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 modifications I did fit within the existing design of the car.
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
Another big modification I did was to retrofit
Acura TL projector headlights. The difference between these and
even the H4 replacement 7" sealed beam is literally night and day
(there's no comparison). I sourced my parts from the
The Retrofit Source.
It's a great outfit with knowledgeable, helpful and friendly guys who
are enthusiastic about their products. Definitely recommend them.
My write up on the retrofit
is located here. Here are some photos of the completed
install.
One thing that's noticeable in the above photos
are the custom LED driving lights. For those interested in
duplicating these, here's a
write up showing how to make them
Here are some videos of the turn signals in
operation.
Turn signal video 1
Turn Signal video 2
The last thing I did was to add a third brake
light. 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.
To update the third brake light, I converted it to
LED's. Some
photos and a brief description of how I did it can be found here.
