have I been federalized?

gerard vaglio · 12-04-2003, 03:47 PM

My euro sc came with small rear bumbers, roll up windows and no air cond. But it also came with red tail light lenses and a cat. I've since changed the tail light lenses back to amber and I've lost the cat.

Tell me about these headlights?

If I own a euro spec car I'd like to portray it honestly and return it to euro spec. What other things should I be looking at.

echrisconnor · echrisconnor's Garage

I can't comment on the headlights, but I believe the front trun signal lights have had corner lights added. See this C3 thread:

Show me your original Carrera 3.0!

SpeedracerIndy · 04:27 PM

Euro SCs came with:
-Rubber bumper insert instead of the orange corner marker you have in the picture.
-Side marker lights (as seen below)
-Smaller bumperettes
-Euro H4s (you have the sealed beam type offered in the US) Euro H4s are in the pic below
-Euro premuffler
-Higher compression 930/10 engine (in 81 went to 9.8:1)
-Lower ride hight
probably a bunch of other things I'm forgeting, but those are the easy to spot ones.
A federalized car will also have side door beams installed, usually hacked. Visible in the leading and trailing edge of the door. Lots of them also had no AC, no sunroof. Here's my 81 Euro. Love the chance to post a pic:

My car had the door beams installed, the corner lights added, the amber tails replaced, and the cat installed. Somehow it escaped the headlights being replaced. I wouldn't mind removing that cat, and getting back to the correct tail lights.

gerard vaglio · 12-04-2003, 08:28 PM

Casey,

Thanks for responding and posting a picture of your car. It gives me a good idea of what my car would look like with H4s since my euro sc is similar in color.

Since we'er posting pictures here is one of mine that turned out fairly well. She is battle ship grey right now but was originally silver like yours. Eventually I want to go back to silver.

By the way, how are you able to post such large pictures, if mine are over 163k they won't upload.

cmonref · 12-05-2003, 04:39 AM

The side marker lights in front of the door post are '81 and later. '80 and earlier did not have them. These are hard to add to an '80 and earlier since the fender is dimpled to receive the light base.

The Euro headlight had a body-color trim ring that covered the chrome ring around the headlight.

SpeedracerIndy · 12-05-2003, 04:41 AM

I'm not sure why my pics are so much bigger. I just linked those from my gallery page. They are all under 100k jpgs. I just took the pics with a digital cam and used windows xp's resize pictures option until they were small enough to post and that's what I ended up with.

The color of my car is called Pewter Metallic. It looks silver to me, with a slight gold spec in it. I think it is factory color 980??? It's very interesting in the sunlight, but for the most part it is just silver. I noticed you don’t have the side markers. What year is your car? I think the side markers must have started in 80 or 81. The euro H4s are a must in my opinion. I think they look so much better, and give off better light. Just my opinion though. Some like the looks of the US sealed beams. And, you can get the H4 housing for the US sealed beam styled lights that give off good light.

Here’s a couple more pics just for the heck of it.

I took this one to compare the US style rear with the Euro. I like the smaller bumperettes:

This one is from the USGP. You can see the difference between us ride hight and Euro hight. I also like the beautifull C4s in the background!

gerard vaglio · 12-05-2003, 04:10 PM

Casey,

My car is a 79 so I don't think it needs the side marker lights, it seems those came later.

Your car looks great to me. And those pictures have got me thinking about changing my headlights to the H4 style. I actually have H4 updates now in the U.S. style housings. The H4 style lights like you have are selling for about $130 each but I'm starting to hear that the new HID lights are coming down in price as well. I saw something on the BBS about them being about $300 now.

The HIDs are a little harder to install and from what I understand moving to the H4 style lights that you have can be done in an afternoon with a screwdriver.

So I've got something to think about.