Non-popup Headlight COnversion
 

Hey everone I'm will be starting a company soon and was wanting to see what kinda market there is for a Headlight conversion for the FBs. I will also be making other parts for the FB. Mainly the company will be making lightweight racing parts for a select few cars like the Subaru Impreza, 1st Gen RX7s and S13 240SXs.

I am working with a member on here in making the prototype conversion and hoefully will have it made within the next few weeks. I will be using either a dual light setup with the Hella 90mm units or a single light setup using a Cibie 130mm unit. Depending on how they look and the market for these I might make both or just offer one. The dual unit will be like most that you have already seen but without a Lexan or Acrylic cover, they will be contoured with the lights and made from carbon fiber. The single unit one will be just like the dual unit except theres a bigger light that serves both purposes of high and low in one light. The single will also have a duct incorperated into it also.

Please rply and tell me if you all would be interested in this non-popup headlight conversion and also which you would like better and dual or single light. Also I will be trying to get this Headlight conversion under $400 and there will also be the option for a HID upgrade on these also, but no price on that yet.

Here is a photoshoped picture of what the dual beam ones would look like.

Here is a photoshoped picture of what the single beam ones would look like.

I you mean headlight conversion like the black FC, them I'm very interested. I'm sure you can find a market for that here.
http://www.teamfc3s.org/forum/attach...&postid=100617

I just saw the sample pics( God bless YOU!!!!!!!!!!!) I'm in for sure.

Remember these are just photoshopped pics so it isn't what it will finally look lik but will give you an idea, I most likely going with the dual beam one since it is more doable and will come out the best.

From another thread:

http://www.rotorhead.ca/shots/fixedlamps.jpg

I like 'em :)

Heres mine so you don't have to download the attachment

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/attach...postid=1735535

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/attach...postid=1735537

My friend has a kit like that for his Miata.

~T.J.

i would give a kidney for that coversion on my rx!!!!!!!!....
i hate pop up headlight........ the black photshop pick is what im lookin for...........

there is also a guy who did them with rectangular light on his rally rx7



peace

oh here is a pic of that rally car coversion

Is the other guy you are working with FBII, aka Zac?

anybody know where you can get any small round headlights? The smallest I could find is 5 3/4", I need a max of 4 1/2", preferably 4" diameter. Need them cheap too. Any ideas? I want two round lights on each side, one for high beam one for low beam. Lighting quality is irrelevant, just need them legal.

Hmm, I'm working on a kit as well. I haven't decided if I'm going to go through the hassel of selling copies or not. I chose to go with a 4x6" un-sealed conversion. I have a pair of HID's that are going in the lights for mine, but any H4 bulb would work. You do know that you are likely to have to cut out that back re-enforcment to get them to fit correct? Those covers are deceptivly large, when the opening is very small. I'll have pics of my lights up in a weel or so.

I too am working on the same project. I was figuring that I'd go with a 4X6 rectangle, seems a more likely fit. I do really like the type of double projector headlight I see on some of the hondas, nissans, etc. I haven't been able to find any of these small projector like bulbs though.
I plan on doing this so there is no cutting involved, I"d rather not cut my car up and I'm sure most would agree. The way it looks there may be need to have som drilling, but that isn't too big a deal. I'm gonna get some headlights, make a mold for the plexi, and either go with a a fiberglass or metal light fixture. Could go with carbon at a later time.

Interesting to see so many of us doing the same thing! :D

why are we doing the two thread thing ?? this should be part of the earlier thread shoudnt it? that way it would show the interest in the headlights and get rid of the negative comments like (there is no interest) why dont we get these stickied togther? It would also show more Ideas for Those atempting to do this.

here

What about getting one of the kits they sell for Honduh or whatever, and using the lights off them. They sell for less than $150 on ebay. Then make your own buckets and lids?

If you make it, I will buy it!!

I thought about this... but then If I were to sell a few sets the price would be a bit higher due to the $150 headlights. I just bid on some conversion type lights that I'll use for my car, well If they work out ok that it ;)

I guess I'll find out.

Hey everone yo update this, they are still going to be made and I'm going to be using the dual setup with the Hella lights. The Hella lights are very high quality piece and are DOT approved. I also will be making this kit so that theres now cutting involved but there might be soemwiring that will have to be done but I will try to make this a completly plug and play unit. Also as with everthing that i will be making these will definatly drop weight off the car. I havn't figured out the exact weight yet but will soon when I have the person I'm working with let me make the intial mold of his lights.

But there is one problem though, with the current low interest of these I might not be able to produce these in large numbers but more like a made on order with a half downpayment and the rest when completed. This should take more than a couple of days each to make once i have a working mold.

And the final thing here when I have finished the mold for these and are ready to be made I will be doing a group buy on these and will have a special introductory price. But I have not got a final price for these but they will stay under $400 for the conversion.

I will try to have a prototype of this within the next week or two. I have put these as first priority on the list. Thanks everone for there help and time.

i started making my custom setup today, its a bitch when the sawzall blade breaks but you are too cheap to buy a new one so you have to cut a big area out with some metal snips to fit the headlight back far enough, hehe

Hmm, good luck on your kits guys, some of you are going to need it :) There just isn't as much room as some of you think.

I built the framework for the headlight today, and will finish the final frame with all the brackets on Monday. I'm going to use it to test the frame's rigidity, and the quality of the adjustment features on the lights. If it works, you'll be able to adjust the head lights with 2 screws like factory units. The buckets will most likely be fiberglass molds that I'll fab up in a few weeks, but for now I'll probably make a box out of aluminum to test the dimensions. I'm shooting for a final product that is between $150-200, and can be installed in less than an hour while maintaining factory relyability. The benifits of using the 4x6 is that they will accept any beam you chose, be them diamond cuts, regular H4 conversions, or seals beams for easy maintainance. I'm running H4 conversions in the prototypes along with a set of HID's as an example of the upgrades that will be available. If all goes well, I should also be able to offer painted buckets to match Mazda's factory paint codes in a few months as an upgrade.

Can't round BMW HID lights be modified to fit?

If youre interested in the Miata that i did the conversion on, you can see pictures of it HERE. Everything on that car that isnt stock was installed by me, so no bashing on it ;). Not shown in the pictures is the keyless entry, street glow, and the KYB 8 way adjustables and the ground control coil overs with Eibach springs. The owner also has a full body kit for it that is yet to be installed. Just remember, its not my car, and I dont completely agree with all the mods, I just install them :).

~T.J.

PS - Please dont link the images to here as it eats bandwith for my angelfire account. Thanks :).

Well my kit will most likely be delayed for a little bit since earlier tongiht a lady pulled out in front of me and I swerved to miss her and spun out into a curb. So far it looks to be about $5g worth of damage so far.

TJ were those headlights a custome thing or was it part of a kit? If you did that from scratch then we need some for our cars.. :)

5g of damage on a 1st gen?

Dude, I hit a concrete barrier with mine at highway speeds and it was only about $4G Canuck bucks to fix.

Depends on the dimensions of the lights but I'm sure they could. There's a guy that mod's 5G Prelude lights using BWM HID's. The benifits is that the light is set up to use the HIDs focus length, so they produce a nice crisp beam. The HID bulbs in a Hallogen unit will blur at the edges, meaning you must either aim them down more reducing the forward view slightly, or maintain the view and blind the Bajebus out of people. The downside to the BWM HID's is that they would cost about $1200 to do a conversion with. Personally, I'd rather have a $500 conversion and slightly blurry lines.

I plan on offering several variants of styles. Including painted buckets, maybe carbon fiber, diamond lights or regular lights, and I might run 2 smaller lights. I chose to try the 4x6 because it's easier, more reliable, and cheaper. It also offers the ability to customize it to personal preferences on bulbs and light styles.



As for the miata lights. There are two things I noticed. One being it didn't seem like the lights sat level on the hood. Is that a trick of angles or do they just not fit all that well. Also, they look like the bottoms are cut off by the bumper. Don't they cast a huge saddow in front of the car? Look nice though, I to wonder if that's 100% custom or a kit. Looks like a kit to me. Nice stereo BTW :)

I'm thinking based on his Name he has a Subaru Impreza

Don't forget, BMWs have the headlights up front with space behind them, so the length of the light unit isn't really an issue.

On our cars, however, you have to set the light far back so they don't stick out through the openings in profile, yet therer is a metal bulkhead that the light buckets anchor to. Ideally a kit would not require the installer to cut into this structural bulkhead just to provide clearance for the back half of the light units selected.

thats what I've noticed too..... the last two inches of the light cover that you see when the lights are down are hanging over a structual bulkhead. The holes otherwise are borderline too small to fit without protruding above the surface. So you either have to cut the bulkhead, or make them stick out higher than the original lines.... like some of the 3rd gen fixed headlight kits.

As a matter of personal preference, I don't think the bug eye protruding lights would look good on a 1st get. On a car with more fluid curves you might get away with it, but not on these cars.... thats why I still think you'd have better luck with a good-looking sleepy-eye kit.

I think there will be a very good market for these kits if you can actually make them THAT good looking. But I would think that it wouldn't be all that hard to do yourself, even for someone as oblivious as me. And I don't think something that simple will ever be worth anything near $400, so it's a very good idea to keep the price down like you said.

Well I've got the 1st prototype finished. Cutting the support was a little harder than I had thought. I ended up having to use a dremmil and finally an air cutter. I figure that the average, "not very mecnahically inclined" person can do 95% of the install themselves, and if they need to, take the car to a shop and have them cut out the holes. Something like that would be very cheap and easy if you had already removed the lights. Plus, if done properly, you can have the pannel welded back in and convert back to pop-ups.

Anyway, I'm going to fab up a second design today. The first one proved that I can make it rigid enough using factory bolt locations, so there's no drilling, but It's not high enough and it's WAY to far back. I was worried about hood clearance and suck so I mounted it behind one of the hood supports. I'm going to re-design the frame work so I can mount it higher and more forward. It looks really good though guys! Reminds me of a 300Z a little. I'm looking forward to the finished product.

Count me in, i've been looking for a conversion kit for a while. I just didn't feel like getting into the conversion myself, don't have the time, to busy trying to get my 1st Gen running right. ha. But i'm def. in, dual light setup, sealled, made out of Carbon Fiber.

How difficult to fit a strobe light setup with the kit...

count me in also, my motors on both lights are shot.

Hey, luiml73,

Those wheels look fricken' awesome photoshopped on your car! What kind are they? Heh, heh ...

NO pictures yet? ;)

And why is there cutting involved? That does make for a bit more a pain in the arse on the install, but I'm sure you already knew that! :D Still interested in taking a look! :D

Sorr I gues I nver mentioned I don't own a RX7 I have a 2000 SUbaru Impreza RS, the body kit, rims and coilovers and rear suspension were all damaged in the wreck.

manntis is this where you got stuck with the ones you were doing?

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/attach...&postid=985691

I have a wide body and it would not bother me if they stuck out a little like the cwest ones for the third gen.

Reaction to those semi-raised lights was luke warm. Personally I like the look, but it's too subjective for me to sink a bundle into production...

Thank's ................Front wheels are already paid for just saving up for the rear and shipping
http://www.braid.es/braidwheels/desm...aid3pcsENG.htm
I ordered these 17x8 $300/each 17x12 $355/each

http://www.braid.es/braidwheels/desm...es/gt17rsb.jpg

I finished the 2nd prototype tonight. They look freaking sweet. I still need to do a beam test to make sure they aren't casting nasty shadows and make sure they are aim'ed properly and have enough adjustability. I moved the second kit forward about 3" and it's up as far as it will go. It nearly hits the hood, but should clear with no problems unless you have some body damage. It looks like it's going to work out very well. I'll try to have some pictures up as soon as I can steal a digital camera.

Total weight should be around 20lbs lighter than stock. The frames are very light steel, the buckets will be fiber glass and carbon fiber later this summer. The covers will be plexiglass and moulded with the exact contours of the stock light covers. Assuming the disign passes my tests, it's still probably a month away from having the jigs made and the moulds ready, but this should be a very nice kit when it's done. I'm still shooting for a $150 price with the low end conversion lights. What I'll probably do is sell the kit for something like $120 without the lights, and just have different price options for lights like $30 for normal H4's, $60 for Diamond lights, $25 for seald beams, etc. Final price will depend on option selected, time to fabricate, and material costs. I'm building this kit to be easy and cheap to make, while still retaining a good quality. If I succede, it shoud be pretty cheap to produce, and I should be able to sell it for my target price. I highly doubt the base model will go over $200 for the pair. The buckets will probably be flat black with an option to be painted body color. I may also include a turn signal or reflectory in the unit because there's a large space available where the subframe intrudes in the bucket. I'm going to see how they look before deciding though. You'll see when pics are up.

Rob

wheres the pics?

I should have some tomorrow. I got my roomates digital camera now, so I'll pop over to the farm and take some pics and have them uploaded. You're so needy.... :)

Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

Ok, here are some pics. Old school style because my server is being stupid and I can't host them. Keep in mind this are on-off prototypes, yet to be tested. The bucket is also spraypainted and taped poster board so I can test the beam pattern. The lights actually look a lot better in person, but there wasn't enough light in the hanger.

Can you get a close up of it?