Bondgrrl, thanks for this FAQ, it saved me a lot of time & money. You rock.

 

welcome to a-tsx!
what part of phx are you in?

 

so do the taillights light have a faster reaction time?

 

they appear to illuminate to full strength faster if that makes any sense.

 

My only complaint with the dome light conversion is that the LED domes are too dim for me. They look nice, but are just too dim to be really functional (I tried the 4-LED festoons from SuperBrightLED.)

So instead I replaced the tungsten dome bulbs with Xenon festoon lamps from:

http://autolumination.com/festoon.htm

(scroll down to the bottom of the page for the Xenon festoon bulbs.)

The Xenons look great. Although not quite as bright as the stock tungstens, they are plenty bright enough and very white.

jimby

 

Hey 21, thanks for the welcome. I'm in north Scottsdale. You?

I saw those pics of your totaled TSX. I shed a tear for you. Was the navi still functional? I'm a software engineer, and I'd love to obtain a TSX navi to hack.

 

Bondgrrl (or anyone else), have you found any leds that fit the visor lights yet? To this day I have not found any.

 

I was going to look at getting a full install, but apparentaly the website doesn't sell the red tail leds anymore??? They do still sell the white though. I emailed them and they said that the vendor stopped making them. Any ideas?

 

cool post. will add to faq!

 

Try autolumination.com, I ordered a full replacement LED set from them Friday, and they shipped everything today. I got their 15-LED 'Matrix' 7440/3 bulbs instead of the 9-LED ones people have been using. They have LED's around the edge of the bulb, so light comes out the side as well as the front. I hope I don't blind any unsuspecting motorists. Anyway, I'll post some before and after pics once everything is done.

 

Hey all,

I'm currently doing a LED replacement on all the rear lights. I have a question that maybe someone who has done this can answer. What does the red T13 bulb on the very outside do? (The one that points out sideways.) It doesn't seem to be connected to either the brake lights or the turn signals. It seems like it ought to be a turn indicator that people can see from the side, but the stock bulbs don't illuminate when I flip the turn signal. That makes it kind of hard to figure out which way to put in the LED, when I can't find out how to supply power to it.

 

It's the side marker light. Turn on the headlamps and you will see it light up. Or press UNLOCK or LOCK on your FOB and it will flash with the tails.

 

Thanks stevestr. Here's a pic of the final result, if anyone is interested. The picture didn't come out that well, and it doesn't really look the same as in person. The picture was taken at dusk, so maybe that's the reason. The 15-LED matrix bulbs are very bright, the super white can hurt your eyes if you stare at them too long. The outside bulb is a red Matrix, the middle is a red T13, and the reverse light is a white Matrix.



Here's a pic of the Matrix 7440/3 bulb with the side LEDs. These come from autolumination.com.

 

Where did you get the T13s from...I couldn't find them on the autolumination website? Did you order those from superbrightleds.com?

 

http://autolumination.com/194.htm = T13

 

Wow, thanks ....that was quick

 

I just priced out the bulbs on autolumination and they are going to be twice as expensive as the ones on superbrightleds. Are they that much better in your opinion? Thanks

 

Yeah they are expensive, I blew $160 on that site. But all LED's are dimmer than incandescents, so for safety reasons I decided to get the brightest available and f*ck the cost. If they were any dimmer than they are, I'd put the stock bulbs back on. Of course at night you aren't going to have any problems either way, but the sun gets pretty bright here in Phoenix.

Other people have got theirs from superbrightleds.com and been happy. I was going to do the same until I found they were out of stock on the red T13's and red 7440s & 7443s. I emailed them and they said they were out of stock until July. You can use whites instead of reds, I think that's what Bondgrrl did.

 

$160??? Did you not do your turning signals then? Just curious...

 

Yeah, I did the turn signals, front (amber Matrix) and rear (red Matrix). Still need to put on 2 3-ohm load resistors so I don't get that fast blinking. It looks like there's a convienent place to mount them inside the trunk compartment where the taillight bulbs are. Anyway, apparently the car thinks (LED = burnt out bulb), and blinks everything faster to get your attention. Autolumination.com sells the load resistors too. I am really happy with them. I called them up to ask a bunch of questions, and they are extremely knowledgeable. I also goofed up my order (ordered 4 6-ohm resistors instead of 2 3-ohm) and they fixed it over the phone no problem.

 

Should I get the matrix bulb or the 6LED bulbs?

 

Either will work. The center bulb in my pic is the standard 6LED one. I'm thinking of switching it to a matrix to better match the other lights.

 

Are the resistor kits hard to install and where can I find them, I'm thinking about not doing the blinkers because it sounds harder to install, but I was wondering if it would look really bad when it lights up.

 

N/m read on my own and figured it out, doesn't seem that bad hopefully I don't mess up. According to allumination, I would only need two of the resistor kits? I would only have to install it on one side for front and rear and it would fix the problem?

 

It's kind of a pain. If you do the front and rear blinkers, you need to buy a pair of 3-Ohm load equalizers. You put one on the driver's side, and one on the passenger side. I put mine on the front driver's side and the rear passenger side, because those areas seemed easiest to get to.

They come with a plastic clip device that takes two wires. You slide the end of the load equalizer wire into one side, and place one of the turn signal wires into the other side. Then you close the clip device with a pair of pliers, and it automatically splices the wires together. The clip is designed so you don't need to cut your turn signal wires.

In this way, you splice one end of the load equalizer to the turn signal ground wire, and the other end of the load equalizer wire to the turn signal power wire.

The load equalizers get very hot, hot enough to melt plastic IMO. There's a flat metal area inside the compartment where the rear turn signal bulbs are. I taped the load equalizer to this metal area with some electrical tape.

You can get the load equalizers from superbrightleds.com or autolumination.com. Looks like they sell the same product.

 

Does it look bad if I didn't do the blinkers? At night when the leds are lighting up in the back and the blinkers are lit, would it look odd? Right now my total is at 180, taking off the blinkers would save quite a bit.

 

Don't know, since I haven't tried it... I'm pretty sure the front would look okay. The rear might look odd. If I were on a budget, I would just replace the reverse lights with super white LEDs, and leave everything else stock. You'll be very pleased with how the white reverse LEDs look compared to the stock bulbs. The other LED replacements aren't as impressive.

 

cool thnx for the tip.

 

will the 15LED too bright at night? I don't want to hurt the motorist at the back. I like the LED from the new TL/G35 that it appears that LED is spread across the housing unit.. I don't think the replacement kit can reproduce this one? And how is the reliability of the LED vs Stocks?

 

I was behind an 04 TL the other day and I noticed that the turn signals on that car are NOT led, but the brake lights are. It looks fine. The turn signals are used so little compared to the brake lights anyway.

 

Bump. I'm curious about this too. Debating the full LED conversion. Are these 15-LED Matrix lights as bright as the standard bulbs or brighter/dimmer?

 

I only replaced the LED's in the interior lighting. The overhead Map Lights and Dome light in the back lasted less than 6 months before they stopped working. Firs they dimmed somewhat and then stopped working completely. The blue door LED's are still going great though. All of the bulbs were purchased on the superbrightleds web site.

 

Yeah, the overhead lights I'm leaving alone. Everything else I'm contemplating.

Right now I'm looking at the autolumination site.

Gonna replace the reverse, license plate, doors, glove box, trunk, and cubby.

Depending on how much I like it, may do the full conversion in the future. The matrix lights from here look pretty cool. I'm not sure if they may be too bright for the license plate though (probably not.)

Decisions, decisions...

 

bumping this to ask if anyone has had any more problems with their taillight leds. i know we talked about it on another thread, but i can't seem to find it. i ended up going back to standard bulbs because i kept having a few of the leds on the brake light bulbs go out. i'm thinking about reordering now, but i was gonna check and see if anyone's had any recent trouble.

 

Bump for an update too. This looks like an easy/cheap mod but I don't want to do it if I have to keep changing out bulbs.

BTW...nice job on the info!

 

Waste of money.

Did the mod, the LEDs are not bright enough (except for backup white lights), signal lights flashed too fast (different resitance?), two LEDs burned out, took out a fuse in the process, had to go back to incandescent.

Bleh.

 

hmm gonna give this a try

 

In order to use the LEDs on the turn signals you have to use the resistor with them otherwise they will flash fast. It is posted on the superbrightleds.com site.

 

Which T13/Autolumination 194 did you guys use for the license plate lights? There are a few to close from with different spectrums and sizes on the site. 5LED matrix, opaque focused, clear focused lenses, inverted or oval wide angels. There are some that have different diameters. Can I use the 5LED Matrix for that area? Any input would be appreciated?!

 

Just take out your OEM bulb and see the size. Any 194 wedge bulb will fit in there, so long as it is the shape of a bulb. I used a 4LED model from superbrightleds.com