PAGE INDEX
Page 1………Dash and Head Unit
Page 2………Doors and Crossovers
Page 3………Engine and Intake Project
Page 4………Trunk, Amps, and Sub
Page 5………HIN, Baby!
Page 6………Hong Kong Disco At Night
Page 7………White Face Gauge Installation
Page 8………Sparco Seat Installation
Page 9………Random hot J-bodies
The generous folks at Street Glow offered up a bevy of auto neon. It would be rude not to use it, right? Once all of this stuff is installed, Le Femme Wilburta will light up like a Hong Kong disco at night!
Starting from the rear... A headlight stobe is installed in each tail light. You can barely see it towards the outer edge of the red oval section, with its little black ends.
Looking in back of the lens assembly, through the bulb mounting hole. You can see the strobe more clearly now. No extra holes were needed to run the stobe wiring, since it all just barely fit through the normal bulb opening with the bulb installed.
Some people scoff at APC tail lenses, but there aren't many options for the Cavalier. When I got these "Altezza" style lenses, I was quite impressed at the quality. They fit perfectly, accept the stock bulbs just like OEM, and look pretty sweet once installed. Don' be hate'n!
My fat rear end, compleat with APC tail lenses.
A headlight neon tube is installed in each headlight assembly. These tiny tubes come as a pair and feature a separate transformer, similar to Street Glow's Mini and Ultra Mini series interior tubes.
A 1/2" hole needs to be drilled (carefully!) in the lens assembly to insert a rubber grommet. Drilling the hole is no big deal, but getting all the little plastic shavings out of the assembly sure is. Tip: cotton balls and a coat hanger come in handy. (When don't they?)
Like most neon, the headlight tubes get a little brighter after they warm up. Even so, these little guys can only put out so much light. They're no match for the newer ultra-bright LEDs (see below).
The neon tubes were installed in the middle of the headlight assemblies. That puts them in shining distance from both the high and low beam reflectors. It also keeps them out of the headlight beam paths so the light patterns on the road ahead aren't affected (safety first!). Even after carefull planning, however, the headlight neon tubes just don't illuminate the Cavalier headlight assemblies very evenly. Plus, you can see the tubes when they're off - a big no-no in my book. These have since been replaced with headlight strobes (not shown). The headligh neon tubes have been moved to the front corner lenses. Pictures of these are coming soon.
Say what you will about APC, but these clear turn signal lenses look way cool. A Street Glow LED bolt was mounted on each side. You can see it in the center of this picture. The normal turn signal bulb mounts below and to the left of it.
The bottom of the turn signal lens, looking up through the bulb mounting hole. A 1/4" hole needs to be drilled to mount the LED bolts. The exact location of each bolt was selected based on the light's ability to reflect all around the inside of the lens and to not get in the way of the turn signal bulb.
It may seem odd to mount the LED bolts at an angle, instead of straight on, but this type of mounting allows the LED's light to bounce off of the side reflector and spread out more evenly towards the side of the car. Plus, its not obscured by the turn signal bulb (not shown).
These LED bolts are ridiculously bright, put out virtually no heat, and draw just a tiny bit of juice. Isn't technology wonderful?
The LED bolts are much brighter than the headlight neon tubes. The only drawback - or advantage, depending on how you look at it - is that the LED light is much more directional. It doesn't "spill over" like neon or flourescent light does. That means that you have to put more thought into where you mount the LEDs and how you aim them.
The finished product. Personally, I like the combination of "crystal" clear turn signal lens and regular clear corner lens. The APC Titan series chrome bulbs are definately the way to go with clear lenses.
A Street Glow chrome series AN9 mini neon tube is installed in the center vent duct. This is the underside of the vent, looking towards the front. There are indentations already molded into the duct that were practically made to mount a neon tube. Only a small notch had to be cut to run the wire so it wouldn't interfere with the duct seal. In retrospect, it would have been better to mount the tube on the other side of the duct, where it would have been facing down. As it is now, it's on the bottom of the duct facing up where you can sometimes see it through the dash vents.
The other mini neon tube (they come in pairs) is mounted to the underside of the center console, just ahead of the cup holder. The transformer can be seen at the top of the picture, tucked into a recess around the storage molding. This tube gives off a nice glow that spills out onto the driver and passenger footwells. Two additional AN9 tubes are mounted under the seats, and there are two under the dash as well. More pictures of neon coming soon, including the HottWirez shift knob and music control interface...
This is the interior WITHOUT the under-dash neon tubes. The blue LED light just below the headunit illuminates when the interior neons are on, but it will soon be wired to the under-car neon kit so I can tell when it's on. To the left of the blue LED is the strobe controller and to the right is the sound activation controller (alas, both of which were stollen).
PAGE INDEX
Page 1………Dash and Head Unit
Page 2………Doors and Crossovers
Page 3………Engine and Intake Project
Page 4………Trunk, Amps, and Sub
Page 5………HIN, Baby!
Page 6………Hong Kong Disco At Night
Page 7………White Face Gauge Installation
Page 8………Sparco Seat Installation
Page 9………Random hot J-bodies
