[rosscarlson]

Guys,

My local track, HPR, is going to start night lapping this season. Rules are simple, no track lights so it's up to you to have proper lights on your car. I'm going to look at adding an LED light bar to the front (one of the rally style ones) but I'm wondering if I could get creative in some way with some LEDs.

I've had a few thoughts - the problem is everything I think of is just lame/ricey and that's a deal breaker. One idea was to line the engine bay with LEDs that would be linked to a controller linked to the tach. As the revs climb the LEDs go from dim red to bright white. I'm trying to visualize how this would look from the pits - seeing my car going down the straight with the engine bay lighting up as I go through the gears. You could "see" the revs as well as hear them. Another idea would be something similar to that with LEDs under the car instead of the engine bay.

Any ideas that don't fit in the "headrests in the seats" genre?? Part of me thinks since I really "use" the car the way it was intended, and therefore it isn't ricey buys me the ability to do something like this - or does it in fact make it worse?

So anyone have any ideas? I could also put some small LEDs on the wing tips, one red one green like an airplane!!

-Ross

 

[Motard]

I'm not laughing man.

I think that could look really cool if done correctly. I mean after all we are talking about plastic toymachines !

I could see some orange lights in the engine bay would look kinda sick actually at night. Sure it ain't the classy, but well I love the quasi raw hotwheels aspects of these cars anyway. That is why people love to take pictures of them.

I could throw it all on a switch so only on Friday/ Saturday or game nights you could throw your colors!

Where could I find LED's ? I would really want a saturated orange color myself ! The Rev matching idea is very VEGAS !

 

[cyow5]

I believe there several threads on here about interior and accent lighting. Some of the interior stuff looks awesome (read: practical and clean)


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[jjdrivesajazz]

i'm not sure why you would need LED's in your engine bay or interior, you really just need a forward light bar to light up the road, and some distinct LED's on the side of the windshield pillar for your team to recognize you when you're far away

 

[rosscarlson]

I'm not laughing man.

I think that could look really cool if done correctly. I mean after all we are talking about plastic toymachines !

I could see some orange lights in the engine bay would look kinda sick actually at night. Sure it ain't the classy, but well I love the quasi raw hotwheels aspects of these cars anyway. That is why people love to take pictures of them.

I could throw it all on a switch so only on Friday/ Saturday or game nights you could throw your colors!

Where could I find LED's ? I would really want a saturated orange color myself ! The Rev matching idea is very VEGAS !

Oh laugh away my friend, laugh away. The little kid in me wants to figure out something here but the 40 years old in me is keeping me from coming up with something interesting.

i'm not sure why you would need LED's in your engine bay or interior, you really just need a forward light bar to light up the road, and some distinct LED's on the side of the windshield pillar for your team to recognize you when you're far away

You're missing the point - sure, that's easy enough to do for visibility and if you reread my post you'll see that's exactly what I'm planning for the front of the car. For this post I'm talking about doing something cool or outlandish with lights that would make folks in the pits go "ooooooh". It would definitely be switched so I'd only turn it on at specific times as I wouldn't want to risk distracting another driver and causing an issue.

Part of me what's to build something like this just for the fun of building it - but I'd love to come up with an interesting thing, if possible, to do.

So please laugh away but come up with some crazy ideas while you're laughing, I might just do it. I never thought I'd so something as stupid as own my supercharged beast so you never know what I'll do!

 

[Frank Amoroso]

No

 

[Frank Amoroso]

...no,

 

[Frank Amoroso]

And... No.

 

[Frank Amoroso]

The aforementioned 3,000 words notwithstanding, you could light the engine bay...

White under ~5k RPM
Yellow under ~6k RPM
Orange under ~7k RPM
Red above that.

Only problem is, apart from the front straight, will spectators be able to see anything? I mean, the Exige engine bay isn't as viewable as say an R8's.

Then you gotta ask yourself, how douchey are you being to the other drivers, I mean how much "more" douchey are you being to the other drivers than you normally are? I bet you anything bright enough to put on the kind of peacock feather show you're contemplating will get you black flagged / nixed by race control.

You could try and emulate something like this...
IMSA | TUDOR United SportsCar Championship | Class Markings & Specifications
...seems more legit than your Tuner setup (don't forget the Tire Flys!).

Actually, the smartest / coolest thing to do would be to have all of your graphics / livery redone in reflective material. That's where its at.

 

[bri3d]

I love the reflective livery look.

If you're going to do the engine bay I think some F1 tach-style strips up the sides of the Exige engine mesh grille could be really cool, with green starting at the lower corners of the bay and then a strip going up the sides changing through yellow/orange and meeting across the top with redline.

I'm not sure how they'd work out on the track, though - either you're distracting yourself from driving by thinking about when to turn on your lights or you're distracting the drivers behind you by having them going all the time.

They might be cool for a video shoot or two though. You could have someone shoot you going down the back straight at HPR from the highway and get a pretty good show out of that.

 

[SCamper]

Hi.

Like this? I like the grills, but not the wheels.

-Alex

 

[metrocube]

Guys,

My local track, HPR, is going to start night lapping this season. Rules are simple, no track lights so it's up to you to have proper lights on your car.

I'd love to see what you end up with in regards to forward lights.

I've been to a few 24 Hrs of Lemons races, and everyone ends up driving by the lights of the car in front of them instead of their own lights.

 

[Kamsden]

How about red?

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[Vulcan Grey]

pixelstick

Light painting with pixelstick on Vimeo

 

[ERP]

I like the concept, and I would love to see your car pimped out with fun LEDs at night, but I think in this case the idea is better than reality could ever be.

You should have Phil write you a night tune which runs rich and shoots copious amounts of fire out the exhaust. It would look and sound V:

Or, if you wanted to take it a step further. Put a properly sized, thin LED TV in the window and have it continuously play flames. It would certainly get everyone's attention when you are running sub 2 minute laps and the cockpit looks like it is on fire.

 

[rosscarlson]

I like the concept, and I would love to see your car pimped out with fun LEDs at night, but I think in this case the idea is better than reality could ever be.

I think you're completely right as I just can't come up with anything that I think would be cool and not get laughed at. I suppose I'll just go with putting a big ass LED bar on the front and get attention by lapping everyone day or night. The 16 year old in me that wanted to put ground effects on his 1984 Honda Accord promised himself one day he'd so something like that. Fortunately I suppose I have grown up some.

Most likely the idea will die with this thread, I just figured it was worth a thread and perhaps some laughs!

 

[Bane]

 

[rosscarlson]

Part of me thinks that's cool as sh!t - meaning the tech that powers it. But of course the part of me that has some taste sees this and wants to puke. I can't imagine seeing something like that going down the track.

And honestly that's probably the best reply to this post as in some ways I'd never do something that "advanced" - and if my reaction to that was "ugh" the reaction from most in the pits is going to be the same - "ugh". And so with that the idea is now dead, thanks for playing everyone...

 

[ERP]

Most likely the idea will die with this thread...

Maybe not. It would be fun to get everyone on board with a 4th of July or Halloween night rally where all the cars are decked out.

 

[Grunschev]

I was thinking about how some endurance series indicate which driver is in the car with the two blue lights on the side. Those lights aren't that big, it could almost be done in a subtle way. But now that you've bailed on the concept I won't bother to bring it up.