Thread: 2000 GTP: Still Alive! New Trans?

I've been wanting to buy another set of bulbs so I have a spare set, I think I'll go ahead and order them then RMA the one I have now so I don't have any down time.

Just chatted with them again and they didn't sound so keen on the RMA idea, tried to start blaming me for modifying the bulb holder. I shut that down quick so he wanted better output shots. Those will come, but I'm satisfied with what I have no so if nothing comes from this I'll still be happy I guess. Off to get the strut towers done!

Myself I'm probably going to order a set a the 3five bulbs and give them a shot I don't see how they blamed you for modding the bulb holder, unless they mean like the bulb base. Odd, also if you ask them they will ship you a new set of bulbs before you return the old ones you just have to put a refundable deposit down first so you don't have any downtime.

Originally Posted by Diddler

Like Russo said, the Xb bulbs are very hit and miss at times and hence why I said the options for h1 bulbs tend to be limited.

You would be surprised on the other HID forums how much crap Morimoto catches for shady quality control considering TRS makes them out to the bee knees, not saying they are bad...what has made them so good is TRS does most of the QC and has great customer service.

Basically the only reason i got the xb's was because they were hyped to be the best h1 on the market matching OEM brightness and precision. Yeah right, i had 2 pairs both be screwed up. But they work soo woo? I guess....

Originally Posted by Diddler

Most homebrew retrofits are never the cleanest on the backside, only so much you can do. Function is all that matters and form on the front where you see...who cares about the back.

Oh I know this just poking fun at it

Originally Posted by Russosaur

Basically the only reason i got the xb's was because they were hyped to be the best h1 on the market matching OEM brightness and precision. Yeah right, i had 2 pairs both be screwed up. But they work soo woo? I guess....

exactly why I generally stick with the oem style bulbs the moromitos have always been a hit or miss.. Sadly it's about the best you can get unless you go oem. My Philips 85122 that I had in one of my first retros h1 retros never let me down but I do understand not everyone wants to drop $70-100+ on these type of bulbs.


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Got the driver side strut tower done. The welds aren't the prettiest, but it's strong. We have everything cut for the passenger side, just ran out of time. Next weekend we'll do the passenger side and I'll finish up cleaning up\treating the rust on the driver side. Pics!
Here's the driver side, after I took care of the loose rust, it's mostly done. Really, the car probably would have been fine with just treating this and leaving it, but where's the fun in that?

Passenger side, looks totally fine, but it will get the same treatment and patch just to be safe:

Before cleaning up for the weld:

Part of the way through the weld, I wish the patch fit a little better but it's good enough:

My buddy, also named Matt. Popular name around here:

He got sick of holding himself up, so I had a bright idea:

Made a good lunch table, too:

Pretty much done welding, it's a ***** welding up side down, but it's strong and probably not even needed in the first place, lol:

Couple coats Of rust resistant underbody spray, I will do more later, we just ran out of time:

And that's about it. Car seems more solid for some reason, but maybe that's just me. I also actually got to use my Retros in the country a bit, but I need to re-aim them and I was embarassed, so no pics yet. I'll get some when I head out there next weekend for the other side.

Really, nothing? lol. Did I do it right?

what you do? just added some sheet metal over the weak looking area?

Yep, just patch to strengthen up what would be the weak area if the rust did anything. I'm not sure if the rust did weaken anything, but it's better safe than sorry. Also got this stuff in the mail:

I didn't know this was possible, I wish I knew before I sold my old car but it may have been too late the towers were going to collapse soon.

I would have treated the rust before I did anything, then treated again, then sealed with a specific rust paint like eastwood, rustbullet, kbs then put what you did on.

I ground off all the rust and undercoating to bare metal, then coated both the patch and underside of the car with the rust proof under coating, then welded in the patch. Anything on the inside of the car would have burned off for sure during welding. All the rust damage was on the inside of the car, and it's gonna get cleaned up and treated next weekend, while he is welding the other side, then I'll treat the other side the following weekend. I'll be spraying rust converter on whatever rust is left after more grinding\cleaning\etc., then covering that in the same epoxy IDJ and I were discussing a few pages back.

Car is pretty much converted over to LED, at least this round. What a nightmare. First, the 31XXa bulbs wouldn't turn on parking lights, just blinker. after digging through schematics and testing here and there and here I ended up putting a diode on the turn signal line. Fixed. Then the turn signal indicators (in the cluster) lit up dimly with the parking lights on. More digging and trying and digging and trying and failing and digging and failing, and I ended up putting load resistors on the turn signal line. Then the HVAC and PRND321 indicators dimming out opposite the turn signals. More digging and reading and digging and rewiring and that was fixed. Now the 194s up front won't blink unless the parking lights are on. I haven't fixed that one yet, but what I'm going to do it hard wire the front parking lights to be on whenever the car is running, and isolate the front from the rest of the parking light circuit with a diode. Whew. I wonder what else could go wrong with this LED BS!

Other strut tower is getting done with weekends, yay.

Glad I'm not into LEDs. Looks like that tower is all took care of! Wish I had your enthusiasm dude.

Thanks man, I was waiting to see what you thought of it, lol. I'll be treating the top on Friday while the other side is being welded. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't do these LEDs, but i'm in too far now. Good news is I'll know everything that you need to do to put LEDs in, so I can help someone else if needed. It's not that bad, it's just figuring out all the **** that needs to be done is a *****. Once it's figured out it's cake work.

LED stuff is done. I'm not to impressed with the cluster, but they aren't any dimmer than stock. I just thought they'd be a bit brighter. That said, will I upgrade? Doubt it. Other strut tower is tomorrow, yay. Here's a little video of the led stuff. The Halos and outer 194s are wired to be on whenever the ignition is on, I didn't really describe it very well in the video:

Almost forgot the 7w LEDs in the reverse lights. These f*ckers are pretty bright. Makes the backup camera a lot more useful.

Nice, with the LED's. I did LED's on the license area also, big difference. Need to get the reverse light now.

As it sits now, I'm saving a max of 17 amps of power. That's if I am driving in reverse with my high beams and flashers blinking, lol. In normal conditions I'm saving around 8-10 amps. Most stock alternators put out around 60 amps at idle so that's a significant savings. My alternator puts out about 120ish amps at idle so I don't really need it that much, lol. I do like the fact that all the lights blink in unison when I arm the alarm now. The Halos used to blink just a little earlier than the incandescent bulbs. It was just a pet peeve of mine, and I enjoy an electrical challenge...even if I ***** about it the entire time.

I've talked it over with a buddy of mine and we're gonna go halves on better cluster LEDs, these are just too dim.

Have you done the alt rewire or big 3 upgrade yet? On both my GTP and GT, I did just the Alt rewire and it made a huge change through the entire vehicle.