My Transformer and LED light obsessed build

[nicave13@gmail.com]

With my old wheels I had the GM silver Transformer Autobot logo's. I wanted my car to express my love of Transformers and remain factory appearing so I mimicked the factory Transformer Edition, currently a $1500 package!!! After all, I was happy with my 97 black on black Trans Am before the movie came out, Transformers Unite!!!

So with the new chrome wheels the silver GM center caps weren't gonna work. So I made my own!!! I used outdoor quality vinyl decals and applied to the chrome center caps. They turned out awesome!!! The chrome is in the background and only the black part is the decal. Plus the logo is twice the size!!

[pannhead51]

Wow, a lot of this is way over the top for me although I will be stealing lots of your ideas and doing similar mods in a more subtle way ..Great stuff, keep posting and thanks for the inspiration !!

[Les7311]

.....well "did".....

[nicave13@gmail.com]

This was one of the easiest, yet most frustrating projects I have ever undertaken. Originally the goal was to just re-paint and clear coat under the hood like the factory should have done it. Well being me I always have to make it unique and different so I was going to add the stripe on the underside of the hood. This should of been easy, but read along, it became quite the job.

The first step was removing the hood, cleaning it and sanding/scuffing it to be ready for paint. Well I found some rough edges and a decal that needed fixing while I was cleaning it up. Easy.

Next was painting the black on and designing the stripes on the bottom to match the top. I had to do this all by measuring or eyeballing it top to bottom to match my factory stripes. First issue, factory Rally stripes are flat black or almost matte. I bought some flat clear coat, but I kept thinking how hard it would be to clear coat the stripes separately and why be dull if I didn't have too??? What finally made the decision, I banged the stripe into a bolt and put a second nick in it. It had to go. I was so annoyed and knew it would be a huge pain to replace stripes, but I didn't know the half of it.

After black was down and stripes masked off it was time to fix the orange. It took an entire 12 oz can to make it look all nice and solid. After un-masking the black areas they needed some fine detailing which I did with a nice black marker I always use when painting black.

Then it was time for clear coat, 3 coats on the entire hood, with spray cans!!! Very tricky to do and I did get some runs in the black. I could wet sand out, but I'm happy with the results for now.

Next it was time to work on the windshield squirter bracket, a boring rough plastic deal strapped to bottom of hood. I could have just left it black and rough, but I wanted it to blend in. So I fill primered and sanded smooth. Then I painted on the orange, masked off the stripes and painted black. Un-masked and clear coated. It turned out even better than the hood!!!

I then masked off and painted and cleared factory hinges on the car. Easier to paint on, then remove front bumper and both fenders.

Bottom done it was time to remove the factory stripes. Impressively I removed all of them each in one piece. But they did leave residue, so out came rubbing compound and 2 hours later they looked nice and clean. Now on to stripes...

Bought first set of ebay, $70 3 mm thick 3M gloss black. Came with wrinkles in hood piece every time they shipped it to me, 3 stripes total, so I got a full refund. I also practiced installing with bad ones. Trunk took 2 tries, and was done, but hood kept getting wrinkles...

Next I ordered a $110 stripe that was 2 mm thick and had clear top material. I thought that it would be easier to install... Well I didn't even come close, mostly cause it was December and 40 degrees... Material stuck to itself and it was all done. I always do wet installs.

Figured stripe wasn't problem, but me so I took to a local vinyl stripe installer, Team Acme in LV. Boy did they F it up. Not only did it have wrinkles, scrape marks in decal they scratched up the ENTIRE hood and fenders while installing. Like really guys??? Jeans and leaning all over car!!! I did a better job and didn't scratch up everything. I didn't pay them, obviously, and had them pay Chevy to wet sand and buff out all their damage. Ugh...

So at this point I had spent $220 on the quality stripes and I only had rear stripes, from the fist kit. Before all this I had contacted a local place, Warrior Wraps, who had a great sales guy but price seemed high. Boy was I wrong, they only charged me $120 for front stripe installed. But it took them printing 4 stripes, 5 visits and 2 installed to get it right. But they stuck it out and made it right in the end. I essentially designed the stripes with the guy from the ground up. Started straight, then squared off and finally narrowing and rounded fronts. WHEW!!!

Last step I installed the Transformer words back on the new stripes, they are off ebay, $15, and took me about an hour. Second round on this so no problem.

So finally I got 2 cans a clear, 1 flat black, 1 IOM, primer, sand paper, masking, $235 in stripes, $120 in install and one friggin awesome hood!!! =D


Pictures show dirty original hood, cleaned and ready for paint, black and masked for stripes, done in house, painted hinges, painted squirter piece, un-striped car, trunk striped, finished under hood, first wrong stripes, good stripes and final with Transformer word.

[KSX]

Wow looks fantastic!!! Great job

[MackMan]

Holy crap that looks awesome man! Great job!

[nicave13@gmail.com]

Thank you both!

Mackman, special thanks! I gotta keep up, right?

Originally Posted by MackMan

Holy crap that looks awesome man! Great job!

[MackMan]

Originally Posted by nicave13@gmail.com

Thank you both!

Mackman, special thanks! I gotta keep up, right?

You're way ahead of me. I look to you for ideas on my LEDs and stuff. Your car is one of my favorites!

[nicave13@gmail.com]

Sometimes its the simple things in life that make me happy This short little project was super easy and I love the result! I basically wanted to trick out my silly Transformers license plate frame. I coulda gone crazy making it orange and black or lining perimeter with RGB LED's, etc!!! But this is the outside of my car, and believe it or not, I go for stealth

I removed the TM logo after Formers and sanded smooth. I then painted black, leaving chrome letters. Then I was like, I'm Mr. LED I gotta do something!!! I ended doing just the eyes of the Autobot logo in red. Blue is illegal and I still had an extra tiny 3 way LED. I drilled and cut out eyes perfect and put LED behind. I always drive with my parking lights and orange halo's on so I wired to license plate lights.

Works and looks great!!! Bright enough for day but looks killer at night

First pic is stock, then showing my finished work

[Vengeance Graphix]

Awesome work you've put into your camaro! looks great!

[nicave13@gmail.com]

If you the viewer has read all 5 pages of my thread up till now you have realized I have a lot of time on my hands. Well after all the painting I figured I could paint up a little version of my car to match. Got a used 1/18 red model of the Concept Camaro used on E-bay cheap. It took me over 6 months, as I am always working on other projects. In fact I started a picture blog on Facebook,

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?s...0410104&type=1

and my Mom started following along on my progress. So much so that in secret I started making her one as well. It started orange and was a 1/24 scale, see last pictures. Hers came orange and being smaller and having learned a couple tricks went very quickly. I gave it to here on Christmas and it sits all lite up every day on her desk at work.

With my little car, and hers, I went through detail by detail. I had to paint the seats 2-tone to match. Add the orange to the dash, gauges, door panels, radio, etc!!! I had to spec out the engine bay exactly as I had done my big car. Talking what took me over 60 hours on the big one took a couple hours to copy on the little ones. The 1/24 turned out better as it's a copy of real car, not the concept. The big one had an opening trunk so I added color pictures of the real trunk lid, woofers and trunk floor.

Of course I had to add LED's to both The 1/24 got white underglow and RGB slow fading headlights. I did these for my Mom to look cool, even though they don't match real car. My 1/18 got the full treatment It got the slow changing RGB LED's mounted as foglights, foot well lighting and of course my famous RGB glowing wheels!!! Course little car took 1 5mm LED vs 75 5050's per wheel in real car and 10 minutes vs hours!!!

Believe it or not the Mini made had chrome wheels first, so big had to match. Planned gloss stripes for little so big had to match. On and on... I probably won't update little one as big is changed, but it sure was a lot of fun and a bunch of work, but hey I got the time

Just wait till you see some of the projects I have coming up! One scientific the other well you know me

[ZLWonton]

WOW

[MackMan]

I want a mini me!!

Amazing work as always man. That's crazy good detail!!

[Xavier1421]