building a 2002: February 2008

Lumens

Sort of finished one taillight. One of the circuits in the brake light is inop due to me running out of the proper resistor. I plan on setting up the other light in stock form for a side by side comparison. I will also be getting new lenses that will be less faded letting more light through.

Accident avoidance

In an effort to avoiding becoming a statistic of another 02 being rearended, Ive decided to upgrade the rear light assemblies. The stock brake lights are very dim, and dont do an excellent job of alerting tailgaters (high school girls trying to text message a fellow chearleader about a crush she has on the quarterback) that I am coming to a stop. My old roommate John from Jersey would be proud of the lumens my new taillights will be throwing out.

Ingredients for taillights: Lots of LEDs, resistors of a specific value, pc board, steady hands.

For this board it is four parallel circuits, each with 5 LEDs in series. A 1/4watt, 39 ohm resistor keeps each circuit within spec. I used a simple LED calculator to determine the proper schematic based on the factory LED specs.

Obviously not completely done, but you get the idea:

The luminous intensity of the white LEDs is 13000mcd, versus 8000 for the red ones. I will be using white ones for the brake lights, red for running lights, white for reverse, and orange(5000mcd) for turn signals. Im no electronics expert, so if you see something sketchy speak up!

After getting an estimate for dropping off a dirty assembled motor for rebuilding, Ive decided to do all the work myself i can. Hopefully Ill be dropping the block off this week at the machine shop.