In my opinion GM did a near-perfect job of designing the 1970-73 Camaros
(no offense to the 74-81 guys). There's not much room for improvement.
People who try to alter the original design usually end up worse off in my
opinion. Given that,
the exterior of my Camaro is 99% stock appearing. It turns a lot of
heads the way it is in near-stock trim, so I figure, hey why mess with it? The only changes
that were made (aside from the wheels) were the color (1998 Dodge Intense
Blue), the body-colored
front spoiler, and a modification to the tail lights. Since GM
masterfully incorporated Corvette style tail lights onto the back of the
70-73 Camaros, I decided to take it one step further and have dual turn
signal lights like the Vettes. This meant deleting the back up
lights, but to me it's worth it.
I also decided it was time to bring the tail
lights into the 21st century, so I undertook a complete conversion to
LED lighting.
I documented
how I did it in this write up. It uses off-the-shelf
parts and the factory tail light lenses and can be done for less than
$100 if using the original tail lens hardware off the vehicle.
Below are the results:
Video of
Left Turn Signal
Video of
Right Turn Signal
A couple other things I did were to add a third brake light and higher
power halogen headlights. The 1987-1993 notch-back Mustangs had just
the brake light assembly I was looking for. It gives a factory look
along with additional safety from people who may otherwise rear end me.
The headlights look just like the factory, but are updated
with halogen technology. To get the most out of them though, I
bought a Painless headlamp harness. Utilizing relays like the ones
below, they take the headlights off the main vehicle circuitry and allows
them to draw power from the battery independently. Here's where I
mounted the relays.
