Duplicolor acrylic enamel is some good stuff =p. Basic process was prime, wetsand to hide all the bumps on the plastic, paint, and finally clear coat. It's not perfect but for spray cans its pretty damn good. It also isn't Nighthawk but I figure its so low to the ground that it will blend well and if the vinyl on my car fits I'm sure this will too.

I snagged the aluminum kick plates from a guy on Ebay awhile back. I'm pretty glad as it took me forever to find them.

 

Did you buy one long led strip then you cut into 3 smaller strips and attached the wires? And also does the circuit board indicate -/+?
Thx

 

I had a few seperate strips laying around that I used. The board didn't have the polarities marked so I plugged in the unit in the car and took my multimeter to them and marked each accordingly.

 

I love all the lighting mods! When I got my car the instament cluster did not work. The guy who I got the car frome said I only needed to replace some bulbs. Ha! When I pulled it apert to check it out it was fried! Needless to say I bought a usedone on ebay for $270 and hookid it up and everything was working properly My aftermarket radio took a crap so i got another one and had a shop put it in. (cant remember why I couldnt do it) anyways every since then my RPM needle doesnt move and it only lights up half way...Are those wires connected to any part of the radio? would love to do mine with pink and purple leds...

 

Not connected to the radio/nav system in any way. It's either a bad connection at the plug or printed circuit where the harness plugs in, or just as likely, it's a loose (hopefully not stripped) screw that holds the meter movement in the cluster frame. The back-lighting bulbs are easy to replace.The needle LED's are major PITA but it has been done by folks on here.

My tach went out after I worked on my cluster lighting. I got the car all back together and down the road before I noticed it wasn't working. I have an LED in the cluster that flickers and/or goes out from time to time, so I now have a reason to tear the dash apart again.

 

^^^Thank you! I guess I will be tearing mine apart as well. I didnt notice it for a while I guess because I was so used to the other one that didnt work at all...lol also my a/c lcd doesnt really show anything ...is this a replacable part or bulb? or do i have to buy a whole new control unit?

 

You can replace the lcd lights. It's three bulbs total for them, I mentioned earlier on in the thread what they were. You can also do the lights behind the buttons with bulbs but it doesn't look that great.

Here's a pic of my current look. It will be changing this weekend to what I believe will be the final look of the car.

 

Very unique look! I'll be interested to see what you do after the weekend!

 

You have done an awesome job on your car! When I get around to doing all my lights I'll probably need your help but I will refer to the thread first...do you know if I could make my needles purple and the backlight pink? Don't roll your eyes I AM a girl lol

 

Thanks for the compliments Yumcha and Acuragirl. And regarding your led idea I know you can easily put in pink leds in the backlight but I don't think you can put purple in the needles because the needles have a resistor somewhere on the board for a white led. You can only use colors that are similar (I think forward voltage wise) to white.


And I still haven't quite finished doing what I want to the car. I may black out the two pieces of trim under the lights again or I may remove the vinyl hiding all the chrome.



I spent 6 hours working on the paint yesterday so I wish it would be sunny out so I can really examine my work.

 

got links to the bulbs you used in the interior?

 

Which interior ones?

Also this is my last update to the build thread.

I sold the car yesterday (9/8/14)

Right after the final wash:



Them driving away in the RL. I love how bright the retrofit looks.I owned the RL from 112k to 149,740 miles, it was my first car and probably my last acura for awhile.

 

No. Why!! So what car are you going to get?

 

Not fully sure yet, but my goal is AWD this time around. Probably white too, love the look of black but god damn is it high maintenance.

Also I'm kind of glad to have the Acura sold. It was an awesome car but at the same time it had its flaws. The paint of the front and rear bumpers wasn't thick enough and in bright sunlight showed the primer beneath, the speedometer was 10% fast, the upper ball joints hit the upper fender on hard bumps, rear wheels rubbed, one of the projector shrouds came off, and the Nexus 7 needed some fixing.

Not major stuff just some things I never got around to fixing. I've been feeling the urge for a new car since February - March of this year. Really what started it was when I finished the modding I did over the winter. Kinda realized I had nothing left to do on the car and started to feel bored.