legacycentral bbs

I finally got the ECE lights in. I haven't had time to aim them or go driving, but just a quick shine in the garage, and it's very clear to see how much shitier the beam pattern is on the 90-91 legacies. It's amazing they even let that shit on the road.

One thing I may have to do is take one of those racheting strap tie downs and try and pull out the vertical portion of the radiator support. The driver's headlight is pulled inwards, and it looks a little weird, and makes fitment of the grill a little off. It's a minor thing though.

Here's pics
http://www.main.experiencetherave.com:8 ... dmproject/

That's hot. Awesome work man!

The city lights work too?

I wanna see some night time pics

Thanks! It's been a work in progress to get all the little things worked out with them, and then finally getting them installed.

Yup the city lights work. Does this pic load for you? I remember someone not being able to access my pics. If you can't access the pics phil, let me know.
http://www.main.experiencetherave.com:8 ... P_3939.JPG

I'm going to try and pull the radiator support out a little tonight, that way I don't have to aim the lights twice. It only needs to come out like an 1/4" So I should be able work that out.

I'm anxious to get them aimed and go see how well they work.

I got everything aimed properly....or so I think.

I pulled out the metal core support a little. It helped a little, and for the most part matches the other side. It's better then what it was before I got after it.

When I was aiming I found out my epoxied gear did not hold up, so it made aiming the driver's light a real bitch.

I do have a question. I aimed the lights per ds's instructions
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/aim/aim.html

He mentions I need to mark the axis of the headlamp. Is what I have labeled in this pic the axis?
http://www.main.experiencetherave.com:8 ... t_axis.jpg

Also, I'm assuming in the table he lists to measure down that those measurements are from the ground to the axis of the headlamp. Mine was around 24" So I did the measure down 3"

As for the light output. It's really quite impressive!! I have about as much light as I did in front of the car with my old lights and the driving lights, and do seem to have decent lighting on far away objects too.

The biggest thing I'll have to get used to is the cutoff. It's much more pronounced, like HID's.

I tried to find a completely dark area....which I couldn't really find in the middle of Houston I'm going up to Austin next weekend, so I should get to see how the lights work out in the middle of nowhere.

I added pics of what the light output looks like in the original link.

Here's some old pics from my crappy lights if anyone is interested in seeing the difference.
http://www.main.experiencetherave.com:8 ... eadlights/

The axis of the lamp is directly in front of the tip of the bulb. So I can't tell for sure from that picture whether you've got the center or not.

You can also get a rough approximation of where the center of the lamp is if you drive the car all the way up to a wall. In theory, if you have the lamp actually almost touching the wall, the "kink" in the low beam pattern will occur at the axis. You can't get that close because your car has a bumper, but it can help you get some idea.

You can also reduce the error in aiming by using a longer distance. It'd be hard to find, but if you could find 50 feet of very level ground, and aim your lights 6 inches below the axis, it would reduce the amount of error introduced by an offset from the axis. 75 feet and 9 inches, or 100 feet and 12 inches.

Measuring down 3 inches is correct. The rule for aiming higher lights further downward is to keep all vehicles on relatively level ground, figuratively speaking. Without that, headlights mounted high would shine farther and blind everyone, like they do on trucks in the US.

You associate the cutoff with HIDs because most HID headlights tend to use ECE-type optics. But really it's the optics producing the cutoff. There are HID headlights without these good optics.

You'll really love this cutoff when you drive in any kind of imperfect weather.

vrg3 wrote:
You can also reduce the error in aiming by using a longer distance. It'd be hard to find, but if you could find 50 feet of very level ground,

Thats how I do it. I used to live near an Elemtery school. It had a large covered area in back that was totally flat, and very dark at night. Worked awsome.

Cool,

Thanks Vikash,

I'm pretty sure I have the axis right. I looked at it again today, however I think my measurement from the axis to the floor is off. So they may be shining a little too low.

I really need to try and find a better place to aim them at, but they are close "enough" for right now.

You wouldn't happen to remember if you have one of those horizontal adjuster pieces on the broken EDM lights you have at home? I really need to try and replace that. It's really a pain to try and adjust the lights since the side-to-side aim gets off every time I have to open up the adjuster to adjust it, and tighten it back up.

Why the hell does the US have such a shitty shitty optics standard? It's absolutely a disgrace. Even with newer cars.....

I probably do but I don't know for sure. I will check for you as soon as I can.

You said it about the optics. An absolute disgrace. The reasons are complex, but it basically boils down to idiocy, arrogance, and corruption.

I know a guy that came to visit here from the UK and rented a car. He said the low beams seemed like city lights in good weather, and like high beams in bad weather.

If you want, you can write to the dude in charge of our lighting regs, and make your opinion known:

Richard VanIderstine
NHTSA
400 7th Street SW
Washington, DC 20590

Hearing all of this makes me want to convert my headlights.

But more on topic, those EDM headlamps look great, Josh! Good job on finally getting them in and operational.

I can't wait to do my headlights now. Thankfully, the bodywork I need this spring will necessitate the completion of the project (so I can have them paint the headlight buckets and grille).

Steve

Yeah....they took a little while to get everything worked out, but are working well.

I still say if you can find the ones with manual levelers....go that route and save yourself some headaches & wiring.