated by PM or through my private network...

 

Thanks very much buddy. I will PM you and directly email you more interesting details and photos about this mod

 

For those who want to dim or switch off/on the engine bay light with a remote control, here's a 12V LED dimmer I installed. Frequency of the remote control is 433Mhz which is perfect for a car but may disturb some radar detectors (for the US). Installation was very easy as I forcasted this already in my new rear wire harness. Works very well as the brightness can be remotly adjusted
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You're killing me with your tech prowess Stef!

 

LOL !!! Thanks

 

Hey Hey, that's cool, same thoughts Here a picture of the dimmer installation on the RH side of the engine bay.

I've been today for a serious drive on some mountain roads where usually I use all the available engine and brake power. Despite the engine bay heat, the leds are not heating at all and are holding up perfectly well. Glued on the upper part of the engine bay window (on the black opaque part) is the best area as this area remains cool enough to not damage the leds.

Stef
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FWIW, the most recent US Lotus Espirts with the 4 round headlights as well as the earlier US Elises that used the same taillights (prior to the LED switchover) only lit up half of each light in normal driving conditions and lit up both sides of all 4 taillights under braking conditions. I always thought it looked exotic but to each his own.

 

Stef, Anders, what do you guys think of the angel eye rings by umnitza? Would retrofitting them into the rear lights be an easier option?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Ferrari-F430-Scuderia-LED-Angel-Eyes-Kit-Demon-eyes-_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem35ae5e1f60QQitemZ230558670688QQptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories

I mean, we could remove the factory bulbs and just wire it to these rings...then again what do I know right? Lol.....

 

I agree with Anders, the idea is nice but it's impossible to fit them in the tail lights. I tried it and abandonned this idea. The only solution would be the unglue the entire light assembly and make serious modifications inside to make them fit. The F430 tail lights are made in two total isolated halfs (2 x 180 degrees) with a "wall" between the 2 halfs. I didn't want to sacrify my taillights without being sure of the result.

You can see very easily on this ebay shop that the photos have been "photoshopped", they didn't integrate them in the taillights for real Anyway, you can ask them how they think to fit them in the taillights

Stef