Yes, you are correct I strayed from my advice here. In my quest to find the best bulb for the center stop lights, I tried all of the high output amber and red ones available but none seemed to work. The reason I went with the ones listed above is the were brighter than anything else I tried and they worked okay. If they made them in amber I would definitely have purchased them in the appropriate lens color.

You might want to try, as an alternative, the 921 MATRIX LED BULBS" from www.superlumination.com instead. They come in amber and red and might work better. They weren't available when I did mine and the ones listed above them, the 921 18 LED TOWER LED BULBS will be too long to fit.

 

I ended up ordering mine from www.autolumination.com, so far I have only ordered 1 Eagle Eye 5 for test fitting in the rear tail lights and 2 of the 8- Star SMT in bright white for my front parking lights. I am going to test them out to see how well they work in the interior dome lights and in the license lights to see if anything else might work better. Here is an example of the bulb.

8- Star SMT:


The reason I only ordered 1 of the Eagle Eye 5's is because I wanted to make sure that they worked well before I spent $22 a piece on 3 more. The problem that I have found with these is that the tail light bulbs screw in from the bottom and not straight in from the back the problem being that the Eagle Eye 5's only have LED's on the top of the bulb, so when looking at the tail lights most of the light is directed toward the top of the tail light. Here is an example of the bulb.



I am going to try these out next to try to fix the problem and try to get more equal light distribution throughout the tail light.

Eagle-Eye Tower:

 

If you plan on using LEDs for the brake lights, make sure to get an 1157, not an 1156. The 1157s have two circuits so when you step on the brakes, they get brighter.

I'd run out and look at my tail lights, but the car is not here. What I used (in the post) did a great job for the brake lights and I am very pleased.

You are very wise to limit the number of bulbs purchased to test units until you are sure they'll work for you. I ordered a bunch of different ones for testing and sent back all the other ones.

Post some pics up of how it turns out. Also remember to order a resistor for each turn light you are going to convert or you'll have the quick blinker problem.

 

Yeah the 1157's are the ones I ordered in the Eagle Eye 5 bulb, another note for those bulbs is if you don't put them in the right way they will just stay in bright mode like you have the brakes pressed so make sure they are installed correctly.

 

Here is the difference between the old **** LED's and the new 8- Star SMT LED's in my parking lights and my interior dome lights, they are a huge improvement. I have 1 old LED on one side and 1 new one on the other side to show the difference.

 

^Those look fantastic. Very nice. Regarding the 1157s, I had the same exact problem when first installing them. I was thinking WTF, they don't get any brighter when I hit the brake and then I had the smart idea of rotating them Problem solved!

 

haha Yeah I was wondering what the hell was going on at first then I remembered you posting something about it and the little light bulb above my head came on.

 

I recently installed the following:
*rear side markers
*center stop light
*license plate lights
*map lights
*rear hatch light

I'm very happy with all of them... I see what you mean about the center stop lights, David. They're brighter, but not 'holy ****!' brighter like the others are. I especially like the rear side markers as they should serve a safety function. The map/dome light is great as well, I was in sore need of a replacement for the tired washed-out original bulbs that were in there.

I just ordered the four brake lights from the super lumination website. I'm debating doing the turn signals as well. Worth the expense David?

 

Glad this is working out for you Rich. The brightness of the lights makes this worth while and it is noticeable. Last week at Kilo Racing, Jesus was pulling my car out of the bay and I noted how bright and white the reverse signals were. Very nice. Wish there was a better option for the center stop lights as they are fine but not "holy ****" fine like all the others.

Regarding the turn signals, if money is okay, I'd do them as they are brighter than stock. Because of the chromed housing in the 99 spec turn lamps, the stock lights are fine as the chrome reflects nicely but the LEDs are much brighter. To me it was as much about replacing the "old technology" with LED as it was about the results, provided the new bulbs were brighter. I'd say, because of the chrome housings, you could probably get by with ordering a lesser cost bulb than the ones I used, but if you do this, make sure you still get one that has a nice high wattage forward facing LED. I originally tried ones that have 5 little LEDs in the front and this made the car look too ricer for me.

Take some pics.

 

I've been asked a few times about what LEDs I used on the bottom of my doors and in my footwells. The honest answer is I don't know the exact brand as they were installed by a shop. But, now knowing more than I did then, I've run across a source that is inexpensive and one that I think will work very well.

Check out www.onzium.com. They make led light strips that look a lot like what is in my car. I would use a strip of these waterproof leds under the doors:

http://www.oznium.com/thin-waterproof-ribbon

These come with a 3M tape on them so you just have to peel and stick them on and them wire them up. I would think one foot would be fine but you could order a two 2 ft. ones and you can cut them (between every third led) to the length you need.

As for inside the car in the footwells, try these:

http://www.oznium.com/led-ribbon

A one foot section of these in each footwell with light up very well.

To wire them up, and I would check this but the car is at Kilo Racing, all you would need to do is tap into the circuit used for the interior dome lights as these come on when you open the door. I think the wires terminate on the left side of the driver's footwell so check out the wiring diagram. It can't be too difficult as the shop did it in a few minutes.

Try it - you will like the results. Or don't and I can keep the uniqueness of my LEDs

 

Rich, I would love to see some after pics of the new bulbs
I've been thinking about replacing the same ones, but I'm not yet sold on how much brighter they are on the interior then the stock ones.

 

The exterior bulbs recommended in this thread are much brighter than the stock ones. I just ordered all interior ones and I'll post up pics when the LEDs get here. I ordered the ones recommended in this thread from superbrightleds.com

 

Bumping this great thread back up

Just ordered the reverse lights, mine had never worked for some time and when swapping in a JDM series 8 trans, I discovered that my old reverse sensor wires were damaged.

Now that they work, I want the full complement of LEDs

Btw, all of them are well worth the money, the only ones I'd recommend not buying are the LED bulbs for the taillights. They don't project the light evenly...... I think Tom's SakeBomb GB will satisfy this requirement

 

good info

 

Unfortunately they do not have the 3rd brake light in SMB. Only the 9-led replaces those 921 bulbs but it says only 16 lumens. That doesn't sound bright compared to over 50 lumens for the tail/stop lights. It sounds like their not very bright by Goodfella's reply, so they would look crappy with SMB's in the tail/brake lights. Has any one tried SMB's in the high mount 3rd brake light?

 

Is 8 SMB just right or too bright for the dome lights?

 

I'm trying to find the solution for the 3rd brake light. Not all the sites list wattage but Nokya shows theirs as 2.5w (or close to it). The factory bulb should be approximately 16w/ea.

Here is the brightest i've found which is 8w but you need 3 x $60/ea = expensive.
http://www.v-leds.com/Exterior-LED/P...26829-1-2.html

 

Well it says there is one pair in the pack so you would only need two packs for the three lights ($120). That is a lot of money. 8 watts of power would be very very bright and might do the job. The issue with these are they are white and as a rule you always want to match the color of the lens, which in this case is red. The however here is I currently have white LEDs installed in the center section as I tried all the colors (red, amber, white) and the white ones seemed to be the brightest. It is also possible they will be too tall to fit into the slot. Mine don't quite fit but I jammed them in anyway. Finally, these will point up in the slot so what you really see are the lights on the side, not so much the ones on top so that might limit the light. But if you have the cash (and they can be returned) try them and post pics compared to the stock bulbs.

Here is another option:

\http://www.v-leds.com/Exterior-LED/B...46570-1-2.html

They are 5 watt units so they should also be bright. They are also red which is by rule what you should use and you can buy them by the pack (2 each) or just one so your total cost would be $75. Still pretty pricey but worth it if they worked. I would say buy both if you can return the ones you won't use. That way you can compare both against the stock bulb and then decide. It would be great if you left the stock bulb in the center and then put one each in the unit and took a pic for comparison.

 

In my opinion you can never go too bright. It's the dome light so you want it to be bright when you open the doors. Give it a shot.

 

Check these out, they don't show the wattage though...

These might work for the 3rd brake light, what do you think?
http://www.v-leds.com/Exterior-LED/T...72056-1-2.html

These seem to be perfect for the brake lights
http://www.v-leds.com/Exterior-LED/B...72898-1-2.html

 

Those are all pretty interesting. The third brake lights might work if they fit thru the holes. They look too wide but maybe not. Those brake lights just look crazy and would be worth a try. Don't know how you would remove them though - might have to pull them apart to remove. I say try a few and let us know

 

Some pics of the LED reverse lights I just installed, I ordered them from SuperBrightLEDs.com, BA15 4Watt LED bulb-*****, 1156-W3x1.3

First pic is a comparison between the LED and an 'upgraded' hyper white style bulb I had been running. Other two pics show the light output.... I'm very happy with them, they definitely exceeded my expectations

 

Some pics of the LED reverse lights I just installed, I ordered them from SuperBrightLEDs.com, BA15 4Watt LED bulb-*****, 1156-W3x1.3

First pic is a comparison between the LED and an 'upgraded' hyper white style bulb I had been running. Other two pics show the light output.... I'm very happy with them, they definitely exceeded my expectations

 

Those babies are bright Rich. I have those too and they provide exceptional lighting.

 

Can someone post a pic of these beside the oem halogen bulb plz?
[QUOTE=David Hayes;9637307]Rear Tail Lights (www.superlumination.com)
Eagle Eye 5
Quantity: 4
Product: Type-1157 $ 19.99 (each)
Options: Red