Hella 90 mm headlight conversion

[evolutionmovement]

Eyeballing the fit for the lights into the housing now. Housings are hollowed out (basically a frame with all the mounting points and the horizontal parts of the concave part of the reflector attached) and lenses are ... getting there. I'll keep updates on this thread.

There is tons of room in these housings. If someone were to have no life like me and want to waste hours and a few hundred $$ to reproduce this, they may want to think about adding some small fogs inside the housing with the 90mm highs and lows. I'm not bothering, personally and am foregoing the ability to retrofit it later as I will be mounting the lights far apart for aesthetic reasons. Even if someone were to try this same thing as me it wouldn't look the same as there are different depths and relationships between the lights spacially that someone could try.

Fitting these completed housings in the car is going to be the harder part. I don't think I can escape using a sawzall for some of the little supprts behind the stock headlight housings. Also, the charcoal canister and colant overflow tank may have to be moved a little bit to clear the rather deep high beams (BFD). edit - this won't be an issue as I mixed up the high and low beams -

This is a hollowed out housing with the basic brackets set up. Simple angle alloy cut according to a template I made.



Headlights installed. The housing will be more filled in with haxagonal perforated metal (also being used in the new grille) will fill in the front around the lights





Still need to finish polishing the lenses.

I could make templates of the basic set up and someone could replicate this pretty easily. The hard part and super PITA is clearing the lenses out, but some pretty cool results could be had with alternative ideas (like no lenses, hole sawing them, flush metal or fiberglass surround approximating the shape of the lenses or housings, etc.).

Steve

[vrg3]

Cool, Steve! Can't wait fer the pitchers.

Nah, it's not worth putting small fog lights in the headlight housings. The Hella 90mm low beams will probably work better than any fogs you could put up there. Good fogs can't really be that small and mounted that high.

A pair of purpose-built DRLs, though, might be cool. It might be hard to fit them in a place where they neatly frame the vehicle though.

I wonder if you could grab more compact units to replace the charcoal canister and overflow bottle from some small-engine-bay car in a junkyard. The overflow bottle is pretty simple and generic, so you could also just make your own easily.

[evolutionmovement]

The canister and overflow tank can be moved as is - it doesn't look at this point like I'll need them to move by much. I also don't have ABS, so I could put the canister almost anywhere if necessary, but I may just drill another hole in the bracket or something.

I wouldn't do the foglights myself, but it would be pretty slick to have something else in there like that, if not the best functionally. I was just trying to think of what could be done with that extra space.

Steve

[corsair]

Any updates Steve?
Seeing as you have a pre facelift car, wouldn't a turn signal make sense? You could remove the signals in the bumper, put fogs in there or something, and have a signal up higher where it may be more visable.

[evolutionmovement]

I had that thought myself, but I'm too impatient. I've revised my mounting idea and I think it will look better for it. I'm ordering some hexagonal perforated alloy to span the space around the lights. Looks like I may not need any fiberglass in the end.

I've been kind of busy to do much else with it.

Steve

[Kelly]

Cant wait to see whatcha come up with.

[THAWA]

yes, I want to see your take on it

[vrg3]

You'd pretty much have to adapt turn signals from another car but keep them in almost the same position and orientation as they were on the car they came from... It might be interesting to see if post-facelift turn signals could be made to fit with only a little bit of work though... You could hack the housings you're making so they'll mate with the post-facelift corners.

[evolutionmovement]

The idea I had was auxiliary blinkers using Impreza side markers between the lights as the OEM low mounted blinkers don't seem to be seen very well by other road users. I'm not doing it, though, as I don't feel like it.

I can't wait to see what it looks like either.

Steve

[evolutionmovement]

Bump for photos.

Steve

[vrg3]

Wow, nice!

And the sanded-smooth lenses fit right over that? Beautiful!

[evolutionmovement]

They could even protrude farther, but the brackets are kind of stuck where they are unless I did a totally different setup, but this is pretty straightforward. FYI, the alloy pieces are 1/16" thick as that's what the adjusters are sized for. The adjusters have some decent articulation (thankfully).

I think that this wouldn't be possible in a facelift housing as the inside (high beam) is pretty tight vertically. Maybe with some creativity and depending on clearance in the car it could be done, but not as easily.

Steve

[vrg3]

Yeah, even the outboard side is tight vertically on post-facelifts.

[corsair]

beautiful

shame about the facelift housings though, but still it looks great Steve

[Legacy777]

That's awesome steve!

[legacy92ej22t]

Hella ya!

[vrg3]

So the only bit of non-trivially-repeatable work so far is cutting and drilling those brackets, right? The rest is just a lot of hard work, right? Would you be willing to draw up some templates for other people to use to make their own brackets like yours?

[THAWA]

That looks tons better than the "bracket" I made. Good stuff.

[evolutionmovement]

Yeah, some fiberglass work instead of the horrible lens-clearing would be easier and probably yield some nice Morette-style results for cheaper and that would actually fit our cars.

The most important thing I could do is give the template, but I got that off the website as they include measurements of the lamps and mounting plate they sell. The rest is just cutting the housing (only parts of the top and bottom remain of the reflector housing, but all original brackets are retained) and mounting the 90 degree aluminum. Then they can be located according to aesthetic prference. The other thing to consider is that the lamps are angled rather acutely towards the center of the car. The lenses obscure the angle from the outside, but the great thing is that the angle is the same as the original vertical adjustment screw mount.

The most important tools are a Dremel with the fiberglass-reinforced cutting wheels (I used two, including cutting the grille I'm doing. Do not use the regular cutting wheels - I don't know what they're for, but they suck ass) and a step drill for the holes (SO much quicker). I cut the housings in the tub as it makes a lot of dust. I just washed the tub out after.

When done, the original headlight bucket aiming screws are retained as well as having individual lamp control.

Steve

[vrg3]

Cool... Do you have a link to the template on the web?

Wait, so the lights are pointed inboard? Won't that prevent correct aiming? Or can you fix that by adjusting the mounting screws?

[evolutionmovement]

I extrapolated the measurents for the template from here: http://www.rallylights.com/hella/90mm_m ... am%20Lamps
Posting the numbers would be just as easy. I can do it when I finish and do the write up. I'm too lazy right now.

Wait, so the lights are pointed inboard? Won't that prevent correct aiming? Or can you fix that by adjusting the mounting screws?

The adjusters have swivel mounts at the ends that mount through the holes in the aluminum brackets that allow enough articulation for proper aiming. The 'above' pic I posted shows them sort of aimed at the right angle. To see the proper angle, just look at the OEM aiming bracket on top of the housing - it is angled in the right direction.

Steve

[vrg3]

You just drilled out the aluminum plate according to the dimensions on that page? Cool.

Oh, I get it. You're saying that the aluminum brackets themselves are not perpendicular to the axis of the car. That's no problem if the angle is small enough that the aiming/mounting screws can make up for it.

[evolutionmovement]

Yeah, I installed the plates where they would support the lights in the position that I want (if I were to do it again, I'd leave the bottom 2 pieces 1 piece. They are two as I was originally going to mount them differently, but changed my mind as it was more work and would be difficult to match on the opposing side). After I put the alloy in, I traced the paper template I made, rechecked that they looked right, and dremelled and drilled them to shape. This method worked brilliantly, even allowing enough room so that the light housings don't touch the bracket even when they are angled properly. Accuracy doesn't have to be amazing either, since the adjusters, although pretty rigid, individually allow some leway if a hole is drilled off slightly. Once mounted, though, the three points are pretty damn solid.

I am very impressed with these lights and I haven't even seen them on yet!

Steve

[THAWA]

I almost shat on myself when I wired them up. Did you get the H7 bulbs or the H9 bulbs?

[vrg3]

Hella ya!

Hehehehehe, I just got that.