First off, I don't quite think this would be considered rice, but you never know.

I was at AutoZone the other day, and I was walking around the bulb section for some 168's, you guys may remember my other blinker thread.

I saw some LED 1157's and 168's. They're amber in color. Now, I have black housing bumper lights. I love the way they look during the day, but I hate seeing the bulbs when they light up.

I'm wondering, What do you guys think about replacing the bulbs in my front bumper lights with the LED's? I'm just trying to figure out if they'd even be worth if, if they'd look okay, etc.

Cliffs:
LED 1157's and 168's okay to use in front bumper lights?

 

led's look alot cleaner and last alot longer i think it would be a good idea.

 

Another thing I'm concerned with would be life.

I just hope these would last a while, and not burn out or anything earlier then even the normal bulbs.

 

Okay, so I replaced the front 168's with a 194 Quad-LED ambers. I did the centers with Amber Incandescent 1157's until I can find amber LED's for them too.

Turns out they have RED 1157 LED's for brake lights too.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by RobbieDB &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Another thing I'm concerned with would be life.

I just hope these would last a while, and not burn out or anything earlier then even the normal bulbs.</TD></TR></TABLE>

They last lots longer and when they do burn out its usualy one little led, you will still have 10 more on the same "bulb"

 

Yeah, I was just worried about the quality of these, seeing as how they came from AutoZone.

They don't seem too bad, and the little 194 bulbs have 4 LED's in a square shape.

I'll post pictures later tonight hopefully when it gets dark.

 

seems like i have quite a problem like you. I just purchase hids and those are 4300k. But my clear corner lights have the oem light inside. Everytime i use the turn signal the blinker flashes an yellowish orange. I wanted the turn signal to match my hids. Anybody know where i could get those bulbs?

 

The little LED replacement bulbs suck ****. Let me illustrate so everyone can benefit from the $40+ I wasted on bulbs that I did not continue to use, and could not return

I used white LED 1157's like so:


In the rear, the taillights look like this, LED left and regular right:


And brake lights, LED left and regular right:


For the front, we have the parking lights regular left and LED right:


And the turn signals, regular left and LED right:


As you can see, the LED bulbs are not NEARLY as bright as stock. In fact, on the taillights, the LED in bright mode is about the same as the regular 1157 on the low filament. Not worth the money at all IMHO. And in day light it's even worse. You'll have tiny little red circles coming up for your brake lights, which could end up getting your car rear-ended because they're not as visible as stock bulbs.

 

dang i was hoping it would look really bright. after those pics i wouldnt do it

 

i have seen multi-diode, multi-directional LED's that look pretty good and seem pretty bright.

 

Why couldn't you return them?

I'll at least stick to the amber incandescents..

 

LEDs are great, amazing lifetime, and brightness is great. The onyl problem, geometry of LED device make it directional. it does not glow 360 degrees. Thats why you see a lot of people discourages after chaging cluster lights to led, because of uneven ness. I love using LED's for projects, but for automotive lighting the only functional piece is an alarm blinker...unless you pay extra to get the wide lens leds or the ones wehre they have a spectrum of them that amost look like a flower (you will get waht im saying if you look around).

 

Gotcha.

 

http://www.superbrightleds.com has some 5-LED wide angle bulbs, its what i use for my cluster and its alright.

the thing is the bulb sockets have the bulb, and reflective materiel all aroudn it to focus the incandescent bulbs light outward so its not wasted, like a flashlight. wide angle LEDS may be the answer.

of course, ive ordered a few bulbs from the above site, and sometimes they just stop working. its really hit or miss with their products, i know of alot of people who have had them for a year or more with no problem, but of... *counts on fingers* 8 bulbs, 7 of which being 168 socket 5 wide leds, 2 bulbs stopped working, one of them behing the 168 wide.

the price is pretty good for their products so i suggest if you do order, maybe order 1 or 2 extra bulbs just incase.

 

The only way to make useful LED brake lights and turn signals is to have a large array of them on a board inside the tail or signal lens. Tony the Tiger on here (haven't seen him post in forever) did it on his BG-33P GS-R a few years back.

As far as brightness goes for the LED replacement bulbs, it is NOT great as my pictures clearly show. The pictures are taken nearly directly in front of each bulb, and yet you can see it is nowhere nearly as bright as the standard bulbs. I've seen them used on cars in the daylight and it looks like tiny red dots lighting up inside the factory taillight housings. NOT a good thing when you're trying to let people know that you're slowing down.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PatrickGSR94 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The only way to make useful LED brake lights and turn signals is to have a large array of them on a board inside the tail or signal lens.</TD></TR></TABLE>



Also you should use a RED LED behind a RED lens it will be brighter than the WHITE LED Behind the RED lens.

 

I now thought that the LED's were a good idea, until I saw those pictures...

Not so great to me...

But it's your car...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JDM CTR ’00 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Also you should use a RED LED behind a RED lens it will be brighter than the WHITE LED Behind the RED lens.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Actually then it starts to look more pink. Using LED's in turn signals suck because of the hyper flash, and brake lights they just don't wrk good in cuz of the large housing, LED's hae more of a projecting attribute to them. And they work best if you use a color LED in a clear lens if you want it a certain color. I have 9(5 on top and 4 around the outside) white LED's in my license lights and my reverse lights(the reverse light one are $30 a pair with 3 of the 5 watt LED and about 20 of the 3 watts which is the only reason they are bright) and I have a red(6 LED) one in my dome light which is brighter than a red bulb but not as good as a regular white bulb(but I have a DA so I have 2 regular map lights if I need the light.)

 

Well, I got my 6k HID's in today as well.

I'll be taking pictures of my setup tonight:

Black housing bumper lights
Amber 1157 turn signals
Amber LED 194 Wedges
6k HID's.

 

so us the pix

 

the thing you need to keep in mind is that led's are directional so at an angle a regular bulb will provide more illumination. I had those led's for city lights on my eg and didn't like it because the illumination sucked.