Lights out - smoked vinyl covered corners and tails
11-03-2009, 10:29 AM
#17
Rennlist Member
Thread Starter
92% Light Transmission
Thanks for everyone comments. It was a fun experiment, and a good excuse to play around with the look of the car. As Porschephiles, even small changes can throw us for a loop... we're trained to love aero mirrors, clear corner lights, and cup 1s...
Personally I don't like "clear" corner lights, the three big white square blocks on the front corner of each bumper make the 964 look dated... I wish the lights would have been designed just a bit smaller, say 7/8 scale. From this sentiment, came the idea of using black to reduce the size of the chunky lights. The lights are fully functional, yet due to the black covering it's size is visually greatly reduced and the beautiful uninterrupted silhouette of the car comes to the fore (Lonnie, could you rewrite that in your eloquent prose?).
No right or wrong here, just my frame of mind for this experiment. I will say, the car looks pretty "frecking" menacing sitting in a dark garage!
As others have said, I'm sure it looks better on some colors than others... I'd love to see it on a black car?! That would really blend-in with the car's gorgeous silhouette.
To answer some questions:
My source was from ebay - a screaming deal at $15 for 9' (by 15").
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...1839&viewitem=
At that price and with 9' to play with it was too cheap of a project to not experiment with...
This was not a kit, just a long 9' x 15" sheet. With that much material, it's very easy to take out all of the lights and lay one at a time on the vinyl as a template.
There are various dark tint levels, I bought mine from a different vendor: (here's text from an ebay store)
What are Metrorestyling's lense film ratings?
Blue Film: 80% Light Transmission
Light Blue Film: 90% Light Transmission
Smoke (Dark) Film: 78% Light Transmission
Smoke (Light) Film: 92% Light Transmission
Yellow Film: 78% Light Transmission
Light Yellow Film: 90% Light Transmission
Remember you're looking at low-res digi pics. In real life, you can see the lights really well...
I purchased the light smoke film, hoping to reduce light transmission by just a little bit (92% light transmission). Looking at the lights straight on (and even to the side), there doesn't seem to be any large lumen reduction? I can see the orange of the turn single through the vinyl, actually the vinyl highlights the checker pattern of the reflectors, gives it a dark orange carbon fiber look... To those concerned, definitely order light smoke tint.
ilko brings up a great point about the size of our brake lights. They are amazingly small (for a car with such huge potential for speed). When you look at the rear light bar on a 964, you'd think it would have HUGE brake lights, not something this big []... Even before tinting, I had already checked out ilko web site for a parts listing/DIY (ilko, you brought it up, now fix that web site http://www.rennsportamerica.com/ =;>) In regards to safety, we should all do this mod!
In a way I think the brake/turn signal lights are more noticeable this way. Lit up, the color of the lights have a greater contrast to the black vinyl than an all red light bar. (see picture below) I contend that it's just as easy to see 90% of a red light on a black background, then a small red light on a long red bar... who knows?
Come on, $15....
Note: If you don't want to cover your turn/brake lights (understood), you could "experiment" with just covering the center reflector (body color or a cool looking carbon weave).
Hey Gary (gr1275),
Thanks for the comment. It's my first time playing with vinyl, so the 3 foot rule applies here in some spots. Unlike the great 964 "red" kit offered elsewhere on this site, I following my own directions which included a couple beers during installation. I'll probably order some more vinyl and perfect those areas later. Still deciding... Hope to see you and the rest of the crew at Saturday's Cars and Coffee? We'll see if the crowd flames me... My brother is coming to town, so we hope to do C&C on Saturday and maybe, maybe this on Sunday (I'm a little scared!): http://forums.pelicanparts.com/911-9...bopalooza.html
PS: Suspension is coming next year... I'd love it lowered an inch or two, but for now it drives so well and I have no speed bump or driveway issues at all!
Thanks everyone! It was a fun experiment. Now on to my mirror project... I love 964s!
Personally I don't like "clear" corner lights, the three big white square blocks on the front corner of each bumper make the 964 look dated... I wish the lights would have been designed just a bit smaller, say 7/8 scale. From this sentiment, came the idea of using black to reduce the size of the chunky lights. The lights are fully functional, yet due to the black covering it's size is visually greatly reduced and the beautiful uninterrupted silhouette of the car comes to the fore (Lonnie, could you rewrite that in your eloquent prose?).
No right or wrong here, just my frame of mind for this experiment. I will say, the car looks pretty "frecking" menacing sitting in a dark garage!
As others have said, I'm sure it looks better on some colors than others... I'd love to see it on a black car?! That would really blend-in with the car's gorgeous silhouette.
To answer some questions:
My source was from ebay - a screaming deal at $15 for 9' (by 15").
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...1839&viewitem=
At that price and with 9' to play with it was too cheap of a project to not experiment with...
This was not a kit, just a long 9' x 15" sheet. With that much material, it's very easy to take out all of the lights and lay one at a time on the vinyl as a template.
There are various dark tint levels, I bought mine from a different vendor: (here's text from an ebay store)
What are Metrorestyling's lense film ratings?
Blue Film: 80% Light Transmission
Light Blue Film: 90% Light Transmission
Smoke (Dark) Film: 78% Light Transmission
Smoke (Light) Film: 92% Light Transmission
Yellow Film: 78% Light Transmission
Light Yellow Film: 90% Light Transmission
Remember you're looking at low-res digi pics. In real life, you can see the lights really well...
I purchased the light smoke film, hoping to reduce light transmission by just a little bit (92% light transmission). Looking at the lights straight on (and even to the side), there doesn't seem to be any large lumen reduction? I can see the orange of the turn single through the vinyl, actually the vinyl highlights the checker pattern of the reflectors, gives it a dark orange carbon fiber look... To those concerned, definitely order light smoke tint.
ilko brings up a great point about the size of our brake lights. They are amazingly small (for a car with such huge potential for speed). When you look at the rear light bar on a 964, you'd think it would have HUGE brake lights, not something this big []... Even before tinting, I had already checked out ilko web site for a parts listing/DIY (ilko, you brought it up, now fix that web site http://www.rennsportamerica.com/ =;>) In regards to safety, we should all do this mod!
In a way I think the brake/turn signal lights are more noticeable this way. Lit up, the color of the lights have a greater contrast to the black vinyl than an all red light bar. (see picture below) I contend that it's just as easy to see 90% of a red light on a black background, then a small red light on a long red bar... who knows?
Come on, $15....
Note: If you don't want to cover your turn/brake lights (understood), you could "experiment" with just covering the center reflector (body color or a cool looking carbon weave).
Hey Gary (gr1275),
Thanks for the comment. It's my first time playing with vinyl, so the 3 foot rule applies here in some spots. Unlike the great 964 "red" kit offered elsewhere on this site, I following my own directions which included a couple beers during installation. I'll probably order some more vinyl and perfect those areas later. Still deciding... Hope to see you and the rest of the crew at Saturday's Cars and Coffee? We'll see if the crowd flames me... My brother is coming to town, so we hope to do C&C on Saturday and maybe, maybe this on Sunday (I'm a little scared!): http://forums.pelicanparts.com/911-9...bopalooza.html
PS: Suspension is coming next year... I'd love it lowered an inch or two, but for now it drives so well and I have no speed bump or driveway issues at all!
Thanks everyone! It was a fun experiment. Now on to my mirror project... I love 964s!
Last edited by 911Jetta; 11-03-2009 at 02:57 PM. Reason: text
