Need help with wiring and LED bulbs

Anybody out there familiar with relays designed specifically for LED bulbs?
Very strange problem and I'm running out of things to try.

The quick story:
Trying to replace standard indicator bulbs with LED bulbs. The rear bulbs were no problem and worked straight out of the box, however the front sockets were not wired with LEDs in mind so I flipped the two wires to support the LED's anode/cathode. Once this was done everything worked fine..... when the car is NOT running.

Once I fire up the engine, using the turn signals causes the turns signals to flash EXTREMELY fast... really more like a flicker or always-on state. This is not to be confused with a typical "bulb out" warning rather a flickering effect like the relay is shorted out. Again, this only happens with the motor running.

As an experiment I reinstalled one of the old, conventional bulbs in one of the front sockets and everything works fine, both with the car running and with the ignition turned to "on".

So, what is the difference between the LED and a regular bulb, and why would the motor running be causing the issue???

Much thanks in advance as this is driving me crazy!

 

Guys, thanks for the replies.

But, please re-read my post. Yep, I'm aware of the resistors that can be used and also note in my OP that I am in fact using a purpose built "LED relay".

My problem is not the normal "fast blink, bulb out"-warning... rather a HYPER-fast flickering effect as if the relay is being grounded/shorted-out but ONLY when the car is running. Otherwise, with the ignition is turn to on all the LEDs and relay behave normally.

Please feel free to bounce back even your most remote ideas as this is really puzzling.

 

2000 MY

No, sorry, by "indicator" I meant turn signal bulbs... front amber ones in particular.
I bought them from Super Illumination. They refer to them as "7507 PY21W Tower European Bulbs".
http://www.superlumination.com/1156_1157.htm

Very interesting on your polarity comment. This seems highly likely the problem but unsure my solution.
As mentioned, I swapped the wires leading to the socket so the LED would illuminate. This must be causing a short but only with the vehicle running.

Either I need to have a reverse-spec bulb custom made or the manufacturer wired these up backwards.

I've tried to trace the copy of the wiring diagram, but Ferrari's "diagram" is unlike anything I've seen before and I was really confused!

 

I was aware of the "+" and "-", but thought I needed to have them swapped... clearly the bulbs aren't going to work for me in the stock configuration..... but then again they aren't doing me much good the way they are now!

For the time being I think I will swap the wiring back to factory spec and reinsert the conventional bulbs until I can find a better solution.


FWIW, I have replaced the entire rear end with LED: brake lights, reverse lights, and 3rd brake light. I think they look great and the brightness sure has come a long way!
Not exactly cheap though - somewhere around $400 for the entire set of bulbs.

 

I know the polarity is correct now, because I had to rewire the sockets to allow the LEDs to light, that's clearly part of the problem. I think its fair to say these are NOT plug and play for my application, rather they appear to be reversed of what I need. I'm seeing that now, but not sure what direction to go (I've been in contact with the vendor).

Also I don't understand... if it were simply an issue of load, then why would it work with the engine off?

 

I like the way mine turned out. Not sure how the 328's light is constructed, but I had to enlarge the 7 holes where the OEM tiny bulbs fit. The replace LED bulbs look a little wonky but they worked out well once I was able to fit them into the housing.

 

I wish I could have ran with just the standard relay for the whole works, but this relay was giving me the bulb-out, rapid flash indication. I wasn't a big fan of installing the load resistors that would have fixed that since it would have been a lot more installation and I don't like the solution anyway (heat + loading = potential hot spots).

Since there are a lot of purpose-built, 3-connector LED relays on the market I just bought two (one for left, one for right) very inexpensively from fleabay.
I checked the wires leading into the plug for the OEM relay and located the left & right hotwires FROM the indicator stalk. I simply cut those wires and used them as the switch into each relay. Then I located the wires leading OUT to the bulbs and spliced, not cut, into the existing lines. I kept these intact so I could keep the OEM relay for the hazard circuit. Lastly I attached a common ground.

I can't say with certainty that my wiring isn't the culprit, but I did remove the OEM relay to experiment and it made no difference with the odd behavior when the engine is running.

I've heard back from my LED bulb vendor and they tell me that in some applications its required to flip the wiring as I've done... normally that's the fix. They also do not sell a reverse pin-out for my specific application.

For the time being I just stuck my conventional bulbs back in front so the car is road worthy.... it's been in this messed up state for a while and I'm getting itchy to drive!