91-01 Fixed Headlights - Beware, high res pics

[troca]

MvM- what I am building will be drop in replacement for the pop-up headlight cars with the standard hood that they came with. Fixed headlights will be exactly the same shape as the pop up headlights when in the retracted position.
As far as RHD cars, at some point I'll just use some US specs (they vary by State here, there are no specific Federal adjustment specs) and make sure that they can be swapped right for left, I see no reason to doubt that they will at this point. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[N Spec]

I made a OEM hood in this same style and I figured I would share.

I personally like the modified hood line better, but this would be more practical as a simple drop in.

troca, I look forward to seeing progress pics of your piece.

 

[RYU]

not sure if you're already sourced your parts for this mod but for the sake of helping out... you can also see the offerings from this vendor. They produce high quality projectors and OEM replicas better than OEM in some cases.

I think this unit would be a good candidate for this retrofit.
http://www.theretrofitsource.com/product_info.php?products_id=236

good luck. eager to see your progress.

 

[KrayziE RussiaN]

I made a OEM hood in this same style and I figured I would share.

I personally like the modified hood line better, but this would be more practical as a simple drop in.

troca, I look forward to seeing progress pics of your piece.

I'm with you on that... this just looks like all the other drop in replacements... I don't really like it as much as the ones with the modded hood line... hmm...

 

[troca]

Thanks for the renderings NSpec, very nice work, I'll certainly keep you in the loop as things get closer, I owe you that at least. I am very aware that there are a lot of guys looking for something that is visually more of a change for the car. Problem for me is that I'm not doing this for those other guys at this time. My car has a ton of mods already, including a type R hood, and I'm not going to spend another $500-$1000 to get a late model type R hood and go through all that again at this time. There is also the issue of getting parts made. It's reasonably easy and not too expensive to make molds from the existing pop up headlight covers for the clear covers. There is no model for one with the pop up front bumper cover and the later style hood. Not that it's an insurmountable problem, but having to get a late hood, then modify a pop up cover for the extra fit to be of use as a master for the clear mold (and don't forget right and left hand) adds a ton to the development timeline and cost. I am only planning on enough parts to do six sets at this time. If after seeing how the end result looks on my car some prime members are interested in me making a set up for them, great. If not, I know enough other local guys and racers that would probably eat up some of the spare parts. I can tell you this, as nice as the renderings are, from what I have already seen with my mock ups, the differences between the drop in and the much more costly different hood approach are not going to be nearly as noticeable in the real world as they are in the renderings. The real problem with the headlight mounting is the sheetmetal surrounding the headlight pocket in the chassis. Even using the smallest DOT approved (yes, I'm aware of other very small possible headlight candidates, but they are not DOT or SAE approved as far as I can find out) headlight assemblies I could find, they can still only be placed so far back. The shorter hood on the late model cars does not change any of this for the pop up cars and the space under the clear cover that now extends back farther to the outside of the body and hood will be nothing more than a shelf and complicate things like the back of the headlight bucket that now has to match the cover and new hood line as well as the extra length will have an impact on accessibility of the back of the lamps for aiming the lights or changing the bulbs. Also, the color chosen for the bucket, black, silver, white or other color match, will have a big impact on how a clear cover set will look in the car. So just wait for a real world picture before getting too excited one way or another. Tony

 

[troca]

You know, just for the heck of it, I went back and looked at the first renderings by NSpec and there is one where early pop up light hood profile and later clear cover light profile are overlayed. If the profiles shown are really correct (and I'm not suggesting they aren't, I just don't have a later car nearby to visually check myself), I am mistaken in what I said about the hood line and the cover and the shelf of the bucket. I still am going to do direct drop in for my pop up car first and once I have sorted out the process and am confident in the sources for my parts, maybe I'll look into just how hard it would be to modify things to allow the later hood, maybe the covers being made now (which should be larger than the late model hood requires) can even be trimmed. Anyone have an old clear light module (just need the bucket and cover) and/or a late hood I could borrow to check this out? Best if these aren't perfect parts, just not dimensionally damaged. I'll cover shipping and you have my promise to return the parts when I'm done evaluating. Sorry guys, don't want to seem closed to your ideas, just a lot going on and trying not to get off track. Tony

 

[N Spec]

Just to clarify, the 02 style hoods will not line up like I have rendered. What I meant to demostrate with that overlay is the extra material that is needed to be added to an existing OEM 91-01 style hood.

 

[RYU]

Thanks for the renderings NSpec, very nice work, I'll certainly keep you in the loop as things get closer, I owe you that at least. I am very aware that there are a lot of guys looking for something that is visually more of a change for the car. Problem for me is that I'm not doing this for those other guys at this time. My car has a ton of mods already, including a type R hood, and I'm not going to spend another $500-$1000 to get a late model type R hood and go through all that again at this time. There is also the issue of getting parts made. It's reasonably easy and not too expensive to make molds from the existing pop up headlight covers for the clear covers. There is no model for one with the pop up front bumper cover and the later style hood. Not that it's an insurmountable problem, but having to get a late hood, then modify a pop up cover for the extra fit to be of use as a master for the clear mold (and don't forget right and left hand) adds a ton to the development timeline and cost. I am only planning on enough parts to do six sets at this time. If after seeing how the end result looks on my car some prime members are interested in me making a set up for them, great. If not, I know enough other local guys and racers that would probably eat up some of the spare parts. I can tell you this, as nice as the renderings are, from what I have already seen with my mock ups, the differences between the drop in and the much more costly different hood approach are not going to be nearly as noticeable in the real world as they are in the renderings. The real problem with the headlight mounting is the sheetmetal surrounding the headlight pocket in the chassis. Even using the smallest DOT approved (yes, I'm aware of other very small possible headlight candidates, but they are not DOT or SAE approved as far as I can find out) headlight assemblies I could find, they can still only be placed so far back. The shorter hood on the late model cars does not change any of this for the pop up cars and the space under the clear cover that now extends back farther to the outside of the body and hood will be nothing more than a shelf and complicate things like the back of the headlight bucket that now has to match the cover and new hood line as well as the extra length will have an impact on accessibility of the back of the lamps for aiming the lights or changing the bulbs. Also, the color chosen for the bucket, black, silver, white or other color match, will have a big impact on how a clear cover set will look in the car. So just wait for a real world picture before getting too excited one way or another. Tony

If you're so concerned about being DOT/SAE compliant then are you also aware that to be DOT (or SAE?) compliant there is a minimum headlight height requirement that you cannot go below. I once read that the 02+ bubble was necessary to meet this standard though I cannot find that article.

I'm lowered so I don't care but I do remember getting pulled over in a previous car and the police officer did measure my headlight from the ground and issued me a warning for being too low.

 

[BATMANs]

I suspect that one of the reasons why the 02+ frog-eyes headlights are humped is for more peripheral lighting of the sides of the NSX so one wouldn't potentially run over a pedestrian taking a turn in the night........

 

[Hugabuga]

N Spec, are you trying to re-invent or replicate the "GT One" kit?:wink:

 

[shawn110975]

Hugga always saves the best comments for last LOL

 

[N Spec]

N Spec, are you trying to re-invent or replicate the "GT One" kit?:wink:

I honestly did not know those existed lol. I lost interest a while ago, if you did not notice from the old post dates once I created the drop-in style. I concluded that it just does not look good with the OEM headlight shape and the above picture reinforces that.

This style does not look bad though, but the OEM headlight line just does not tickle my fancy. The OEM lines looks better in stealth position.

I've been tinkering with a single projector concept a bit (like the HSC), but I have not found a direction I like enough yet, especially when trying to work around the aesthetically limiting OEM headlight lines...

 

[troca]

I don't think that replicating the GT One kit is the goal, but the end result of this exercise will look a lot like it. I have been looking for a long time and there have been several of these conversions that have been close to what I wanted, but all were unobtanium from Japan or came with goofy expensive price tags and forever lead times and no one to talk to if there was a question, hence the effort to do this at home. If you know how to get this kit, please explain all the details.
NSpec, thanks for the clarification, it still may be worth looking into what it would take to do the late hood setup, may be closer than I'm aware of.
As far as DOT, yes, but most headlight rules are State driven, I think the minimum height in most cases is 24" which my mock ups in my type R suspension car are maybe 1/2" short of meeting. I realize that there are all kinds of colors and varying intensity lights that guys are retrofitting on their cars. Hell, this has been going on for ages, when I was a kid I ran aircraft landing lights in the front and "blue dots" in the tail lights. None of it legal. I'm a lot older now and also a lot more lawyer sensitive, so if I'm going to sell anything I made to anyone else, it will have the quality and reliability of a DOT/Sae tested and approved headlight at the very least. Tony

 

[troca]

I don't think that replicating the GT One kit is the goal, but the end result of this exercise will look a lot like it. I have been looking for a long time and there have been several of these conversions that have been close to what I wanted, but all were unobtanium from Japan or came with goofy expensive price tags and forever lead times and no one to talk to if there was a question, hence the effort to do this at home. If you know how to get this kit, please explain all the details.
NSpec, thanks for the clarification, it still may be worth looking into what it would take to do the late hood setup, may be closer than I'm aware of.
As far as DOT, yes, but most headlight rules are State driven, I think the minimum height in most cases is 24" which my mock ups in my type R suspension car are maybe 1/2" short of meeting. I realize that there are all kinds of colors and varying intensity lights that guys are retrofitting on their cars. Hell, this has been going on for ages, when I was a kid I ran aircraft landing lights in the front and "blue dots" in the tail lights. None of it legal. I'm a lot older now and also a lot more lawyer sensitive, so if I'm going to sell anything I made to anyone else, it will have the quality and reliability of a DOT/Sae tested and approved headlight at the very least. Tony

 

[Hugabuga]

Oh, now I see it was a 2009 post and troca is the one trying to make them, my mistake.

I have no idea how to get this kit or any other info about it, I just found it in the forum archives here: http://www.nsxprime.com/forums/showthread.php?t=92577&highlight=fixed+headlight

I think the main problem with fixed headlights is that there is no much room for the projectors because of the chassis, perhaps to fit the GT One they had to cut the chassis frame I dont know...

However, if you are willing to try it, there is plenty of room UNDER the headlight, so a solution could be to have some sort of REFLECTED light, with a mirror in the back of the headlight assembly, the projector pointing backwards then...that would be the only car in the world with that solution, but it could work!:wink: I am not so sure about the SAE approvals...but who really cares? :biggrin:
A "plug and play", would always be a better solution I think

 

[captainjman]

The new v10 Audi R8 is the first production car with LED headlights.

Give em a call. :smile:

I would imagine the technology is rapidly approaching. We're just a couple years too early for it to be cheap enough to replicate.

Huh? You think LED's are expensive?

Ive build some special project flashlights and the cost was NOT a concern. In fact, its one of the beneifits! Along with no heating issues. With LED you dont have to worry about the bulb getting hot enough to "fog" the glass like you see on aircraft landing lights!

 

[pinta]

 

[condumbwerkz]

I really like the GT-ONE's version, and would definitely be interested in purchasing one if it can be replicated at a reasonable price. To have the headlamp line up with the hood, one can just color vinyl it at the top corners

 

[N Spec]

Kind of lame that I cannot edit the original post because it's kind of old.

Anyways, I would like to share again some conceptual studies since my interest was rekindled. Here is a collage of some ideas I explored:

There were many variations of Concept 2, but I could not get any single projector idea to look good with the pre-existing headlight shape.

Concept number 4 looks like a mesh of 3000GT meets 2002 NSX. That's not what I was going for, but it just ended up that way lol. It is an evolution of all of my ideas so far. I was actually inspired by the GT-One style since it sunk down and pulled forward for clearance. So I adopted the same positioning and put more OEM like styling to it to make it flow better.

NSX-R theme with eyelids painted black to match the motif:

Same color eyelid vs. black eyelid:

Same color eyelid vs. modified hood line to cover eyelid:

Still looks better with modified hood line, but of course that equates to more headaches and money:

The original shape of the lights are not desirable as you can from earlier examples, so I had to find a way to work around the pre-existing shape. I like Concept 4 because it is essentially a more practical approach of Concept 1. The implied eyelid is a compromise that would flow with the overall theme of the NSX if by chance modifying the hood is not plausible.

Let me know what you guys think. Still wish I could edit the original post...

 

[troca]

Hi NSpec, very nice renderings again! My car looks almost just like your final red car with the R wing and hood, except mine has TE37 LE's and is Brooklands Green. The light modules I'm building (clear covers are in process) will look like your concept three, but pulled back to about your concept one position. 90MM hi/lo in one housing on the inside and 90MM driving light on the outside. Hope to have my sample covers in a couple weeks, then on to the bucket cosmetics, the lights have already been fitted into a body mounted structure for positioning and beam testing. We'll discuss a few more things when I get closer to the finished product. Tony

 

[s14_tat]

^^^^^ Cool, I have a green nsx also and I'm curious to see how it would look with those lights on. Thanks for all of your hard work.

 

[Vic Cardenas]

Great work! I like the 3rd concept best (and it looks like so do you). Those renderings are spectacular.

 

[Bogie Bog]

Can't wait for the finish product......
Is it me or is it looking a lot like the Mitshubishi 3000GT?

 

[lxa]

I have been watching this project with great interest, any updates?

 

[troca]

Yes, to be fair to those interested, I just talked today to my plastics guy and he can't do what I want with the shape of the clear cover (I wanted a small side edge for locating and glueing on the headlamp bucket) without going to tooling that would be about a 5K investment. I have major projects (not hobby) that have come in and so for now I don't have the time to take another look at how I want to do this and I can't justify the tooling cost at this time. For now the project is shelved until I have more time. I will probably take another look at what can be done with what my plastics guy can easily do later this summer. Sorry, too many other higher priority projects right now.