speedjunkie

iTrader: (3)

Basically the ones that EVO-R uses in his sleek headlight kit. I've emailed him but he still hasn't gotten back to me. Does anyone know where he gets them? Or does anyone have any they want to get rid of? I'd be happy getting just a pair of them instead of all 4 if need be. Thanks!

http://www.evo-r.net/product/RX-7/Sleek.htm

David Hayes

iTrader: (6)

You could put in some high quality halogen projector units from Hella instead of the junk EVO-R sells:

http://www.rallylights.com/detail.aspx?ID=128

These would give you a nice clean cutoff and Hella has some new halogen bulbs that would be very bright. They're inexpensive and would be a good upgrade to your lighting. For more bucks, you could drop in some Xenon HID projectors and really have great light:

http://www.rallylights.com/detail.aspx?ID=4283

Major price but fantastic lighting.

afgmoto1978

iTrader: (6)

I have those Hella HID on my setup. The light quality is awesome!

speedjunkie

iTrader: (3)

Well I wasn't really wanting to hack into the car to make some lights fit, because I want to be able to go back to stock lights if I want, but I figure I might have to do this anyway if I want good lighting. The reason I wanted the ones he sells is because they mount to the headlight bucket and it doesn't seem like you have to hack into the car. But after looking at the buckets for his 90mm kit, they're different than my buckets anyway.

I have actually looked at those Hella lights before but I wasn't crazy about how deep the lights go.

I did see your light setup in another thread afgmoto. Looks good! I might have to copy that haha.

Actually what I'm planning to do is something similar to the R Magic kit, with a curved cut on the cover, but I'm going to leave the front part open (not cover it with lexan) and run air ducting straight to the turbo from the headlamp housings.

Something else I was kind of wanting to do is have the outside lights on for both high and low beam, and for high beam have the inner lights come on too. Or just have both lights set up for high/low beam so they'll both be on all the time and just get brighter on high beam.

David Hayes

iTrader: (6)

The actual dimensions of the Hellas are listed on the rallylights.com website:



The deepest part is about 5.8 inches deep and they taper in so I think this would work for you. Hella makes most all of the upper end OEM lights so I know the quality of the light would be vastly superior to the EVO-R junk. FYI - I followed the EVO-R thread on popup lights and was very disappointed to see the crappy product he has tried to peddle to members on this forum so he's on my personal "ban" list.

I'm kind of a lighting expert now as I am in the middle of a sleepy eyes popup conversion myself and have done much research into lighting for my design. I'm after a low beam projector HID solution and a high beam halogen and I am going to use Hella for the conversion. I'm also going to use the largest size I can fit aesthetically into the area which seems to be 90mm halogens on the inside for high beams and 60mm projector HIDs on the outside for low beams. Was just thinking today about this and I might order one 50mm, one 60mm, and one 90mm unit to test fit what works the best and go from there.

As far as what to have on when, my plan is to have the low beam HIDs on all the time and have the high beam halogens come on in addition to the low beams.

Now, if you want to really do something that is futuristic and will give great light, try the soon to be released Osram LED headlights. They're wafer thin so depth is not an issue:

http://www.ledsmagazine.com/news/5/12/8

speedjunkie

iTrader: (3)

Well I've seen that his products aren't the best, so you're preaching to the choir there haha. 5.8 inches is WAY to deep for me, I'm looking for something around 3.5 at the most. However, if I have to hack into the car, I can get something a little deeper I guess. The Hella lamps I was looking at aren't quite 5.8 inches though anyway. IIRC that is.

The LED idea is pretty cool, but will it still put out light similar to halogen and HID is what I'm wondering. I mean, will the light be visible down the road or just right in front of the car, ya know?

David Hayes

iTrader: (6)

Hope you find what you need. Regarding the LEDs, they're now as bright as HID (and much brighter than halogen) and project just as far down the road. They'll be what all cars of the future use because of the low power consumption and the "flatness" of the lighting package. These would definitely solve your depth issue as the are an inch or two deep.

It look like next year is the year these will officially be available, at least that is what the OSRAM (the makers of the LED headlights) rep told me.

Another note on the HID versus Halogen issue. HID will be about 3X brighter than halogen so if you want the best light output, you need HID. They cost though is about 6X that of halogen so it's a tough choice. A good middle ground is to use projector halogens with a higher output halogen bulb. The rallylights.com guys mentioned one to me that they say is the brightest they have ever tested but I am drawing a blank on the name. With this option you have the nice cutoff of a projector bulb and good lighting.

speedjunkie

iTrader: (3)

Hmmm, maybe I'll just wait for now and look into those LED lights when they're available. I'm also curious as to what price would be for those LEDs. Have they told you anything as far as price?

David Hayes

iTrader: (6)

So I spoke with the OSRAM rep and there still is not much information on the LED headlamps. Says they should be out next year. He did not have pricing but he did send me the below link to some technical data about the lights:

http://catalog.osram-os.com/catalogu...t=showBookmark

Basically, they're a bunch of high powere LEDs behind optics that give you the clean cutoff line of HID projectors. He did also point me to the Osram sister company, Sylvania, as they have/are releasing a LED headlight system called Joule:

http://www.sylvania.com/cgi-bin/MsmG...JOULES%20joule

The issue I see with the above is they have many press releases talking about LED headlights but from what I can tell, they don't sell any headlight options as of yet.

afgmoto1978

iTrader: (6)

Hmm, I'll have to look into those.

speedjunkie

iTrader: (3)

I don't know if I can wait LOL. I guess I'll have to though.

cpnneeda

iTrader: (1)

There is a post on here about some other lights, that look promising. I can't find the thread, but I was smart enough to save the link to the website.

http://store.theretrofitsource.com/

I have the lights from rallylights.com, the very same ones David talked about, and they are bright as hell. Well, hold up a match to a gnat's butt and it would be brighter than stock, but they really do illuminate the road well.

David Hayes

iTrader: (6)

That looks to be a good source for lights and the prices are good. I'm going to go Hella from Rally Lights so I can stay OEM and not have a pieced together kit.

I've ordered a 90 mm, a 60 mm, and a 50 mm to see what are the best sizes for my application.

speedjunkie

iTrader: (3)

^Cool! If you don't mind, please post here about your progress. I'd love to see it.

David Hayes

iTrader: (6)

Will do. I got tired of waiting for someone to make a "sleepy eye" projector HID kit so I am doing it on my own, or more appropriately, Kilo Racing is doing it for me. They love my crazy projects.

Because I want to retain the pop up OEM look of the car, Kilo is modifying the headlight control arms to pop up only about 60%. I ordered a Pivot Controller to do this but it is a POS and doesn't work as I thought they told me it would. Anyone want to buy it?

We're test fitting in two lights for each headlight assembly and I want to go with the largest size I can squeeze in without looking funny, hence the ordering of the three different sizes. I'll most certainly end up with a 90mm halogen high beam on the inside and a 60mm or 50mm Xenon HID projector for the lows, mounted on the outside so the lights will have balance with the bumper (there is visually less space on the outside of the light assemblies than on the inside). Or I might only have room for a 60mm on the inside and a 50mm on the outside but we shall see (pun intended). For the low beam HIDs, Hella makes a bi-Xenon unit that the Rally Light guys are trying to get me to use. These would work for low beams but would also stay on for high beams also so the light would be blindingly bright. Finally, Kilo is going to have a body shop make shrouds for the lights so they look stock.

This has been my vision for a few years now and nobody else has delivered so I am doing it myself. The closest to this is the current GB on the retrofit single HID lights which will work great for lighting but fall way short of being aesthetically appealing. I want to improve on this by having lights that function great but also look really nice.

And yes, I will take pics of the lights and how it turns out. I'll also try to get dimensions on everything for those that want to try this.

The test lights are already at Kilo and I am going down to the shop this week, probably on Wednesday, to have the car dynoed anyway so I will be able to check out the progress.

speedjunkie

iTrader: (3)

Awesome.

Are you going for something similar to the 4 eyes look that EVO-R did (a big name Japanese company did them, but I forget who now), or is your idea a bit different? I'm just trying to get an idea of what you're talking about.

David Hayes

iTrader: (6)

Yes, something similar to that (that is the Knightsport kit, no longer available). The difference will be mine will use two different size lights with a smaller diameter one on the outside to give the lights more aesthetic appeal. I am also using HID projectors so the light output will be dramatically better than the kits you show. Finally, in response to the EVO-R kit, I followed the thread for over 3 years only to find out he made a crap kit and then ripped off a fellow forum member.

If someone made a quality kit I would buy it but it doesn't exist. Even the Knightsport kit had crappy light output.

speedjunkie

iTrader: (3)

I was just wondering if that was what you were going for, or something similar. Even if he hadn't ripped the guy off, I still wouldn't buy it if it's a crappy kit lol.

David Hayes

iTrader: (6)

Yes, that's the look and I wish someone else made a kit so I wouldn't have to do this myself. With the EVO-R guy, I remember asking him many pointed questions regarding light output and cutoff, and he never answered the questions which over time made me believe he would not deliver on his promises. Called that one right didn't I?

I think my lights will not pop up quite as high and I will definitely have much improved light output. My goal is to make the lights look like how I would envision modern popups to look and function although no one would use popups today would they?

Just confirmed going down to Kilo Racing this Wednesday to dyno the car (should be 600+ at 18 PSI as it is a 20B) and while I am there, we're going to select which lights to use for the project. I'll take pics and post them up.

speedjunkie

iTrader: (3)

Yeah I'd say you called it right haha.

I'd also say that's one thing that keeps our cars original. Even though the stock lights are pop ups, no one really uses them anymore so it just adds to the awesomeness that is our cars haha. I do really like the stock lights, but I want to open them up so I can use that area as an air intake. AND I want to run my oil cooler lines through there like Rob's race car (https://www.rx7club.com/race-car-tech-103/94-rx-7-track-car-project-begins-506890/page6/ post #265) so the stock lights have to come out. Otherwise I'd just leave them.

Damn, 600 is nice. 20B is also nice haha. Can't wait to see the pics!

David Hayes

iTrader: (6)

Just went thru Rob's thread and that is amazing. Very nice craftsmanship.

As for the 600 HP number, that used to be the "gold" standard for 20B and I can remember a few years ago when the first 20B made that on this forum. Now though, that is on the low side so my car would be considered mild and conservative. The funny thing is you can't effectively drive any more than 500 or so because you can't keep traction at that level anyway due to the higher torque levels.

Anyway, we're going to turn the boost up to 18 PSI and see what happens. Jesus Padilla (the tuner) has now worked on my car long enough he's comfortable turning it up a bit. As we made 525 at 14 PSI, I don't think the 600+ number is a stretch at all. Gotham Racing made 649 HP on my engine before they blew it up

speedjunkie

iTrader: (3)

Yeah I wish I could do to my car what Rob did to his, the level of craftsmanship. Same for yours too, it would be nice to be able to afford a 20B haha. Although I'd probably stick with my 2 rotor regardless.

That sucks about Gotham Racing. Did they cover it or was that "not their fault"? LOL

David Hayes

iTrader: (6)

I could have a Porsche GT2 or an Aston Martin for what it has cost me with the 20B conversion. Knowing what I now know, I could certainly do the whole conversion for under $35K.

Steve Kan from Gotham stepped up and paid for a good portion of the rebuild. He's the only one from the Gotham team that cared at all. Alex, one of the former owners, did send me a waste gate but then refused to return my calls to him when it came time to pony up some $$.

Let's hope today's dyno session doesn't turn out like the Gotham one

Kyro-2

iTrader: (1)

Lucky you. I didnt get **** from him but a couple of blown motors. Wish I got somthing back

David Hayes

iTrader: (6)

Well, the dyno session yesterday got cancelled due to a leaky fuel fitting in the trunk.. Not a good idea to go WOT with gas spewing out

I did, however, spend some time going over the headlight conversion. What we have decided on is to use a 90mm unit for the halogen highs and a 50mm unit for the Xenon low beams. This combo seems to work the best. We also decided to raise the headlights (how high the popup will go) 5 inches instead of the stock 7.5 inches. For me, this is the most aesthetically appealing height. One can certainly go lower, but too low makes the car look "ricer" to me.

Here are some pics of the mockup. Hella makes mounting plates for the lights and we've ordered 90mm and 50mm ones. Kilo is going to weld these together and then figure out how to get everything to fit and stay secure. Note in the current pics the lights are pointing down - the brackets will correct this and each light assembly has three OEM adjustment screws for fine tuning. We'll then have OEM like headlight shrouds made to ensure it looks good and clean. FYI - the Hella light units are extremely high quality.