Introducing.....Project QuadCeption
Customer brought in his 2006 Chevy Silverado. He'd had a bunch of work done at many different shops around the valley and wasn't happy with most of it....so he decided it was time to try someone new....
PHASE 1.....LIGHTS!
The client basically said "I'd like to take this to SEMA one day....build me some SEMA-worthy lights".
That's all I needed to hear.
I've wanted to do some gnarly Cat-Eye lights before, but never got the opportunity to do things my way....so here is what I proposed:
QUAD LED Projectors High/Low
QUAD Baja Designs Wide Cornering Flush Mount LED Pods
QUAD Upper Housing Eyebrow Switchback LED Strips
QUAD Lower Housing Eyebrow Switchback LED Strips
QUAD Multicolor Demon Eye Accent Lighting
QUAD Stage Series LED Bars in Bumper (Wide and Spot Lenses)
QUAD Tow Mirror Switchback LED Strips
Multicolor Wheel Well Accents
Interior Floor Lighting LED Upgrade (so driver can see what his Demon Eyes are doing)
Interior Lighting LED Upgrades
Subwoofer, Amp and Box Upgrade
So the easier housings to modify were the lower units. These I needed to stuff in some Baja flush mount pods and then mount the switchback strips....no problem....
I fabricated some custom ABS panels to match the external border of the internal housing....then I secure them mechanically via some gnarly heated staples....then sealed the units permanently with chemicals and body filler....then bedlinered the entire internal surfaces.
From there, I was going to blend the baja pods into the finished panel, but decided against it so they had a contrasting color (Brushed Black Aluminum vs Flat Black ABS.....it looked very nice.
Moving on to the upper housings, these were a complete mess to fabricate.....I didn't have the truck the first go-around....so I needed to make all the adjustments and tweaks as best I could without knowing clearances ......so I redesigned this bracket 3-4 times before I thought I had it just right....once I got the truck, I could easily tell I was off...so I redesigned it once more and got the fitment perfect! CBD makes these kickass brackets...but they are meant to fit smaller projectors....not necessarily the MLED units....which are MUCH wider and overall girthier....so I had to do quite a bit of trimming and a ton of spacing to make sure I clear the front lens and allow for minimal rear external protrusion.
Once the projectors were fitted, I was able to mod the truck....in order to make these fit, some of the front needed to be trimmed out and removed....this is definitely not a DIY Plug-n-Play set of headlights...so i doubt I'll be doing another set of these, unless someone wants to ship me their truck....luckily this customer was local.
The fronts were then fitted with some Ocular shrouds and trimmed to fit the mounting bracket as well as the outer headlight shroud.....one that was fitted with yet another set of Switchback LED strips.
The rear of these housings got a unique 'patch job'......I had originally planned on using the GTi-R shrouds for the front...but they didn't cover everything and they fit so damn well on the backside of the housing...so I used them to seal up the rear.....which I've never seen before...so i think it's a first :-D
After the upper and lower housings were sealed, I terminated ALL of the connectors with new Deutsche connections (2 way, 3 way and 4 way terminals) for a much more professional finish than I'm used to providing. This is much more expensive, but in the end, totally worth it...so i'll be doing this from here on out for all my clients!
The bumper got some sleek light bar upgrades as well.
I didn't want to add a bunch of cheap 50" or 85" LED bars that all the bro's are getting off Cheapazon....so I went with strategically placed 6" Diode Dynamic Stage Series light bars.
2 Wide Cornering bars replaced the factory Fog Light housings and 2 Spot bars went into the 2 small openings in the center of the bumper.
The wide cornering bars are on the factory foglight switch and can be used during On-Road use since they are DOT/SAE legal. The spot bars and the Baja Pods in the lower housings are placed on a switch near the foglight switch....these unleash the power of the sun, so are to be used Off-Road only....or to announce that another driver has done something wrong or was just plain stupid and their retina's will now pay for it!
The tow mirrors were simple....ish. He'd already purchased these aftermarket mirrors, but they still had the lame Amber running lights up front...so I swapped them for the switchback strips to mimic the front quads and then re-wired how the mirrors were hooked up so they functioned properly.
The combination of 12 Total Switchback strips (84" Total) is unreal....it's the brightest set of Running/Turn lights I've done to date and this beast looks amazing running down the road....truly sets off the lines on the front of this truck.....you can easily tell what kind of truck this is at midnight if it's coming head-on to you!
I patched in some multi-color floor well lighting inside of the truck so that the driver knows if his demon eyes are on and what they are doing.
The exterior multi-color wheel well lights are on a different controller and need no interior representation...as you can simply stick your head out the window and see what color they are on.
He also had a 12" Kicker L7 in a super custom box under his rear seat....that was hitting said seat and shredding the woofer surround apart....so i removed that and installed our 10" bedlinered sub/box/amp combo and gave him 800w of true power.....it was a much nicer install, gave him so more room under the seat and played the lows perfectly!
Overall, this was a fun, tiring and stressful build; but I'm glad he gave me the opportunity.....this is one of the brightest, most useful builds I've done. Not only does he have plenty of light, but every aspect of the build was purposefully done to provide ample light output in multiple conditions and situations.....plus...it just looks mean as hell!
Enjoy the 250+ photos below!