Jennifur

Hi All,
Was thinking of changing all the interior dash bulbs from the old style incandescent 194 bulbs to LED style 194 replacement bulbs,
I know you can get color changing LED bulbs, or RED, BLUE, CLEAR, YELLOW, GREEN, etc. or various colors or buy them in pairs, or a dozen in a pack etc.
So has anyone taken this challenge on in the past? If so, Has it come out as you expected? Exceeded your expectations? Left you upset? Fell short of expectations? Underwhelming or overwhelming?
If you did change over to LED Dash Lights, Did you use
RED for the whole dash, Green for Turn Signal indication lights and clear for the center dash / console where the A/C and Heater, fan speed and temp ***** are? Or did you do ALL white / clear LED's across the board and let the lenses of the dash project the correct back light color like the normal incandescent lights currently do from the factory?

Currently some of my bulbs which are the factory 194 incandescent bulbs are blown and out and its very difficult to see things such as the fuel gauge and temp gauges and such because those bulbs are out and relying on adjacent bulbs to illuminate those particular gauges and parts of the dash and basically its not bright enough and needs those dead bulbs to be replaced and since I count about 8 or 9 bulbs that are blown and out, I can get a box of 10-12-20 LED bulbs from Amazon for anywhere from 10 bucks to 25 bucks depending on which bulbs, how bright they are, how many there are in the box, etc. So if anyone has done this before, What did you do to get a super impressive dash in your ride?
Thank you ion advance..............

Jennifur

quiet_storm98

iTrader: (48)

Its been done many times...i bought my bulbs from superbrightleds. If its a camaro they have a bluish tint on the gauges already so white leds will give you the light bluish light i have. Firebirds/trans am's have a red tint on their gauges.

Jennifur

Ohhh Cool you did your steering wheel controls too?
Did you have to put any sort of resistor in the wiring because the LED's take next to no power to illuminate vs the 194 mono filament bulbs from yesteryear similar to the turn signals and brake lights that act wonky and the car thinks the lights are out and flasher will make the lights blink too fast because it thinks the light bulb is out?
Or does it just plug in and work correctly without any additional nonsense?
Also, how many bulbs or in this case LED's do you need to get everything replaced from the dash to the center console to everywhere else on the dash, under the dash for kick panel lights, globe box lights, everything? Just so I know how many to purchase?
Thank you for the quick reply, greatly appreciated.............

Jenni

Kfxguy

iTrader: (1)

you dont need any resisters when converting to led. The only time its an issue is when doing turn signal bulbs on the outside of the car because the flasher will flash real fast when it has a lesser load like a blown incandescent bulb or swapped in led bulbs. The fix for that is an electric flasher.

quiet_storm98

iTrader: (48)

The leds i bought for the dash, climate control, and headlight switch were all plug in and go but if i remember correctly they may have had little built in resistors on them. The steering wheel ones had to be soldered in and i had to solder in some resistors. There is a thread somewhere on here that tells you what bulb sizes you need to replace everything but you would have to search for it.

JimMueller

iTrader: (9)

I just ordered my dash lights for my '98 Camaro (I do not have steering wheel controls) a few days ago from superbrightleds and they should arrive today. I recall reading that the factory clusters have a translucent plastic sheet between the bulb and the front of the cluster; If you want to change the color of the light on the front of the cluster you have to remove that plastic and then you can use your preferred bulb color in that area, else you can just use white. However, it's difficult to change the HVAC lights without damaging the icons. Superbrightled's has a vehicle search feature where you can lookup bulb sizes for additional areas of the vehicle. I should have more detail within a few days.

This is what should arrive today:
---snip---
superbrightleds.com

Cluster (161 style, includes new sockets):
2 x 194-GHP5-PC (green, turn signals) @$5.95
1 x 194-BHP5-PC (blue, high beam) @$5.95
5 x 194-NWHP5-PC (Natural 4100K) @$5.95

Headlight switch:
1 x NEO3-NWHP @$1.79

HVAC (x2) and door (x2) (74 style):
4 x 74-NWHP3 (Natural 3800K) @$1.95
---snip---

Other light upgrades:
---snip---
theretrofitsource.com
Cargo (installed):
1 x Morimoto Festoon XB LED 2.0 44mm @$15

Map lights (I haven't installed these, difficulty cleanly removing OEM bulbs):
2 x Morimoto T10/194 XB LED (White) @$10
---snip---

Additional info from someone who added footwell lights; I didn't do this.

---snip---
Front footwell:
2 x 194 pigtail harnesses
2 x Morimoto T10/194 XB LED (White) @$10
For my foot well lighting I used 2 194 pigtail harnesses I had in the garage. Then again used the xb t10 bulbs. I found a suitable place in the lower dash covers to cut the right size hole to twist the sockets in. Made a harness, ran the positives and negatives together. Took those 2 wires and spliced into the map light wiring so they operated the same as the map and cargo lights. One wire goes to the blue/white wire, the other goes to the white wire. It doesnt matter which one goes to what.
This was a quick job due to lack of time, so all I did was remove the driver a-pillar trim because I knew the rear view mirror harness was there. You will see the blue and white wires. If you remove the headlight switch, which cake easy, you can easily route the 2 wires up through the dash from the foot well.

The proper way would have been to go to the source at the bcm. I didnt have the to time to research the courtesy light schematic though to see how the whole circuit is designed. So the a pillar wires were a sure thing. Plus the all the leds pull way less amps than the incandesents they replace, so its safe.

There is a black wire which you would assume was the ground, its not for the light though. The black wire only grounds out the switch to turn the map lights on with the buttons.
---snip--

95blackm6

Yup, total pain in the ***, had to solder all of the LED's into the factory bulb holder on my 93'.

cancam99ss

iTrader: (8)

Thank you

ddnspider

iTrader: (26)

I think I bought a pack of 25- 194 LED's with built in resistors off amazon for $10 lol.

cancam99ss

iTrader: (8)

have a link?

ddnspider

iTrader: (26)

I just searched 194 LED blue and a ton of options came up.

ddnspider

iTrader: (26)

Thank you $10 and Amazon. And like 18 bulbs left over. Literally couldn't really see anything prior with the original stuff.

sjsingle1

iTrader: (1)

I have done my dash ....as well as my entire interior in LED

for the instrument cluster use red....white just washes everything out..........do NOT use a blue led in the high beam........its so bright it is very very very distracting

white in the A/C cluster washes out again....use red

The Guz

iTrader: (8)

I have LEDs in the interior as well as the exterior. I wanted to not have the bluish tint that a typical white LED has so I chose to go with warm white.

capelajc

The warm white looks nice and bright without being too much

The Guz

iTrader: (8)

It gives the closest look to the factory color.

SteveC

Wow they are way to bright for me.

DeLaRosa25

iTrader: (10)

Spamfritter

iTrader: (1)

Your car has exactly 79 miles more than mine in that image.

Good information here. I've been tackling mechanical stuff in the car, but I'm getting to a point where I can start looking at doing things like this.