Originally Posted by Acree
I definitely never meant to tantalize and dissatisfy your donkey. Please forgive the elitist attitude. I've been doing this type of work, admittedly at a low volume, for 8 years now. I've completed conversions for G35, FX35, 350Z, Evo 8/9, Evo X and a couple of other platforms. I will be completing my first GTR next weekend. I have a BSEE and have worked on military avionics and chassis wiring at a leading defense contractor. Time and time again I've seen people come in to threads and want a DIY. The simple fact is a conversion like this involves many relatively physically and electrically sensitive components which are very easy to damage and costly to replace. Of course, there are a few components in the interior that are nothing more LED swaps. Desolder the old LED, solder in the new one, and done. But in reality, it's really not that simple. There are many things that need to be done to ensure the existing contacts are never damaged, the existing contacts are ready to receive the new LEDs, and that the swap will last the life of the car. That's just a single LED swap without regards for resistor values, voltage regulators, color spectrum of the LED, package sizes, ensuring color matching between LED packages, accounting for the material composition of the component and it's effects on color and brightness, etc. Then there are times where the stock component has been designed with a filament bulb instead of an LED. The way that LEDs emit light is drastically different from incandescent, so you have a laundry list of considerations for brightness, hot spots, coloring, electrical, packaging, etc. The heated seat buttons, a couple of the switches, and the manual A/C controls all have to have LEDs retrofitted into the existing component. The gauge faces and gauge cluster substrate have to drastically altered to get perfectly even lighting and multiple colors like what I have in my avatar.
A true DIY for this car would be a 14 hour long video of me completing a single conversion. Even if I supplied all of the parts, there is literally zero chance of someone with little to no experience in these matters completing a full conversion with the exact same results without breaking a contact, having an LED short out after a week, or even ruining a board. There is just too much going on at this level to fully enable an inexperienced person to achieve the same results without risk on my part, and theirs. That's not even considering that there are some of these things that one could consider "trade secrets."
All of that being said, I look to become a sponsor here in the near future. Very shortly I will be offering this as a service through shipping where people can send me their parts and I will ship them back, or even a core swap program. This will work for everything but the gauge cluster. With the mileage being stored in the cluster, this requires downtime on the part of the customer. For some, this is not an option. Changing the mileage in the cluster requires very expensive ($4000+) equipment and opens the door for all kinds of potential legal issues. I have a different project I am currently working on for this platform that will be released in the next couple of weeks that should blow away every other option for this car. Once that is completed, I will be focusing on conversions.
-Acree
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