How to Convert LSPDFR Police Cars to FiveM (ELS and Non-ELS)

Police vehicles built for LSPDFR, the single-player police mod, are ordinary GTA V vehicle files. They can run on a FiveM server, but emergency vehicles have more moving parts than a civilian car: sirens, liveries, extras and, for some models, a lighting script. This guide covers both routes onto a server and the parts that usually go wrong.

Which route applies to your download

Our converter accepts one kind of input: the page link of a vehicle on gta5-mods.com. It cannot take a link from another site, and it has no file upload.

ELS or non-ELS: check before anything else

Non-ELS vehicles use the game's own siren system: the light pattern is defined in data files and synchronised by the game. ELS vehicles hand the lights to a script, which switches vehicle extras on and off according to a per-model configuration file called a VCF, so they need an ELS resource on the server. The mod description normally says which type it is; an .xml VCF in the download indicates ELS. The glossary has the full comparison, and the ELS installation guide walks through the script side.

What a police vehicle download contains

Open the archive and read the readme first. You will typically find some of the following:

• Model files: name.yft and name_hi.yft, the body and its high-detail version.
• Textures: name.ytd, which holds the liveries as well as the general textures. Liveries are why police texture files are often large.
• Data files: for add-on vehicles, vehicles.meta, carvariations.meta, carcols.meta and handling.meta. Replacement vehicles often ship none, because they are named after a stock slot such as police or sheriff and reuse that vehicle's data.
• A VCF .xml if the model is ELS.
• A readme with the author's terms and install notes.

The manual route, for packs from other sites

1. Create a folder for the resource inside resources, for example resources/[police]/pd_fleet. Folders in square brackets are only categories.
2. Inside it, create a stream folder and copy the .yft and .ytd files there. FiveM only streams files from a folder called stream at the root of the resource.
3. If the download has meta files, put them in a data folder.
4. Write the manifest. Meta files must be listed in files and each one needs a data_file line with the right type:

fx_version 'cerulean'
game 'gta5'

files {
  'data/vehicles.meta',
  'data/carvariations.meta',
  'data/carcols.meta',
  'data/handling.meta',
}

data_file 'HANDLING_FILE' 'data/handling.meta'
data_file 'VEHICLE_METADATA_FILE' 'data/vehicles.meta'
data_file 'CARCOLS_FILE' 'data/carcols.meta'
data_file 'VEHICLE_VARIATION_FILE' 'data/carvariations.meta'

5. Add ensure pd_fleet to server.cfg and restart.

Leave out the lines for files you do not have. A model that ships with no meta files and is not named after a stock vehicle needs them written; the Vehicles.meta Generator produces a starting set from a spawn name, and the FXManifest Generator writes the manifest. A file streamed under a stock vehicle's name replaces that vehicle for every player, as described on the replace vehicles page.

Sirens: sirenSettings and ID conflicts

For a non-ELS car, the flashing pattern lives in a siren setting inside carcols.meta. Each setting has a numeric id. The car is connected to it by the sirenSettings value in carvariations.meta, which holds the same number.

Authors choose these numbers independently, and they are shared across everything the client has loaded. Two vehicles from different authors that picked the same number will collide: one car flashes the other's pattern, or does not flash at all. This is the most common problem when you combine police cars from several sources.

The fix is to give one of them an unused number: change the id in that car's carcols.meta and change sirenSettings in its carvariations.meta to the same value. If a car's lights do nothing, also check that sirenSettings is not 0 and that the carcols.meta is actually listed in the manifest.

Liveries and extras

Liveries are textures inside the .ytd, and carvariations.meta controls which of them a spawned car can use. If you need more or different liveries, that is texture work in the .ytd and does not involve the model.

Extras are optional parts of the model, such as a push bar, a spotlight or a light bar. On a non-ELS car they are cosmetic and can be toggled by a trainer or script. On an ELS car the light heads themselves are extras: the VCF marks which extras the script controls (in the sample files shipped with ELS-FiveM, entries such as Extra01 carry IsElsControlled="true"). Toggling those by hand on an ELS car fights the script.

Registering an ELS vehicle with ELS-FiveM

These steps are for ELS-FiveM, following its README and source. Other ELS resources differ, so read theirs.

1. Put the vehicle's VCF file in the vcf folder of the ELS resource.
2. Name the file after the vehicle's spawn name. The resource takes the file name without .xml and compares it with the model, so a car that spawns as pd_charger needs pd_charger.xml.
3. Create vcf.lua in the root of the ELS resource by copying the default file shipped with it, as the README instructs, and keep the default file.
4. Add the file name, including .xml, to the vcf_files table in vcf.lua. The resource prints an error for an entry without the extension.
5. Restart the server.

The vehicle itself still needs to be a working resource. ELS only adds the light control.

Why an ELS model cannot simply be converted to non-ELS

The two systems expect different things from the model. A non-ELS car needs siren bones with light meshes attached to them, plus a siren setting that drives them. An ELS car has its lights built as extras for a script to switch. Turning one into the other means rebuilding the lighting part of the model in a 3D tool and then writing the siren setting. A converter repackages files; it does not edit geometry. If you want non-ELS, look for a non-ELS release of the same vehicle. Many authors publish both.

Check the result with the free tools

These tools run in your browser and work on any FiveM resource, wherever it came from. They are free to use; the paid plan lifts their limits and adds detail.

• The Resource Inspector checks the manifest, stream files, textures and metas and lists what is wrong.
• The Texture Optimizer shrinks large livery textures. FiveM prints a warning, without blocking the file, for a streamed asset that needs more than 16 MiB of memory once loaded; see the 16 MB warning explained.
• The Car Pack Builder merges several vehicle resources into one with a single manifest.

Before you publish the fleet

Many LSPDFR vehicles are models of real cars with real agency liveries, and many authors set conditions on redistribution or FiveM use in their readme. Read what the FiveM rules say about real-world vehicles and respect each author's terms.

Frequently asked questions

Can I paste an lcpdfr.com link into the converter?

No. The converter only accepts vehicle pages on gta5-mods.com. Use the manual route for anything else.

Do non-ELS police cars need a script?

No. The game runs and synchronises their sirens itself, using carcols.meta and carvariations.meta.

Why does my police car flash another car's pattern?

Two vehicles use the same siren id. Change one of them in carcols.meta and update sirenSettings in that car's carvariations.meta to match.

The car spawns but ELS does nothing. What should I check?

That the VCF is in the vcf folder, that its name equals the spawn name, and that the file name with .xml is listed in vcf_files in vcf.lua.

Can I rename an LSPDFR replacement car to make it an add-on?

Renaming the files is not enough. An add-on needs its own entries in vehicles.meta and carvariations.meta under the new name, and the texture dictionary name has to match. The add-on vs replace entry explains the difference.

Sources

All accessed 2026-10-10.

• ELS-FiveM README and source (vcf.default.lua, server/server.lua, sample files in vcf/): github.com/MrDaGree/ELS-FiveM
• This site's converter input rules: the converter on the home page accepts gta5-mods.com vehicle pages only
• Glossary entries on this site for carcols.meta, carvariations.meta and VCF files