hey i saw posts about led turn lights and all these other mods and was wondering if anyone had thought of adding lighted aluminum kick plates like the old Z had and a lot of other cars have? I think they would be awesome!

 

perhaps you could give more details on your idea... the turn signals are lit from behind because they are semi transparent, not an option for an aluminum kick plate....

do you mean just have light shine down on them? around them? drill a few holds and put LEDs behind them?

 

i don't mean the rice light looking ones - i just remember maybe it was a bmw m5? when you opened the door behind the bmw m5 emblem (or the Z emblem) it would be lit and you could see the footwells. it was a nice touch. however, i've seen the lit kick plates on hondas/acuras and such and those look ricey and cheap. i don't know i guess they are rice but so's adding leds to the turn signals. do you really need led's there? no but you like how it looks...

 

Make the Z transparent and have that light up... who knows how easy it is.

 

since its aluminum, itd be impossible.... you could remove it altogether...

I think Im just gonna say bad idea for this whole thing.

 

Eh.. electical fire.. no biggie.

 

Unless you had the recipe for transparent aluminum. Scotty, where are you?

 

I think he's referring to something like some of the Mercedes cars have... the kick plate is aluminum, but the logo is milled out and a pice of frosted lexan is in it's place flush mounted... the lexan is backlit when the door opens. looks great IMO.

 

exactly n74dv! not the rice transparent plates but the aluminum w/ milled out logo. hmm i bet there's a picture of it somewhere... just imagine ur aluminum kickplate but the Z lights up and there's like 3 square dots (to continue the Z theme) on each side of the logo that light up. I think it would look nice!

 

i have seen that on a CLK 430 it looks sweet. If someone could make them similaiar to the CLK (versus the cheesy honda 1's) it would look sweet.

 

I have access to a complete prototyping shop w/vac-former - the only question I've got - what material do they make the panels on those upper end models? I've never seen the Mercedes ones except for pics, but where's the light source, and what material are they? If its lexan - than I have no idea where I could get a hold of some on short notice... Things that make you go hmmmmmmmm... Could it work with brushed plexiglass possibly, and still look okay? Also, lighting concerns - does there need to be an indentation made on the side to allow access to this piece?

Let me know, I might be able to just cast the mold with my trim plates - cut it out - might only take an hour to make it. (not sure how trim plates r mounted in there though).



-Dave

 

Another look -

I checked out the aluminum panel on my car - and it looks like its just embedded in there, probably held in with plastic tabs or something. I thought it was more prominent. But, what I came up with that might work is simply rebuilding that panel out of plexiglass, milling off the Z emblem and then drilling out the little indentations that give it that cool Z look.

I am still trying to figure out how to remove that piece - if anyone knows offhand, please let me know. I don't have a garage where I can just keep my car, so I have to do any work in an apartment complex parking lot, pain in the a$$.

The best idea I've come up with is to just replace this aluminum piece with a plexiglass piece, and then paint the underside of it aluminum colored (or color match to the exterior color), and then run a small neon or low profile bulbs on the sides to light up the panel as the door opens, just pull a line off the interior lights.

Give me your ideas - I think this would be an awesome mod to anyone looking to do show circuit, and I doubt it'd cost very much once I made one to make more for people by request.

Till next time,

Dave