Mini-DIY: Red Illumination Ignition Surround

Turns out, on the R33, there is a small light bulb situated in a clear plastic bracket that surrounds the ignition key. I have been told that the R34 did not have this feature. Too bad (and whatever, they got the ignition immobilizer!)

Anyway, when lit, the clear plastic extends the light all the way around.


I never did like this white color. It seemed so out of place in a car with a red themed interior. (Did Nissan forget to change this for the Series 3?) I briefly toyed with the idea of changing this to one of those red "Ignition Start" buttons, but decided that I would have to figure out a way to lock the steering wheel and provide a lock for the ignition, and so that idea was quickly rejected.

Anyway, all I had to do was pop off the steering column cover (there are about 8 screws on the bottom side), and then the illumination ring simply lifts out.

Here is how it looks, without the cover:


And here is the ring, detached:


And here is the bulb, with the stock white light.


Going with the red theme, I went ahead and replaced this bulb with a red LED.
However for some reason the LED was not as bright as the bulb, so I had to get creative and use some reflective film that my buddy Russ had given me for another project:


The end result was:


One interesting thing I noticed when doing this is, this light turns on when you unlock the doors, and turns off when you lock the doors. This proved useful in another project, which I plan to detail in my next post. Stay tuned!