LED Brake/Tail/Turn Light Conversion

[Elanlover]

I think we all agree that the look of the Elan is timeless. When I had my stereo installed, the guys doing it (outside in the sun) told me that people were stopping by asking what kind of car it was, asking if it was a 2007! Good for chuckle. The car could roll of the lot today and still look like a fairly modern design with a few exceptions. One of those exceptions, in my mind, is the lighting system. I wanted to have a more updated look to the brake, turn and tail lamps so I did some research into upgrading the Elan’s lights to LED versions.

Short of completely replacing the housings with custom built ones, I thought I'd try the LED bulb aftermarket route. Many of you know that there are aftermarket LED bulbs out there that can replace the existing incandescent ones. The problem with these has always been that they seem to generate far less light than the originals – not a desirable consequence for important things like brake lamps! So, I did some research, spent some money and bought some bulbs to test, threw out a bunch of unsatisfactory ones and finally came to what I believe to be an effective LED upgrade “package”.

In doing this, I picked up a few key pieces of information. First, a lot of the effectiveness of replacement bulbs is due to the reflectors in the existing bulb housing. Most OEM LED implementations don’t use (or use sparingly) reflectors to generate light, allowing the LED’s to do the work directly (this is why you see that polka dot light effect with LED’s). I’ve seen people with aftermarket LED bulbs installed that look like crap and are, quite frankly, dangerous due to their minimal light output. This is the biggest reason why LED replacement bulbs don’t work so well – not enough light generated. But, it seems our Elan has a very suitable light housing and reflector for upgrading to LED bulbs.

There are virtually no modifications to be done for this upgrade to work and it does look great putting out virtually the same amount of light as the incandescent bulbs but now with that “instant-on, instant-off” effect. The ones I used came from this site:

http://autolumination.com/1156_1157.htm

While other bulb styles are available both on this site and in the market in general, I used the following bulbs to great success:

Light Tower II (US Patent Pending)
20 Powerful Wide Angle High Flux LEDS

These Bulbs have Advanced Patent Pending Control Circuitry Found in no Other LED Bulbs. These are the most advanced led bulb assemblies ever produced. More powerful, consistent color and more stable than any other automotive leds made.

15 side facing LEDS - 5 forward facing LEDS

They are available as 1157 and 1156 replacements and come in red, amber, clear and some other colors. To get the most light you need to install red LED’s in housings with red lenses and amber LED’s for the amber housings. Don’t use clear ones as you won’t get as much light coming through (unless its for a clear lens). I bought 2 red 1156 for the rear brake lamps, 4 red 1157 for the tail/turn lamps and 2 amber 1157 for the front turn signals. You also need to install a load equalizer on each side of the car to correct for the lower power draw (or you’ll get a rapid flashing as the car thinks the lights are burnt out). I used 2 of the below, one installed on each side of the car. I put mine in the rear but need to find a permanent place for them as they get super hot and can’t be allowed to touch the plastic housings anywhere.

3 OHM DELUXE ALUMINUM
LED Load Equalizer
Corrects Most LED Related Turn Signal Problems

Total cost for this project is:

2 x 1156 (red) = $37.98
4 x 1157 (red) = $75.96
2 x 1157 (amber) = $37.98
2 x 3 ohm equalizer = $17.98

TOTAL = $169.90

Sounds like a lot for bulbs but I’ll never (so they say) have to replace them again either. As for the third eye, I’ve stuck an LED light bar in there for now but I’m not thrilled with the way it turned out. I hope to work on an alternate solution shortly.

IF ANYONE HAS A SPARE THIRD BRAKE LAMP UNIT (the black one mounted under the rear spoiler) THAT THEY ARE WILLING TO PART WITH PLEASE LET ME KNOW!!!!! I need a unit to experiment with now that I’ve cut up the currently installed one.

Below are the pix so judge for yourself!

[Enright]

Blimey!

[theelanman]

I must admit thats one heck of a bit of work youve put in there......

good work!!!

[Elanlover]

I must admit thats one heck of a bit of work youve put in there......

good work!!!

Actually, the work was in the research. Total time to complete the job was about 30 minutes. Installing the load equalizers took the most time because I couldn't figure out which wires were turn/tail/ground. After I figured it out on the left side, the right was installed in minutes.

The color of the red lights changed slightly too. They're a little more red looking - more modern colored due to the LED I suppose.

[Doug]

Nice!

Did ya put ambers in the turn signals? or keep it all red?

Third lite looks good from that distance BTW.

I assume the LEDs won't get hot and melt lenses like incandescents . . .

[Elanlover]

Nice!

Did ya put ambers in the turn signals? or keep it all red?

Third lite looks good from that distance BTW.

I assume the LEDs won't get hot and melt lenses like incandescents . . .

Ambers in the front only. You need to match the LED color to the color of the lens in order to get any light coming through it. Unless the lens is clear in which case you can put any color in you want. The LEDs generate almost no heat at all. On the other hand, the load balancer burns to the touch so i still need to find a good place to mount it away from any plastic parts.

From a distance, the third light looks ok. Up close you'd see its very "unfinished" with some openings showing through. I'll get that fixed up eventually.................AS SOON AS SOMEONE OFFERS UP THEIR EXTRA/UNWANTED 3RD EYE TO PLAY WITH......(hint, hint)