Blackened Heads and Tails

Hey all new guy here Full time 19 yr old student, worker with little money to work on my tc lol.

I have a navy blue 2008 scion tc. 5 speed of course. I have decided to start working on it and the coolest upgrade I have seen online is blackening the heads and tailights. How would I go about doing this and what is the price cost. Will it affect visibility and attract police? Also kind of a noob question. My neighbor said I should take my heat shield off my header. Will this affect my car in any way? One last tidbit, has anyone gutted the cat below the header and was there a noticeable difference?

sorry i can't help you on the last two questions but when i have my titan, i blacked out the head lights so i have an idea of what to do....not the tail lights.

take your head light out completely. Then get a head gun or a blow dryer and apply the heat to the glue that bonds the face of the head light to the housing that holds the bulbs in. It should seperate after a few mins of melting the glue away. Once this is done, go to the hardware store and get some metallic HIGH HEAT black spray paint. The store salesman should know waht you are looking for. Apply a coat evenly to the inside of the light and put them on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven, at a temp of what the can says to do. Then get a strong apoxy, i can't remember the name of what i used but the salesman helped me with that too and just put them back together.

it comes out sweet. If i can't find my pics, i will post them

Ok. Well, you have to remember that anybody that sells the tint will say that it is "for off-road and show use only". It may attract the police because the amount of light coming from your headlights and taillights will be less than factory. I don't think taking the heatshield off will do anything, period. What would be the point of gutting the cat? If you're just going for the sound, cut it out and go with a mid-pipe. Either way, you probably won't pass emissions.

Well, Thank You very much, Navy. But, I guess it really all depends on what kind of exhaust sound you want. I know that from alot of the aftermarket exhausts that I have heard, you get that high raspy pitch in the upper rpm band. I HATE that sound. It sounds like a tin can. Sorry to anyone who has one, just my :2:. From what I understand, this sound mainly comes on after you put headers on the car. However, from what I've heard, you can put a glasspack before the muffler and that will smooth it out alittle bit. What do you think, Navy? Plus, you eluded to his original post about blackening out the taillights and headlights

Hi! I'm a full time college student too =] ... I definitely almost bought a dark blue 08 tC but instead got the Waveline Pearl. Anyway ... If you want to play with the head or tail lights, you can smoke them. I'm not sure if that's what you're going for but a friend of mine and I are doing it really soon. He did it to his 06 tC and it looked stunning. He used a product called NightShades. The only thing to keep in mind with smoking lights is each state has a different standard for inspections. I live in VA and I know that here, they can't be completely black. Light still has to pass through the lights. On top of that, you have to be very careful and apply it evenly. When we did his, we took the lights out of the car, painted them with a clear coat, then sprayed the NightShades and let it fully dry before applying any more coats, and then we did another clear coat. Find out your state's standards for how much light still has to pass through the light before continuing with this idea. If you don't want to mess with sprays, there is also this like sticky film crap that you can either order or go to a window tinting place and stick on the lights. The beauty of that is that you can peel it off eventually.

Oh yeah, absolutely! You need the clear coat otherwise you'll be doing touch ups really often. I heard that you can also go to some tint places and get a custom sized tint film to fit head or tail lights. I have seen pictures of head or tail lights that are completely blacked out and I know that is not street legal in Virginia. I've heard that the film is really annoying to mess with though because it is really sticky and sticks all over you and by the time you get it on the car, all the adhesive gunk is all over you instead of the car.

Hmm. I've never heard of that. I'm going to have to look into it. Is it expensive?

i just found out that blackened lights are not street legal in VA and you can get a ticket AND fail inspection. Yay =[