Illuminated rear center panel - finished!
 

Christmas here in Toronto was snow free and unseasonally warm, several Celsius degrees above freezing. Nice weather to work in the garage. I finished the rear center panel mod by adding an EL sheet behind the panel so its lit at approximately the same brightness as the parking rear lights.

I tapped into the same circuit as the parking lights so it only comes on in the evening with the rest of the lights. The EL (electroluminescent) sheet is ideal since no light box needs to be constructed nor a big rectangular hole cut into the back of the car. Illumination is also very even. You can buy these sheets with power supply on eBay. I bought 2 cuttable A4 sheets since the width of the panel is about 4.5 inches and 20 inches long. You could use just one A4 sheet cut lengthwise in half but it wouldn't be able to illuminate the upper and lower edge of the panel but might still look fine. One 12VDC power supply is enough to illuminate the two sections although I did buy two power supplies. If you wanted a brighter panel you could illuminate each EL sheet with its own power supply.

You need to reuse the rubber weather stripping from the original panel to help seal out the elements and fill in spaces to match the rear light sections.

I should have spray painted the plastic bezel and stripping with flat black to better match the sun faded 25 year old stuff on the rest of the car!

Now drivers will have no trouble indentifying what type of car passed them!

Really nice work, man. I'm assuming one could do the same with the blank panel as well? Although the RX-7 emblem on yours looks so ill.

i might like this more if the panel was tinted a little. the red just stands out too much for me, but it looks really cool lit up. good job man. i like your spoiler too.

Wow! That is friggin awesome. I'm loving it

Thanks guys. Yeah, the red does clash but unfortunately it only came in this colour. It doesn't look like it entirely belongs but I can always go back to stock. It does look great at night. Maybe I should only drive it at night!

I reckon that looks sweet!!
Ild be keeping it as its not something you see everyday!
Nice work!!

wow, that looks nice! a writeup with pics would be a great addition to this thread!

A write-up with pics WOULD be great!

looks awesome

Thanks for the comments! I'll wait until this current deep freeze passes and then post some additional images.

Going to start my own build of illuminated center panel
 

Going to start my build of this Illuminated Center panel.

I have the original RX-7 red plexi center panel that I've never mounted. It has a few scratches and a small chip on an edge that probably wouldn't been seen under the new gasket but I am going to construct a new-replacement and add back lighting.

I have 1/4" RED Transparent Plexiglas 12" x 24" $ 25.00 E-BAY -Free Ship

I have the EL Panel that I need to trim to size $60.00 - Free Ship &
12V Transformer to power the light via the parking lights $30.00 - Free Ship

Gasket for sealing around the Plexi - 5 feet - $ 5.50 per foot $35.00 with ship

I will take a few pics and post progress of each step

$ 150.00 in Parts

Right on! Can't wait to see the results and thanks for reviving this ancient thread of mine!



Jim

LOGO I am using on the plexi
 

This is the LOGO I am using for the Red Plexiglas panel.

Bringing the font into 2013 for the RX-7

OK - Here are the first ever pics of the reproduced rear illuminated center panel.

overall it took me about 5 hours to get this far.
I probably need another 5 hours to really get this mounted the way I want to and connect the wiring to the parking lights.

Enjoy the pics!

That's gonna be pretty sick when done, props :biggrin:

Love your original one by the way Jim!