I have an extra pair of S4 tails sittin in my garage so i decided to try something with them. i plan on painting the black trim to match my car (which is red) and to black out the areas where light aprears with the spray tail light tint. then clear cloat everything. Also while im at in i was goin to swap in some LED's from www.superbrightleds.com i was thinkin of goin all white leds but then i thought that might change the color after the area is tinted black. so should i go with colored leds? (matching the color for the area of course)

if anyone has any pics of modded s4 tails plz post them

 

if you black out the lens' no light will show through period, led or traditional bulb
ive never heard or seen of this tail light tint before- is it just thinned out paint?
what might work (which i did for a customer's VW sirocco) is do the colour matched trim, but take pinstriping of whichever colour ya want and run it on the lens', only space the pinstripe but only **** hairs, this will make the lights look (in the day time) to be blocked, or blacked out, but at night you still get nice - SAFELY VISIBLE - illumination

just a suggestion

 

i saw the tint at a car shop in the mall, i just did a quick search and this is what i got http://www.carstylingdirect.com/acat...ys_Paints.html im planning on using black though. it says that when applied properly it doesnt reduce light output

 

hey man, its your car, ill just tell from my experience as a painter, it wont look black unless it covered, and if its covered, the light wont go through, i would go around to local glass shops and ask for some scraps of widnow tint and try that first, cuz that stuff says it can be removed which means two things, its either a lie or it doesn't stick worth a ****

at least with wondow tint ya know light'll go through

 

yea, window tint or a professional smoke job, wouldn't want you to get hit.

 

they sell transparent black out stuff for tails. i forgot what its called . but summit racing sells it.. it darkens up normally red tails. might be a good mod. let us know how it turns out

wait i think its called night shades. i think thats what its called

 

http://www.smokinlights.net/products.htm

hmm found this ... it does slightly decrease the brightness of lights shinning through but i expected that.

 

VHT makes a product called Nightshades. Its made for tinting tails, and still allowing light to shine thru.

 

Classic Auto, you're full of ****.. I have VHT Niteshades on my Impreza, and it tints the lense, but allows the light to shine through completely..

 

How well did it work out? I've been thinking about tinting the lower half of my s4 tails. Leaving the red lenses exposed.

 

It worked out fine.. I took the tailights out, tinted them as dark as i could, and it still allows light to shine through great.. I would just wet sand them and clear them afterward..

 

is the wet sanding really needed? what kinda sandpaper would u recommend?

 

Actually that's physically impossible. Any tinting reduces the light output. You just need to be sensible with how far you go. You don't need to add much of a tint to make the lights look better, and the light output is still good. These idiots who tint them so dark you can barely see any light constantly amaze me...

 

Why even bother for the sake of looking good? I'd prefer saftey to looking cool...What I don't understand are the people who tint / shade their headlights. Isn't that counter to what the actual purpose of headlights are for?

David

 

shade the FTP's!!! they look great!

 

We're talking about taillights, not headlights, read the thread again.. If you just put a few coats of VHT on your taillights, it dosen't hinder the action of the taillights much at all, but looks completely tinted during the day..

 

yeah not that id do it but my cousin did on his blazer and it looked fine, the bulbs shined through pretty well..

isnt the stock fd tailight blacked out? or am i thinking of somethign else

 

Insurance would probably screw you if you ever got rear-ended though. Non D.O.T. approved light modification's = nono

 

not a bad idea, but I would just sell them and buy some S5's, sexy *** lights.

 

I've used many cans of 'Nightshade' (they sell it at a local auto-parts store) and the stuff works great. On my TII I shaded the lower half of the s4 tails (along with color matching the housing (like the 10ae). This was when I was kind of a "nightshade noob", so I didn't sand 'em and I didn't think about having very little light coming through for the reverse lights after darkening them. It looks WAY better than stock. Stock s4 taillights are hideous! Getting rid of the orange was a must. I also Nightshaded my turns, sidemarkers and FTP's on both cars. I wouldn't get a rex, or a lot of other cars without cleaning up the look with nightshade. But don't anyone else do it cause I want my car to seem original (lol).

Oh, tip (I don't know if I should be giving away my secrets), if you decide to tint the s4's, there is a little rectangular clear part on the rev. lights that doesn't have any texture. If you could find someway to mask this off PERFECTLY, you could leave this clear and would allow enough light to shine through for going in rev. (hint, hint). BTW it looks VERY good. If you squint you might be able to see it in my avatar.