I'm going to switch over to a bi-xenon hid setup sometime coming up and have been trying to decide which projectors would fit and work the best inside the stock housings/reflectors. The Acura TL one "appears" to be too tall, but is the highest recommended one. The BMW E46 works, but needs a custom shroud made. The Audi projectors all have nicely enclosed projectors. I have no idea how the BMW and Audi ones compare to one another or to the TL...and I'm not having much luck researching that fact.
Anyone here done this research themselves?
I'm planning on sanding down the inside of our lenses, leaving it with a polished clear finish and doing something to the inside to smooth the transition between the reflector and projector - probably just just some fiberglass and paint on a pair of old/useless reflectors.
Of course, this has all come from me finally going through and getting rid of quick disconnects - soldering and heatshrinking everything properly...also on my 4th type of fuse panel/block. Headlights are probably one of the last electrical upgrades I'd like to do. Ballasts and bulbs are easy, just which projector...?
The projectors from an audi are much too large in my opinion... they are too long i think and would need you to modify the header panel.
Finally found some good sources for information. Does anyone have dimensions of the headlight housings with and without the adjustment bracket?
hmmm...no matter what projectors are used, it seems the easiest route for making the headlights themselves would require header panel modification...no need to worry about having the projector perfectly centered in the small header panel hold. Only problem is I have no idea how you would go about modifying fiberglass without making it likely to crack down the road. Thinking of just getting some quotes from outside shops but if it isn't as fragile as I'm thinking, then I'd just do it myself. As far as I know, the edges have to be rounded/smoothed nicely to prevent cracking but thats all I know. Of course, I don't know if I even want to mess with the dust that would be in the air from that stuff. Tips anyone?
Would love to not have a problem with using TL projectors
Well if the world was perfect you wouldn't have any problems. But the reality is you want to use fairly new technology in a 20 year old car.. it's not going to be plug and play. Yes some modifications / fabrications will be necessary. Besides, I doubt many people on this board have even thought about the idea of using projector headlights (as it's evident by nobody else replying in here.) So my tip for you.. is you're on your own with this ;)
I thought about using projectors made for an 87 stang until I found out they wouldnt work in our cars.
well I'm shooting for a tight fit. Have TL's now and E46 projectors on the way. So whichever works best, I'll use. Even the TL's will fit in the stock housings if aimed FORWARD, not straight out in the housings which would be to the side when on the car.
edit:
pictures of fit - fits behind the lens cover in current position.
(http://home.comcast.net/~seekproj/projsetup1.jpg)
(http://home.comcast.net/~seekproj/projsetup2.jpg)
(http://home.comcast.net/~seekproj/projsetup3.jpg)
With some little tpuppies, it should fit fine. Entire retrofit will be jbwelded and fiberglassed. Of course, the driving lights and corners will need to be done in a similar fashion to look right.
How about this, whats the best way to get rid of those lens grooves? I've been using a dremel with the wire tips to cut down the plastic but its a slow, uneven, and messy process. Any better ideas?
I would use one of those black and decker sanders that have the small clothes iron shaped sanding head. its an orbital sander with a tip taht will allow you to get into the corners.
Have you come across anything that would work well for a 4 eye?
Actually, the projectors that are only a single beam are MUCH smaller, and cheaper, than the dual beam projectors (seen them at $60 buy it now on ebay). I think the Lexus RS330 is the smallest you can get, but not sure. The largest problem isn't the width of these things, or height, but the length...the reason for me needing to hack up my header panel behind the light. If I had such a vehicle, I'd switch the low beams over and keep the highs halogen - unless you have money just sitting around for a second set of everything. Get a set of ballasts/ignitors with bulbs for $100 and you'd have a pretty easy, cheap install in a pre-87. Of course, the ballasts need to be kept away from water or potted else they can short internally.
The TL's above are probably the largest projectors you can get at 4.39" (w) x 3.78" (h) x 6.73" (l) but also known to be the best available in stock form. I don't know the dimensions of sealed beam headlights so I'm not sure how much room is available inside.
Not sure how well that sander would work in corners, although its designed with that tip for it. Sandpaper doesn't cut through this plastic all that quick, even 40 grit. May just be better off buying a bulk pack of those wire brushes from widgetsupply (which surprisingly is a local company)
The headlights on a 4 eye are 4"x6". H4656 and H4651
What are these pop in HID conversion bulbs on ebay?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Xenon-HID-Conversion-Kit-H1-H3-H4-H7-9004-9006-9007_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ36476QQihZ010QQitemZ200047376077QQrdZ1
Drop in HID? Costs about as much as a couple of cheap parts would.
BillyF17 has don a HID conversion on his 4 eye.
Have you toyed with the idea of making your own lenses? If you could make a mold of the current lense, and heat acrylic sheets to cover it. Shave the outside of the mold down so they are not oversized.
Found a drop in solution for 4 eye's.. Kinda pricy though.
http://www.brightheadlights-hid.com/Headlights-x4656.htm
"Drop in" solutions, in most cases, will cause excessive glare to other drivers since the reflectors are designed for halogen bulbs. Using D2R bulbs (reflector based) instead of D2S (projector based) will cut down on some of the glare, but they're designed for hid reflectors. The arc in a metal halide bulb is completely different than the glowing coils in a halogen so the focal lengths are off, throwing light everywhere.
Of course, thats just "drop in" replacements (replacing just the bulb with a re-based one and adding ballasts/igniters). Your first link isn't working and the second may work alright. Its not OEM equipment, which is tested and proven, but buying a set and taking pictures of them facing a wall would let you compare the cutoffs and amount of glare compared to the different projectors.
HERE (http://"http://www.hidretro.com/page20.htm") is a somewhat outdated page that has pictures of different projectors and their cutoffs. Hard to make sense of the page at first, but it shows how good projector setups can be, with a nice sharp cutoff line. The camera used obviously doesn't like the green (?) light they have above the garage as it darkens everything.
That makes perfect sense. I've fixed the broken link...
Getting the inside of those lenses smooth is a HUGE undertaking. You would have a cloudy and distorted final product at best.
However, I think it's cool that you're trying it. There must be some other way, though.
You know, making a mold WOULD be easier if using a hardened mold (not the rubbery kind). Not sure how strong the plastic casting would be with obtainable materials though. I'm going to see what TAP plastics has to say about it tomorrow. My one wire wheel is about gone now and I need to pick up a bunch more. Was able to cut down past probably 90% of the ribs in two of the large ribbed areas.
Not sure how well fiberglass works but if I can just get a fiberglass mold made of the inside shape, it'd be quite easy to bend some lexan around it. Then my only concern is how the joined edges would look.
Do you have a spare lens around to experiment with? Try putting it under water and you'll likely find that the grooves all but disappear. The grooves won't disappear completely under water because the water has different optical properties than the acrylic lens. The key to getting rid of them might lie not in filing/grinding them down, but in filling the "valleys" with a clear resin that has similar optical properties.
Even if you can't find something identical you might still be able to do a compromise - use the file/grinder method to get rid of most of the grooves, and some clear resin to fill in the rest...
This is one of my spare lenses I'm working on. I have two right now. I'm sure I can make it smooth with enough time, but melting some lexan on top of a mold would probably be far easier if I can make the seams look alright.
TAP Plastics couldn't give me ideas on what to use for a mold, except wood. I don't think that lady knew too much. I need something that can take the shape of the inside of the lens, be sanded smooth when taken out, and can resist 300 degrees in an oven to bend acrylic over. I found that the heat gun itself makes it plenty pliable but its hard to not overheat it in spots, causing bubbles (testing out some s pieces)
Well, the ballasts and bulbs arrived today and work as they should. Just finishing getting all the brown off the D2R bulbs to use in the projectors. Lens clearing is coming along pretty nicely actually, with just the second wire brush. Almost every rib is gone and the inside has very few lumps left to grind down. Sandpaper soon to follow
Excellent! Post some pictures when you get close.
How will you be preparing the lenses for final polishing? What grits will you be using?
What ever happened to this experiment?
This guy here does this for a living (usually on rams) great pricing and really good work...
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/profile.php?id=100001757071942
his name is Jeremy...
These were finished long ago but I will get around to making a new quad-projector, hopefully single-piece headlight/marker assembly once I am more settled in to the new place and build a vacuum chamber. The current lenses were vacuum formed over a stock pair of filled lenses as molds. I have a couple slightly worse spare lenses but I hope to make some perfect ones easily once I build a chamber to get myself larger/single piece lenses to replace the 3-light set.
(http://home.comcast.net/~seekproj/HID2.jpg)
(http://home.comcast.net/~seekproj/HID3.jpg)
(http://home.comcast.net/~seekproj/HID1.jpg)
(http://home.comcast.net/~seekproj/HID4.jpg)
Nice job, Seek.
That was nothing - my next endeavor will be the difficult one. I already have the parts but the lenses and header panel modifications/planning will be the most difficult. It will be two TL projectors and two TSX projectors for 12,000 bulb lumens of pure awesomeness. Plus it'll look better having full clear lenses up front ;)
Still a LOT better than stock. I haven't even used my fo glights in years as they do not help at all, over the light that the Acura TL projectors put out.
So if you don't like the ones you have, you interested in selling them? lol
I likely will be when the time comes, but I need to make some new lenses with more durable material. One lens has very slight webbing from something hitting it hard - I can only see it with light hitting it at a certain angle but it's there. The current lenses were formed with a simple wet/dry vacuum.
I figure my new vacuum forming machine will be able to do this easily, and churn them out quickly once I have the mold design done that I currently have in my head. Dual tanks pulled to strong vacuum (need to test this to see how much vacuum I actually need) should be enough to quickly form even new single-piece front lenses. Now on the other hand, having the room to store the vacuum chamber...that I'm unsure about.
Currently the lawn and car paint are on my list before vacuum chamber, meaning this project is 6 months out.
. Do you have any idea how much revenue you'll generate on these lights. Most of us would probably drop some good money for decent headlights.
The lenses are the hardest part - if they work out, I'd likely just sell clear lenses to people so they can do their own work with the housings to how they'd like. I can form some housings easily enough, giving a lot of interior space for designs, but that would also require a person to develop their own aiming mechanism. If I need to, I may offer other services but I think that would be better suited for someone with more time and space who can get the lenses from me and do the rest of the fabrication themself to make money, if they so desire. We'll see how everything goes once I get the cabinet built first.
I'm not looking to make money - just get what I want and offer similar to other people who want them/pay for the mold making materials of custom lenses or housings. I have no idea how well my vacuum chamber design will work though, until I put it into practice. Pulling materials down in one direction is one thing but you have to keep in mind that the marker lights wrap around the car and the lens itself wraps around further to its housing.
Instead of doing this:
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to:
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We have to make this:
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do this:
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...........................|
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Ignore the dots - I had to fill something in there to keep spaces from being removed. An interesting note on this - try using character 0xA0 for spaces and when you preview the post, it gets converted to the word "molested". Yes, very amusing.
Anyway, the above example shows that one side must pull one direction while the other must pull a different direction. This is going to require a raised vacuum port to be fitted within the mold, rather than just pull to the bottom of the vacuum chamber. I think this will actually be fairly easy to do for any direction after I get the first mold working.
And yes, our lights suck. With new headlight lenses/housings, bulbs, 14.5v at the bulb, foglights, it still didn't come close to the TL projectors I have on their now. My used D2S bulbs are showing their age though in both color temperature (higher) and output.