I was busy today installing my first ever light kit in my Carrera Aston Martin Vantage - the lighted car turned out great! I really like the new analog Carrera GT cars, but up until recently, these highly detailed cars did not have lights, so I took the plunge and picked up some light kits from Pete's Light Kits. I am very happy with the product and how they look in the car. Pete has a website with lots of instructions and sample photos that make it easy to install the light kits. A few things that I observed and felt were worth sharing are listed below:
1. The key to a good LED light installation is to power up the lights, at their operating voltage, for about 1 min. The lights will charge up and remain lit for several minutes, since the light wiring harness has a capacitor to store the charge. This allows you to try out different LED light positions to find the locations that you like best. I used hot glue to secure the LED lights inside the body light covers, and it worked well. You do "need 3 hands" to hold the chassis, lights and then apply the glue!!! Tip - I carefully held each LED light in place on the inside of the body using the tip of an Xacto knife and then dripped the hot glue onto the LED light in the body, and removed the knife once the glued LED lights had cooled in position. The photo below shows the LED lights installed behind the Carrera clear light lenses in the body.

2. The Carrera direction reversing switch keeps the voltage polarity the same at the motor, even when the car direction is changed. So the LED lights can be soldered directly to the motor terminals, like any other slot car that does not have the switch. I did measure the +ve and -ve voltages at the motor terminals and labelled them with a sharpie to make sure I got them right when installing the wiring. The photo below shows the LED light wiring harness soldered to the stock motor and chassis.

3. The Carrera chassis on this car has light posts to hold the factory lights - that will be coming on the newer Carrera models only. I tested the LED light appearance by temporarily installing the LED lights on the Carrera light posts, but the effect was not nearly as good as gluing the LED lights directly to the inside of the clear light covers. To make room for the wires and hot glue, I did have to snip out the factory light posts from the Carrera chassis. You can see these trimmed off light posts if you look carefully at the chassis in the photo above.
4. Once everything was all glued in place and tested, I did paint the hardened hot glue matt black on the underside of the body to reduce any bleeding of the light inside the wheel wells. I also taped some of the wires to the underside of the body. The 2-pin connectors on the wiring harness are very handy if one wants to remove the body from the chassis after the LED lights are all installed. As you can see from the front and rear photos, the LED lights are very realistic and have nice clear beams since the LEDs are placed directly onto the light lenses in the Carrera body.

Here is one last photo of the Carrera Aston Martin Vantage. These light kits worked great and really give the car a menacing look. Next up is my Carrera Porsche RSR 911 "Brumos livery. I hope this inspires others to add scale lights to their GT cars.

Thanks to Peter at Pete's Light Kits for these tips, and supplying the great kits. Cheers RvE
1. The key to a good LED light installation is to power up the lights, at their operating voltage, for about 1 min. The lights will charge up and remain lit for several minutes, since the light wiring harness has a capacitor to store the charge. This allows you to try out different LED light positions to find the locations that you like best. I used hot glue to secure the LED lights inside the body light covers, and it worked well. You do "need 3 hands" to hold the chassis, lights and then apply the glue!!! Tip - I carefully held each LED light in place on the inside of the body using the tip of an Xacto knife and then dripped the hot glue onto the LED light in the body, and removed the knife once the glued LED lights had cooled in position. The photo below shows the LED lights installed behind the Carrera clear light lenses in the body.
2. The Carrera direction reversing switch keeps the voltage polarity the same at the motor, even when the car direction is changed. So the LED lights can be soldered directly to the motor terminals, like any other slot car that does not have the switch. I did measure the +ve and -ve voltages at the motor terminals and labelled them with a sharpie to make sure I got them right when installing the wiring. The photo below shows the LED light wiring harness soldered to the stock motor and chassis.
3. The Carrera chassis on this car has light posts to hold the factory lights - that will be coming on the newer Carrera models only. I tested the LED light appearance by temporarily installing the LED lights on the Carrera light posts, but the effect was not nearly as good as gluing the LED lights directly to the inside of the clear light covers. To make room for the wires and hot glue, I did have to snip out the factory light posts from the Carrera chassis. You can see these trimmed off light posts if you look carefully at the chassis in the photo above.
4. Once everything was all glued in place and tested, I did paint the hardened hot glue matt black on the underside of the body to reduce any bleeding of the light inside the wheel wells. I also taped some of the wires to the underside of the body. The 2-pin connectors on the wiring harness are very handy if one wants to remove the body from the chassis after the LED lights are all installed. As you can see from the front and rear photos, the LED lights are very realistic and have nice clear beams since the LEDs are placed directly onto the light lenses in the Carrera body.
Here is one last photo of the Carrera Aston Martin Vantage. These light kits worked great and really give the car a menacing look. Next up is my Carrera Porsche RSR 911 "Brumos livery. I hope this inspires others to add scale lights to their GT cars.
Thanks to Peter at Pete's Light Kits for these tips, and supplying the great kits. Cheers RvE
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