My 348 round taillight LED conversion

I always loved the period-correct look of the round Carello taillights and how some managed to fit them on to their 348 chassis (348LM at BingoSports, Ecurie Francorchamps, 348 Barchetta and other Japanese tuner inspirations). The thought of retrofitting those housings crossed my mind, but one thing that I definitely wanted to avoid was cutting into the rear sheet metal to fit these lights in. Like the Serie Speciale setup I was running, I wanted something that could be completely reversible without pulling a sweat if I wanted to revert to OEM.

After analyzing many photos and brainstorming how I can make this a project of my own, I decided to design my own light housings which would be a direct bolt-on (no body cutting) and would use custom LED boards which allow for a plug and play installation.

I designed the lights so that they would pop out and be flush with the outer part of the grille. This meant sourcing a beat-up grille that I wouldn’t mind slicing up for the project. In parallel I also designed a ‘slim’ version that would fit behind the OEM grille, with very minimal trimming of the grille required (but I haven’t fabricated that yet).

The following photos give a fast-tracked idea of how things went forward; the numbered comments correspond to the photos in sequence.

1. Inspiration – here are some of the cars that I based my ideas off of. All of them seem to have taken the OEM housing and fit it on to the body (cutting required).

2. The final design – This is what I modeled before machining everything. This part of the project took several months as I initially started to work on it on my spare time in my tiny garage during the cold winter months.

3. An evolution in design – simpler is better. In the early stages one company was convinced that they can 3D print my housing in ABS. This proved to be quite difficult as the housing would warp and deform while being printed. The housing to the right is a prototype and would melt under the sun.

4. Peeling the Carello lenses off – don’t melt the original lenses! This was the most expensive part of the project. I’ve been in contact with Superformance for months asking if I can purchase loose spare lenses as they’re 65% cheaper than buying a complete housing and dismantling it, but no luck there as they seem to be 'backorder'. In an effort to make the most of the sacrificial housing, I managed to salvage the studs that came with it and used them for my project. But who are we kidding, those are worth like $0.50!

5. The LED boards – these were fabricated on black boards to my spec and are fastened into the housing. One board lights up amber for the turnsignal and white for reverse. The other lights dim when you turn on the running lights and then light much brighter when you tap the brakes. As we know the 348 has two different bulbs to cover these functions, so I love how this came out while remaining plug and play.

6. Removing the harness – this was easy peasy and this secondary part of the harness is still used and stays mounted on the car.

7. Last check – making sure my prototype models have the right dimensions before gluing the Carello lens on its new seat.

8. Ready for testing – the final assembly of the taillights. You can see that to the end of each red lens there are holes for bolts to run through the existing holes. The two reused Carello studs are at the middle of the housing which will slip through the existing holes as well.

9. The moment of truth – slipping the housings into place. This went quite well.

10. A cool touch – this is where I started to get excited. I cut up a honeycomb grille that I painted black and slipped behind the newly appeared opening that the long OEM lights would previously hide, and bought fasteners that were long enough to allow for the protective back panel to be reinstalled properly. This made me sigh in relief as all the harness and wiring are now protected as initially intended and when you look at the lights from inside the engine bay, everything seems untouched.

11. Fitting the spare grille – things get a bit more nerve-racking at this point. I pulled all the damaged slats away from the spare grille and fitted it on. This made me realize that the upper and lower slats would be to be trimmed in order for the lights to come out as I wanted, and for the grille to bolt up properly to the body.

12. Maiden voyage – excited by how things were advancing, and knowing that I shouldn’t have any wires melt thanks to the OEM back-panel, I drove off for the car’s first ride in the dusk (and I also installed my vanity plate, a new perk in QC).

13. Back to the grille – more work than anticipated in putting the spare grille together. I wanted to keep the OEM theme of 3 slats so I pieced things back together (the middle slats are newly fabricated) with the exception of leaving openings around the round lights. In hindsight I should have kept the rounded end slats in place. I removed them a while ago when I got the grille and putting them back on was a real pain.

14. All done – this is how the car sits as of today. Put 30km on everything so far and it seems to be holding up and working properly.

I’ll be driving the car as much as possible and testing the whole setup to see how it holds up on the street. The LED panels work great and generate less heat, so I’m not too worried about the housings melting due to electrical issues. Overall I’m quite happy with the outcome of this project, and there’s comfort in knowing that all I have to do on the day I get tired of it is swap the original assembly back in.

 

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Thanks guys I appreciate the comments!

The wheels are made to spec by Work, but from what I've seen lately they seem to be discontinued.

 

Thanks Brent.

Jack, here's a video, doesn't do it justice though (and I have since changed my burnt license bulb).

 

Wow thank you, I really appreciate it!

I did think about putting more of an angle, but I didn't necessarily want to mimic the 355 look. My back-plate actually does have a small angle in it, but only enough to replicate the angle of the OEM 348 housings when you look at it from the side.

 

Have put over 600km on the setup so far, 350+ being from an amazing twisty run this past weekend. So far so good, with everything holding up in ambient temperatures ranging between 5-30*C. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Thanks guys! I've been getting generally positive feedback from the kit and I'll likely be making the 'slim' version in the coming months and will mount that on my car with the OEM grille.
The only thing I'm trying to do to really drive costs down is find loose round lenses and not have to buy the complete Carello housing; the lenses alone drive my costs up a lot.

 

Just found some pics taken by an Instagram carspotter of another Japanese 348 sporting the round taillight conversion (not mine). These don't look like they're using the OEM Carello lenses and the lenses seem to be tucked far behind the OEM grille. Wish I had more detailed pics!
Off topic but I also attached some bonus pics of a HK 348 that has a nice custom wheelset using an upsized OEM look (don't know the make).


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From the pics I got it seems as though they were all fabricated the same, not symmetrical.