Modifications
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If you decide to do something to your car because you saw it here, please give me credit where it is due! (link to my page w/ my name or something) Thanks.
Detailed Time Line, Page Updated July 27, 2008
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Intro:
Here you will see my car, a 94 Corolla DX, 200,000+ miles that my parents bought it for me used in April 2004. I had no intention to mod it until I broke the headlight mounting brackets in a small fender bender in November 2004. After looking on the net, I found some new headlights that were the same, except they were chrome and clear. After getting them for Christmas, I just had to replace all the rest of the lights to match. I was hooked on modding! Ever since then, I have been thinking about new, original, complicated, non-ricey ways to mod it. Thanks go mostly to my father, who has financed all of my mods conveniently through Christmas, my birthday, and my graduations. It has been a very bumpy (or rather hilly) process, but I don't regret any of it. I have learned so much about the car and about other life skills (soldering, Epoxy-ing, painting, wiring, Bondo-ing, etc). I have recounted all of my experiences here so that you can hopefully learn something as I have. I hope to inspire you, regardless of what car you own. Please remember to sign my guest book, vote, and rate my ride. If you like what you see, please nominate me for Showoff of the Week and add me to your Friends list! I will be glad to answer any questions you have!
Ok, on to my car .... (the newest stuff is at the bottom).
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March 2004 (when I got the car)
This is what it looked like stock, both before and after I got it fixed from a small fender bender in November 2004 (see below). It was in great shape, even with so many miles. All of the lights/hubcaps were fine, the interior was intact (even though it smelled weird for the longest time), it has a sunroof (although no spoiler or power mirrors!?), and it runs great.
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The very first thing that I did to it was put purple gels over the license plate lights and orange gels over the corner light bulbs. Not much in the way of mods, but it made the car stand out slightly.
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November 2004
Then just before Thanksgiving, I hydroplaned into the hitch of a Suburban at a red light. I was going about 10 mph then, but my brakes and steering gave out. As you can imagine, all the damage was done to my rolla, and I was shaken up. You can see where the bumper hit the square hitch. The bumper pushed up into the headlight, forcing it back, breaking the mounts. I had something to be thankful for, since no one was hurt, and all the damage was to me. Plus, I replaced the bumper by Thanksgiving!
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February 1, 2005
So I was looking for new headlights (since my stock ones broke). I was looking for ones that were the same as stock, only chrome and clear. I found exactly what I was looking for at MatrixRacing.com. I was not using Ebay at this time, so they cost $150 + shipping. I also needed new hubcaps, since one of mine was falling off. I thought that the APC 14 inch teardrop spinners were cool, and they were 50 bucks. I was fortunate enough to receive these as gifts for Christmas. These are my favorite pictures of the result:
Yes, I know that the spinners were ricey, but I liked them, except that I would have liked them better if they spun on the inside. You can also see how clean the paint job is. That didn't last long.
I sold the head lights to slowngreen!
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March 13/14, 2005
Still looking good, but I took apart my spinners so that just the hubcap remains. I found it interesting that the headlights did not leak. As a matter of fact, they were bone dry inside all the way until I replaced them.
By now, I had taken out all of my rotten stock speakers and replaced the back ones with 6 inch dual-cone Pioneers that a friend had lying around, and he installed them for free. At least they are blue. My head unit consisted of the stock radio with a portable CD player adapted in until the beginning of 2008.
You can see the headlight pattern on the garage door. It bothered me that all of that light was not going on the road, but somewhere else! Also, I got tired of the purple, so I took the gels off, plus the two inner taillight bulbs were removed for a sleeker look (I thought it looked cool for a while, anyway).
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April 5, 2005
I had been looking for some nice corner lights that matched my headlights. All that I could find were stock corner lights without the amber in the reflector, but they were not clear like my headlights. I finally found some on Ebay that I liked, and they were also being sold coupled with these headlights, so I got them as a early birthday present. At the time, these lights were rare, but now they are all over Ebay. It looked great, especially with hyper-white 194 bulbs in them. I was also blessed because they did not leak either! So far so good...
And at night
Looking at these pictures now, I see how out of place the stock amber bumper lights were!
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May to August 2005
For my first real project/mod, I installed some blue/amber M3 Mirrors. Actually, a friend gave them to me for free, even though he has a 2001 Mazda Protege. He forgot to give me the vehicle specific piece that mounts the mirror to the car, but it would not have fit, anyway. I used "Erector Set" to mount the mirrors to the car, and it worked pretty well (except that the mirrors did not aim properly). The wiring was easy enough. The blue LEDs were parking lights, and the amber ones were turn signals.
By now, I had gotten the clear bumper lights (RIP- see page 11) and the 3 piece altezza taillights with clear turn signals. I had to paint the part under the taillights, since it comes black. The bumper lights did not leak, but the taillights did. So I got out the clear caulk and sealed them everywhere.
I got pulled over for the blue LED's, so the mirrors went back to stock.
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January 2006
Christmas came and went, and I received many gifts for my car. After a year of having the new headlights, I finally got some blue bulbs for them. They were 7500K, 80 watt GP Thunder bulbs. I was very pleased with them, for they were as bright as stock bulbs, but they were white with a blue tint. The higher wattage did not melt any wires or the aftermarket lights. I upgraded the bulbs in my corners to 18 watt 921 bulbs, also found in the third brake light. They were the same color as the new headlight bulbs, so that looked good. Buy GP Thunder bulbs here
I also got diablo style mirrors with white LEDs that actually fit my car. Unfortunately, one of the mirrors did not work, so I had to exchange them for ones that did work. Also, the LED color was too purple and did not match my other lights. Oh well. Buy mirrors here
But the majority of my gifts came in the form of drop in aftermarket LED bulbs. See page 8 for details. I ended up using these bulbs for the red brake lights on the rear:
I also got a new flasher so that my turn signal would not blink really fast.
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Early 2006
Having the LED bulbs for only a couple of months, I decided to embark on my biggest project yet-- putting permanent LEDs in my bumper turn signal lights. See page 11 for details.
Here is what my car looked like with the new mirrors, light bulbs, and bumper lights. The mirrors in these pics are before I replaced the LEDs in them.
Notice how different all of the "white" colors are. The mirrors are too purple, the bumper lights are too light blue, and the corner lights look a little gray. There are LED bulbs in the back for the the backup, turn signal, and red lights.
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April 2006
Now that my taillight brake lights were all LEDs, I decided to retrofit my third brake light with a panel of red LEDs. See page 12 for details. It looks much better now since the third brake light does not have a red cover anymore, and it is really bright. And those are the outer brake lights with those drop in LED bulbs I mentioned earlier. Not very bright, huh?
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July to August, 2006
I finally got around to replacing the LEDs in my first mirrors with ones that were brighter, bluer, and that had a wider viewing angle. Now, the lights are much better, and the entire lens lights up evenly with the proper LED arrangement. See page 13 for details. This picture is more recent and was taken half a year after I completed the project. Buy mirrors here.
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August 29, 2006
I gave up on my old bumper lights, and when I was going to buy some new ones, I saw a brand new style that looked much better. I got them, with some more drop in LED bulbs (both of which have stopped working). Unfortunately, they leaked a lot. When I blew through the opening for the socket, I could feel air coming out all around the lens. So clear caulk fixed that, and they have not leaked since. Now, I have permanently mounted LEDs in them (see page 16).
Notice how different the lens and reflectors are. The old bumper light lenses have a small checkerboard pattern, but the new ones have horizontal lines. The reflector in the old lights was simply a patternless chrome mirror, but reflector in the new ones have vertical lines in them.
In order to get the bumper lights and mirrors to blink the way I wanted them, I need a special relay system. You see, I wanted them to turn on full brightness with the parking light, and blink with the turn signal, just like the orange driving lights on any car that has them (ie new Corvettes and Chevys). I have seen the other Corolla owners who simply replaced the single intensity bulb and socket with a dual intensity one, but that would not have worked for my mirrors. I do not know how Chevys make their lights do this, my way is something my father and I came up with. Now, I don't have this system anymore, I went to a dual intensity setup because it was less complex.
In addition to new bumper lights, my new projector headlights finally arrived, after the guy "lost the payment" and much more delay. See page 21 for details.
In addition, I found some really good 194 LED drop in bulbs with a color that I liked. I bought 4 pairs of them for my corner lights and headlights. I also tried painting my grille chrome, but it failed miserably, as you can see. It came out as a dark gray that was not mirror-like at all, and the paint fell off as it was hit with road debris.
You can see my new mirror LEDs in these pictures. See how evenly the light comes out of them now. Also notice how everything is the same color! It took me almost a year to achieve that!
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July to November, 2006
I made my LED taillights myself, so check out page 14 for how I did it. At this point, it was the hardest thing I had ever done. Here are some pics, and I am sure that you will never see anything like this on a Corolla again! I also painted the middle piece "chrome" the same way I painted the grille, but it looked fine. This way, it matched the taillights. Of course, the middle piece ended up filled in and painted like the rest of the car (see page 17)
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November to December 2006
At this point, I have had the car for almost 3 years, and it had 210,000 miles on it. It was about time some rust started to show! I was able to fix it all except for the driver's side rear fender. As you can see, here it goes all the way through. These two pictures are of the only bad spots, on both rear fenders.
While I was at it, I decided to paint the door handles, grille, and door trim the same color as my car. I think that it looks tons better this way. I tried clear coating it, but that did not result in a nice gloss.
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November 2006
I finally figured out how I would be able to do a Daytime Running Light high beam mod with relative ease. Of course, it was another of the hardest things I have done, just because of all the mistakes and things that went wrong. About everything went wrong, including melting the headlight lens in a small spot. Just check out page 15 for the entire story. I was doing this before I painted all the primer from the rust fixing, so the hood is still all gray. I used 7500K GP Thunder 9007 bulbs, which have two filaments, one for high beam, and one for low beam. Definitely the bluest DRLs I have seen (until I got my HID fog lights).
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December 15, 2006
I finished painting the exterior from when I primered it. Unfortunately, the paint is not the same color, so now my car looks worse than when I started. At least I did not leave all of the primer gray exposed. I think we can agree that there are too many of those cars as it is. The clear coat I applied was really old and resulted in a cloudy effect (not a good thing). I painted the center piece in the back "chrome," but it did not turn out that great. I also painted the inside of the front grille black, leaving the rest of it beige. I also got some new headlight bulbs for my projectors from -- you guessed it -- 7500K GP Thunder! I got the 100 watt ones (stock is 55 watts), but they have not melted or damaged anything. For some reason, though, they are not anywhere as blue as the other headlight bulbs I have gotten. They weren't very bright, though. HIDs are easily 3 times brighter.
Here is a night picture of my car with the Christmas lights I put on my house. In case you haven't noticed by now, I like lights ;)
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December 24, 2006
I installed blue/black seat covers, floor mats, and a steering wheel cover.
I also added LEDs in the interior lights.
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January, 2007
Finally, some real work has gone on to the exterior. I installed the z3 fenders (used for a really good price), replaced my stock grille with my modified one, and Bondoed everything. Now, the trunk is all one piece (although I did a pretty bad job on it, so it does not look all that great), the pinstripe is filled in, the door bumpers are filled in, the dents are filled in, and the gap between the fenders and the roof is filled in. See page 17 for details. Here are pics right before I drove to Maaco to have it painted. Don't worry, the Bondo project took less than a week to do, so the car did not look like this for very long.
I also finished retrofitting LEDs into my new bumper lights (finally). See page 16 for details.
I finished the lights when the car was getting painted so that I could put them on when I got the car back. I picked "Daytona Blue Effect" from a 2003 Nissan 350z, since it was the best blue color there is. Here it is right out of the paint shop and after I reinstalled all of my lights.
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January 30, 2007
I installed some silver mesh gutter protectors I picked up from Home Depot, plus a muffler tip cover from Walmart. Now, this phase of the exterior is complete!
And at night. I have my mirrors with my own LEDs, my first LED tail lights, GP Thunder blue head light bulbs, LEDs in the head lights, and my LED bumper lights.
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February 4, 2007
For my first performance mod ever, I installed a short ram intake. Actually, my car just needed a new air filter, but I thought what the heck and got one that is washable and will last. Plus, the car responds better and seems to have a little more power. Plus, there is a nice sound coming out from the hood now, like a whooshing/sucking of air noise, plus the throaty growly noise lol. The installation was SO easy, took like 10 minutes tops. Now there is a ton more room over there, too, since the stock air intake snaked all over and took up a lot of room. See page 3 for details.
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June 16, 2007
I found some promising new LED bulbs on Ebay for my headlights that are a lot brighter, and the color is perfect. They are 921 bulbs, so they were too big for the headlights, but I drilled out the holes they go in, and they fit! I did not have to drill out the holes in the corner lights. These bulbs light up the reflectors much better, and the rings are lit up the entire way around!
The old 194 LED bulbs are in the left head light, and the new 921 ones are in the right head light.
Also, as you can see in the pics, I changed my bumper lights and mirrors to a 1157 bright-dim configuration. Before, when they were full brightness, they were too bright, and the LEDs were burning out and flickering. As soon as I dimmed them, they stopped flickering, so now I know why I had problems with all of my 1156 bulbs there. Having the LEDs on full brightness all the time caused them to overheat and fail.
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Summer 2007
I completed painting and decorating the interior (for now, anyway). I painted every piece/carpet except for the ceiling, put LEDs in everything (see page 26), installed an overlay for the AC controls, and a chrome bezel for the gauges. See page 20 for details.
At the same time, I painted several parts black that can't be seen from the outside or the inside. These are the parts that were still gold/beige colored because they only painted the outside. I figured that black goes with any color, so I painted the stuff black. It looks so much nicer than having the gold color there. You can see the result in the picture right above, no more gold in the doors!
I painted the black trim on the outside and inside of the windows, and I painted the doors and door jams black.
I painted inside the gas door black.
I painted the entire trunk black. I sprayed the under side of the trunk lid and the rear windshield black, too.
I painted the wheels black, and I sprayed all underneath of the wheel wells black, too, since they had gotten blue over spray on them.
Next was the inside of the sunroof. Much better now!
All the rest of the pictures are on page 20.
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June 23, 2007
Remember those Z side markers I got in December? Well, I finally finished and installed them. It was very easy, and my turn signal could be seen from the side! See page 18 for details.
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June 30, 2007
And finally, like a dream come true, I got Pilot fog lights with 8000K HID! These lights were a lot wider than my head lights, and the HIDs make them much brighter, too. See page 19 for details. These are very good quality HID. Buy HID here The price dropped $25 dollars since I bought mine.
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August 12, 2007
Since I liked my HIDs in the fog lights, I got some more for my projector low beams. See page 19 for details. Buy HID here
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September 2007
I got some Mercedes style mirror covers for the stock mirrors. They came with blue and amber LEDs, but I put my own in them. See page 22 for details. I was planning on painting them blue when I painted the car next, but alas, these mirrors did not stay on my car that long. The covers did not fit very well, either. Buy them here
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October 2007
When I installed my mirror covers, I also installed the matching chrome door handle covers in order to break up the blue on the side of my car. I really didn't like the way it turned out, since it wasn't clean enough for me, and I didn't like how they looked with my color. So I have removed them when I painted the car again. Buy them here.
I also painted a black strip around the taillights, because I thought it would look better. It didn't do much, but I will make some more LED taillights that look better.
I really like the chrome window strips I got. It really adds the right touch to the windows. I made sure not to chrome all the way around the windows, since I don't think that looks right on any car. Of the three chrome accessories I got, these are the only ones that are still on the outside. Buy them here or go to Advance Auto Parts and get them there.
I also went to AdvanceAutoParts to get new hubcaps to replace my old ones which broke to the point of not staying on anymore. They are too crazy for me, but they were the best hubcaps they had. I'll get black rims w/ a chrome lip eventually. When I was there, I found that they had the same exact chrome product I had put on my windows for a fraction of the price, so that is where I got my chrome strips from then on.
Now, I use my fog lights as daytime running lights.
And at night. At this point, my bumper lights and mirrors lit only with the turn signal, so that they could be seen better past the bright fog lights.
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December 29, 2007
Finally, I finished the Fall semester and was able to get back to work on my car! For Christmas, I got a $100 Walmart gift card, so I got a stereo some front speakers. The stereo was $80, and it is very nice for the price.
I put 5.25 inch Sony Xploids up front, and they make a world of difference!
See page 23 for the installation details.
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January 6, 2008
I installed my amp and sub to complete my stereo. I am very happy with the install and sound, and it adds just what is missing from the other speakers for a balanced sound. The amp was $50 from Walmart, and it is made by VR3. The wiring kit for the amp also came from Walmart. The sub is a Bose I had sitting in my garage, so I used it and it works great. See page 23 for the installation details.
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January 2008
So, a year after my last paint job and round of body work, it was time to do it again! This time, I removed the side markers, added the Erebuni side skirts and rear bumper, customized a 2002 Corolla front bumper and front lip kit, redid all of my old body work (including the trunk), added a BMW rear lip spoiler, changed my mirrors again, and repaired all of the new dents and rust.
Here are pictures of right before I took the car to get painted. The entire car is sanded, the grille is cut out, all of the body work is done, all 4 pieces of the body kit are done, and it is relatively clean.
See page 24 for lots of pictures and details!
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February 12, 2008
Now, it is painted! I installed the mesh, spoiler and mirrors. I removed the third brake light from the window after hooking up the light on the spoiler. I put LEDs in the front turn signals and mirrors (see page 25). I installed the HID fog lights (see page 19). I painted inside the wheel wells black again. I added an LED strip to light up the rear license plate. Pictures:
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March 14, 2008
I added some 5-chip 5mm yellow LEDs to my mirrors to signal to the rear. They are the brightest I have ever seen (see page 25).
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March 2008
I tried some amber LED bulbs for my rear turn signals since white is illegal, and I just hate amber incandescent bulbs. I tried 4 pairs (one not pictured):
and they were all very dim. So, don't buy them!
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July 19, 2008
I finished repainting the interior and adding the LED strips inside. See page 2.
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Don't forget that if you have any help, advice, comments, criticisms, or questions about my car and future mods, please sign my Guest book!
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Table of Contents
My Corolla Today
Page 1: Current Exterior
Page 2: Current Interior
Page 3: Current Engine
Page 4: Current Audio
Corolla Time Lines
Page 5: Phase Time Line
Page 6: Detailed Time Line
Other Stuff
Page 7: Photoshop
Page 8: Look at this page before you buy replacement LED bulbs
Page 9: Details on my current and future mods
Page 10: For Sale!
DIYs and Project Write-ups
Page 11: Bumper light LED retrofit 1
Page 12: Third Brake light LED retrofit
Page 13: Diablo Mirror LED replacement
Page 14: Taillight LED Retrofit 1
Page 15: High Beam DRL Mod
Page 16: Bumper Light LED Retrofit 2, PLUS detailed description of how I do LED mods
Page 17: Painting preparation (details on my fenders, grille, trunk, and Bondo)
Page 18: Side marker LED retrofit and installation
Page 19: HID fog lights and headlights
Page 20: Interior painting, modifications, and exterior trim painting
Page 21: Installing Halo/LED/Projector headlights
Page 22: Mirror cover LED replacement
Page 23: Installing a new stereo and speakers
Page 24: Body kit installation, front end conversion, and other body work for round 2
Page 25: Retrofitting LEDs into my third mirrors and front turn signals
Page 26: Putting interior LEDs behind the dash and in all the buttons and all over the interior
Page 27: LED tail light retrofit 2 and baking your lights in the oven to remove the lens