Time for a post that's not going to be in any way performance related for a change!
Lighting!
About 8 years ago, The car went AWOL in a steep pub car park, and rearranged it's own headlights.
At the time, facelift lights were fetching big money, and things like DEPO copies didn't exist. So wanting a cleaner look, I went for some Ebay angel eyes, with 8k HIDs too, because blue lights were cool when you're 19, right?
They never really lit the road well at all, and have gotten steadily worse with age (or is that my eyesight?), to the point where now, the car is getting dangerous to drive at night.
Unlike many, I use my track car quite frequently, so given how much of the time it's dark in the UK, it was time to sort out the lighting once and for all!
First decision: Slam panel - this defined the type of light fitment I'd be going for. I decided due to the availability of decent quality DEPO headlights in facelift fitment, that I'd go down that route. So I bought a facelift slam panel so I'd be mounting the lights using all 4 factory mounts.
Next up was a set of depo replacement lights: very shiney!
These are very shiney indeed, and would stand out like a sore thumb on my all black car. I've seen many people strip their lights down and paint the (non reflective parts) insides black to tone them down a touch. I decided immediately that I wanted to do this.
The quality of the lenses and light bodies is perfectly good on these, but the halogen projectors aren't the best. Halogen projectors also aren't ideally suited to HID bulds due to a different shape, and a different cut off pattern.
So, if I'm stripping the lights down, and removing the lenses, I may as well go all the way with this!
So I purchased some 2.5'' Mini H1 Bi-xenon projectors on recommendation from George
The first light went into the oven at 70 degrees for 10 minutes, and after much struggling, the glue softened, and I was able to prize the lens off:
I then removed the reflector bowl. Here you can see the old halogen projector on the left:
I removed the halogen projector, and offered up the new bi-xenon unit. Obviously none of the holes lined up, but the mounting posts did seem to be at an ideal height, which was a good start!
I drilled a tapped the two upper studs with an m4 thread, then set about making some little alloy plates to mount the units. Seen here roughly cut out to test fitment:
With that working nicely, I needed to make a lower mount for the unit, and also provide the ability to adjust the beam height relative to the main beams.
I decided the lower right hand stud would be ideal, and to add a threaded fixing to the projector unit, I replaced one of the 10mm studs for a 20mm stud, giving me a 10mm threaded lug to attach to:
A bit of work with the grinder and pliers, and I came up with this:
The new projector is now mounted very solidly, and is fully adjustable for angle too! I'll be test fitting the lights to the car and setting up the beam alignment carefully before sealing the lights up again!
With the theory proven, I made 2 more of the tabs for the other light, and radiused off the corners to avoid sharp edges:
Will hopefully be splitting the other light down this evening. Having done the first one now I'm expecting the second time around to be a little easier!
