Thanks guys for all the compliments.
I'd love to put LED lights in the engine bay but haven't yet found a way. Don't have the plastic engine cover any longer and don't particularly want to look at them in the day light.
Yours looks good RoboTech.
Thanks! I'd just look for anywhere you might be able to tuck them underneath something. Or maybe run them on the inside of the frame rails. I was thinking about what I'll do with these once I go with a Turbo as the engine cover will have to go and I will figure something out.
One note. I attached the LEDs to the underside of the cover using blue (it is almost clear) High Temp RTV gasket maker. While they came with an adhesive backing, I didn't trust it to stand up to the heat. The LEDs are waterproof and their coating looks like they should stand up to these temps fine but the adhesive not so much. If putting LEDs anywhere in the engine bay, I'd recommend doing something similar.
One thing you may consider is getting a custom cut "engine cover" made out of 2-3mm carbon fiber. You can find sheets of it on ebay for about $100 and for another $70 or so they'll cut out a pattern with a CAD Drawing you provide (if you know Illustrator you can save an Illustrator file in CAD format). Just design and modify it so you can attach it to your stock engine cover stands and then put your LEDs under that. That's probably what I'll wind up going with.
RoboTech,
Where did you get the engine cover? Looks great!
Funny story behind that. See, this isn't my first Sky. I had Sky number 1108 off the assembly line back in 2006 and owned her for about a year. It was Midnight Blue, 2.4 NA, black leather interior. I adored that car. I wound up having to sell her after having her for a year because she inadvertanly became my only reliable car and that didn't work for me. I vowed though that one day I would have another one. It just so happened that I had wanted to take the 2.4 engine cover off and have it painted by a coworker. Problem was, I sold it before he got the cover finished. He got the paint laid down but still needed to do some touch up work and clear coat it. Since the car was sold, he let it sit unfinished.
Fast forward to today and now I have a 2007 Sky, Midnight Blue, 2.4 NA, with black leather interior. Except for the wing on the back and the billet grills up front, it was identical to my first Sky. I thought of this project some time ago and decided to ask my coworker if he still happened to have that old engine cover I gave him. He looked at his parents' house where he had been staying at the time and found it...still unfinished. He gave it to me, I touched up the spots that needed it except one (You can see where the silver got flaked off just above where the power steering cap is in the second picture...left it that way as a reminder and a bit of character), weathered it a little with some old military model techniques I know, and clear coated it. Then I wired up the LEDs and put in a switch that is triggered by the hood. Hood down, lights off. Hood up, lights on. Real simple setup.
