Many of you may wonder about some of the eye-catching elements in my headlights over the years. The LED passion obsession started in 2009 for me, and took three years and six pairs of headlamps for me to realize: stop wasting time and money.

But I was convinced!  The tech to build DIY LED headlights was out there, I would say to myself over and over. For context, this was after I had already spent much time in 2007-2008 upgrading to HID low-beams and stripping the middle element of the headlights (the chrome shroud) out completely.

 

But what style to pursue? Here are some of the 10-plus iterations of my custom headlights. Do I recommend it for anyone else? No!!! Save yourself the time, burned hands, fogged lamps and wasted money. DIY LEDs are fun, but only for a few weeks. Then the inevitable burn-outs come.

And when you hard-plant the LEDs into the headlamp, there is no bulb switch possible. That means another full removal, dis-assembly, baking process, re-build, re-bake, re-install. Nightmare.

 

Electrical faults and gremlins start appearing all over the car’s system, and the silicone sealant needed to stick them back together is — I am quite sure of this — the nastiest, stickiest and hardest-to-remove element on the periodic table.

I do not recommend any of these. Most of them never made it onto the car. But for info’s sake:

— Custom quad projectors used a few donor Infiniti J30 lighting elements.

— Light boards used super-bright interior light boards as the headlight accent.

Looks terrible, like a bad n*SYNC music video set.

You’re All I ever wanted…. Baby

You’re All I ever needed… Yea-ahhh

So tell me what to do, now — cause

I. Want. A….

Black-Panamera-Turbo!

— All terrible. Do not bake your headlights and start attempting a glamorous DIY soolution. It is a constant battle then to keep them even functional — let alone stylish. You will be scoffed-at my Saturn Ion drivers, and receive more tickets than a Caprice Classic on Donk’s.

In this case, both aftermarket and DIY lighting attempts will almost never make us think that clattering old F-150 or Ram is a BMW 335i or a Cayenne Turbo.

The quad-points of 3W LEDs making a box around projector are still my favorite, but are a major PITA to wire and keep functional.

Once one of the quad points on each side had blown, the car looks ridiculous and power to all had to be snipped.