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I did something where I took Chuck's design / knockoff and inverted the "standard" paint that RE and others took as the defacto standard, where the bezel of the lens was black and the Fiberglass was painted the color of the car. It worked better for me because I also didn't like the look of something made in a garage with wires and other stuff visible, and if you "Black" the innards of the housing out, with the fact that there is very little bounce light under the hood everything goes dark.



It Also Mimic'd the '99 Spec Turn Signals' black and bulb design.

 

Resurrecting an interesting discussion...

As for the claims that Rotary Extreme's kit solved the lighting issues of the RE Amemiya sleek light kit, I found there are a few caveats to that claim. I have always loved the kit but imagine my surprise when I broke open the lights and found that the D2S capsules are permanently affixed to the Hella 90 mm HALOGEN low beam housing with JB Weld!

Chuck's old kit uses an H9 projector because the appropriate HID projector simply does not fit. I know because I actually bought a set of Hella 90 mm HID projectors to replace the jury rigged H9 ones. They are too long and the rear housing hits the frame. The reason they are longer is probably to accommodate the longer capsule and for optical purposes since the D2S and halogen H9 bulbs are so different. What's weird is that there is NO difference between Hella's 90m Classic halogen and HID projectors other than the rear housing.

In the end I ended up just throwing the old halogen projectors in there because I got sick of fiddling with it. I used EVO-R's replacement covers which are miles better than the flat lexan covers that came with the kit.

Personally I just prefer sleek kits since that was what was popular in the modding scene in the 90s. I find popups to be antiquated but understand today's modders didn't grow up with them like I did so it's fresh to them. I mean, look at new Aston Martins, Ferraris and Corvettes, you don't see them trying to revive popups in those now, do you?

 

I'm OK with them so long as they're glass-covered and flush. Non-flush bugeyed lights are blasphemy.

 

I think we are at a place where the lighting is the easy part—you can get a mini morimoto hi/low beam projector that's very compact. The issue is the look/construction.

The problem is—no offense to anyone—is that there are no sleek light kits ever made for this car that don't look home built. They certainly won't be mistaken for a factory headlight, especially up close. That's why I just went with the Sakebombs.

The last real attempt was Jim LaBreck's, but like most things, he never really finished his ideas. 3D modeling and printing might finally solve this for us at low production numbers, but we need someone with some real skill to develop the housings.

 

Definitely the lighting is the easy part now since we have so many options to choose from. You could go with all sorts of small form projectors or LED options as well.

When I had the Evo-R headlights, I had always planned to switch out the fog lights in them with Hella micro DE projectors, which I believe are used in the Sakebomb light kit. The shroud on the micro-DE's help a lot with the oem look imo.

As for the kit-bashed look, it's a thing that falls in and out of favor with the scene. At times the more custom a job the better it was, while now the pendulum has swung back to where a stock OEM look is more desired. There are probably really **** people out there that could probably make an RE-A kit look close to OEM, all it takes like you say is someone with real skill.

 

Bumping an eight-year-old thread?

Seen the lights on the Mazda Iconic XP? Pop ups!

 

0% chance those are going to make it the production car lol