Okay guys, I decided to do a little review of these buckets. I've been wanting to do this conversion for a while but couldn't stomach paying the high cost for all those sleek kits out there - Chuck's kit is probably one of the best out there, it's certainly the best priced, but I still couldn't afford to do the conversion. So I decided to do a search and do my own. Here's the first part of the conversion - the buckets. I purchased these for ~200 from a fellow forum member.

I don't know how to post multiple pictures in the same post so I'll have to do them one by one....

Buckets as they arrived.... packing left a little to be desired. The buckets were wrapped in a light foamy pad, placed in a large box. Lots of freedom to roll around during shipping.

 

Light damage to the buckets during shipping. Other than these blemishes, the buckets are darn smooth and just about ready for primering! Construction is some type of composite, possibly fiberglass. They don't weigh too much. Sorry, I don't know much about materials.

 

Here's how they look. Not too bad.

I was going to make my own buckets. I had a set of projectors that I was going to use for this project and had modeled them in Solidworks and was going to decide my buckets around these. Then I was going to make a wood out of foam/bondo, using fiberglass for the buckets themselves. I figured I would probably be about $50 into the buckets for materials (shot from the hip, could be more, could be less).

However, I ended up scrapping the projectors because they were designed for halogens and didn't know how they would react with HID (my ultimate goal). I found a great website online for HID info and discovered that the hella 90mm projector housings did very well with hid conversions. In the meantime, the included H9 bulb would provide ample enough lighting. These housings are available from susquehanna for ~57/headlight. Good luck finding these, Susquehanna told me not to expect housings until mid-May. His next couple of lots were already spoken for (yikes!).

 

Another shot of the buckets, from the rear. I was surprised to see just how beefy these buckets are! My custom buckets would never have been of this rigidity or construction quality.

As you can see, the buckets are hollow.

 

The openings look like they may be able to accommodate lights up to ~4-4.5" in diameter. The openings measure ~4.5 mm from top to bottom and ~9" side to side.

 

Pic of the opening side to side....

 

Included mounting hardware...

They don't look really stiff but they don't flex too much given light pressure. I don't foresee any issues with their stiffness once it all gets mounted. It's possible I may be missing a bracket - each bucket has provisions for (4) brackets, however I only received 6 brackets total. Kudos for throwing in extra fasteners (unless of course the extra fasteners are for brackets that I didn't get =P).

 

Here was a very pleasant surprise - threaded metal inserts for the fasteners! I was really concerned at first because I thought the concept was for these to self-tap into the fiberglass, not a good idea at all. Upon closer inspection I found that each hole had a threaded insert moulded into the buckets! Very nice indeed...

Might be difficult to make on this picture, I tried to get as close as I could without blurring the image. You can make out the threads. Just how much pressure these inserts can take prior to being pulled from the buckets I'm not sure. Not knowing how they're secured, I don't know if they are stronger in the turning direction or axial direction. ie, if I tighten the fasteners too much, will they tend to spin or be pulled out?

Also a nice feature, thed brackets are slotted so that you can float the bucket as necessary. Also, the holes in the brackets are punched large enough that the fasteners are almost flush mount... a sort've countersink that's not a countersink . The chamfers on the fasteners are shallow enough that they'll probably seat fairly nicely into the buckets. The holes cut into the buckets themselves aren't exactly round and act as a quasi-countersink, heh... In any case, kudos for the threaded inserts, a very pleasant surprise.

 

Caveats: Please note that my measurements were not taken in the same plane. Those measurements are only approximate.

As for symmetry, the buckets are pretty darn close. Next to each other, I can pick out little flaws here and there where they aren't symmetrical, but there's no way in heck you'll be able to pick those differences up when mounted on the car.

Fit? I can't say right now. ShawnK has done this conversion himself and the buckets look pretty good on his car. His car is all black and the buckets painted black looks awesome. My car's VR and I'm a little iffy on how these'll look painted, we'll wait and see.

A couple of options - paint the buckets black and put a lexan cover on there. I'm doubtful this will look all that good, too much concentrated black on a red car. Alternately I could paint the buckets red and put the lexan covers (w/black borders) on... this would be the rotary extreme setup. I'm afraid that if I do this that the optics might get messed up. The angle of incidence is pretty oblique (or acute depending on how you think about it) and I'm afraid that the light path will bounce around the housing before finally exiting. This would produce a large patch of lighting exiting the housings perpendicular to the covers. I haven't seen the rotary extreme setup so I can't comment on how they get past this, maybe I'm just being overly careful.

Or, I could just leave it without a cover. The hella housings are built such that they don't need to be covered, their housings are sealed and ready for the elements. Take a look at ShawnK's car, I think it looks awesome without the covers and it's a unique look. The downfall here is that the headlight housings poke out from under the rear of the buckets - gotta find some way to cover it up or recess the lights even further.

Cutting - you won't be able to get these buckets and housings in without cutting up some of the bracketry for the stock lights. If you have no intention of going back to stock that's no biggie. I really dislike cutting but at the same time I dislike my pop-ups (one of which is frozen in the UP position, so they're both up all the time now).

Thanks to ShawnK for answering my questions and for everyone else who's posted about doing this conversion.

Phew... maybe more information than some people wanted?

 

edit: that was supposed to read I "was going to DESIGN my buckets" around the projectors (3rd post). And I was going to make a wood mould from foam/bondo.

 

Ok, that's about it for this installment. In the meantime I'm waiting for the hella housings. I don't anticipate getting these for a while so if anyone plans to do this conversion keep that in mind. I'm also gathering as much information as I can w/respect to converting the hellas over to HID. From the reading I've done, these housings are pretty ideal for a conversion. Note that I'm only referring to oem D2S bulbs, I don't know how these housings react with the many different HID kits available.

<Concerned citizen hat on> Do NOT go out and get the crazy HID kits that offer high kelvin ratings. These will actually produce less light and more annoyance to other drivers. Only purchase oem bulbs. The only ratings available in oem are 4100K and 6000K. <Concerned citizen hat off>

Approximate cost for hardware:
Buckets - $200 (shipped)
Headlights (low-beam) - $114 (+ shipping)
Headlights (low-beam) - $114 (+shipping)
Mounting brackets - $30(?)
Lexan covers - no idea. Check your local plastics distributor. Covers can be had with a scratch-resistant coating.
Paint - no idea. Shouldn't be too bad, especially considering the condition of the buckets, they really are almost ready for primering.

Total cost: ~$500

 

I'm bored so I decided to post more...

I'll use this post as a means for organizing my thoughts and for helping anyone else wanting to do this conversion themselves. Perhaps a moderator could rename the title to "DIY sleek lights" or something like that.

Lexan covers. 3-5.5 mm is desireable. These can be bent to shape. My idea was to cut a piece of lexan oversized and clamp it to a stock headlight cover. Then I was going to use a heat gun to shape the lexan sheet to the proper curve, then trim as necessary. Note that heating lexan sheets will remove/destroy whatever coatings were on there.

A particular lexan material ideal for this is available under the name GE Lexan MR-10. These come with a 10yr warranty against yellowing caused by UV light.

Any coatings you get on your covers need to be removed for areas where you'll be using an adhesive to mount to the buckets.

Do NOT use Acrylic!! These are not suitable for headlight lens purposes. They are not as resistant to heat (which you'll be generating) and are not as strong as lexan.

http://faq.auto.light.tripod.com/tools-materials.htm for more information on lexan vs acrylic.

Alternatives to DIY lexan covers;

Covers for $50 apiece. I don't know if this company will sell the covers individually or if they'll only sell replacement covers to registered buyers.

http://www.importfan.com/product.asp?0=0&1=0&3=3223

These look pretty good, but the bump is kind of large and break the body lines up a bit. Covers look a little thin, I'm not sure how well they would take rocks. I like that these don't need to be secured by an adhesive, they can be mounted by screws. On the other hand, this does not seal the housing from moisture unless you use something to seal the covers to the buckets (you'd also have to seal the area behind the headlights to ensure an airtight seal of the headlights).

Jason (JT-Imports) did a GB not too long ago for the re-amemiya(sp?) covers. These are properly moulded and were available in smoked or clear. Very sexy covers. I believe these maintain the proper lines for the car. I think the GB price was ~200 for a set of covers. I don't know what they're made of. If I had the benjamins these are the covers I would go with. From what I recall reading of the GB, everyone thought the covers were of very high quality.

Or ... go without covers I'm liking this idea for several reasons;

- I don't think I'll be able to make nice covers
- I don't have the cash to buy professionally made covers.
- The hella housings are tough enough and don't require additional protection.
- There's a potential glare/light reduction issue (I have no empirical data to substantiate this).
- The lack of a cover will help cool down the hella housings (for when I do an HID conversion).
- The look is growing on me

Before I forget I want to properly thank the Automotive Lighting faq for providing me with a LOT of information.

http://faq.auto.light.tripod.com/

Thanks also to ShawnK for allowing me to see his setup. ShawnK has a page that he created for his conversion but I won't post it without his approval as it may be on a personal server.

 

Hella headlight housings.

I believe these are the same housings that rotary extreme uses for their standard halogen setup. These are on national backorder (as far as I can tell) and Susquehanna told me I wouldn't get a set until mid-May. Long lead-time, but I'm in no hurry. If anyone else knows where I can get these sooner, please let me know. I was told that Hella did not predict demand and they do not have a dedicated assembly line for these housings - they build them in batches. You may want to pick up an extra bulb or two ($17) as I've read these are difficult to come by.

Price is $57/housing.

(2) low beams (HL68136) = $114
(2) high beams (HL68137) = $114
(4) H9 harnesses (HL87193) = $24

Each housing comes with 3 adjuster screws (to aim the headlight) and are equipped with H9 halogen bulbs. H9 bulbs produce 1800 lumens of light. The housings are comprised of several materials; the portion which houses the bulbs are made of magnesium. The front lens is glass. The low-beams are longer than the highs and have a plastic body, extending the lens further forward.

The low-beams can be converted for LHD or RHD. The glass lens has been known to come in 2 varieties - smooth and "ribbed". The ribbed pattern has a fresnel-like look (remember HS physics?). It's been said that the smooth lenses give you better forward lighting.

The housings have a provision for allowing moisture to escape from the housings themselves. It is a cream(?) colored "L" tube attached to the back of the housings. It's possible for dust to enter the housings. By adding some vacuum hose and extending these tubes a couple of inches, it makes it much harder for dust to get in there and mess up your lighting. The housings can be easily removed for cleaning if you want.

SS mounts are available for $10 apiece but I plan to make my own.

If I'm reading the wiring diagram correctly, there should be 3 wires going to your stock headlight (black, red/yellow, red/white). I believe the red/yellow is low beam and red/white is high beam. Black is of course ground. Use a voltmeter to be sure that's the correct labelling, I have not verified this.

I assume that the H9 wiring harness has 2 leads, one power and one ground. Splicing into your stock harness shouldn't be too difficult - I recommend soldering the wires and then heat shrinking some protective tubing onto your wires. Twisting the wires and using electrical tape just doesn't cut it folks.

Susquehanna also offers ECE (euro spec) headlights almost identical to the DOT ones (mentioned above). The lighting on the ECE ones are supposed to be better but are not good for HID conversions (plus they're almost twice the price of the DOT units!).

Here's the page for the hella 90mm housings.

http://www.rallylights.com/hella/90mm_modules.asp

Note that I believe the buckets will need to be trimmed to get these hellas to fit. There are various oem projector housings which are smaller than these units.

edit: the ECE housings come with H7 bulbs.

 

<This applies to everything I've written thus far and from here on out - you do this conversion at your own risk and I take no responsibility for what you do. What I write is information I've gathered either directly or indirectly. I have tried to point out areas in which I am making guesses.

Also, note that HID conversion is ILLEGAL. You do this conversion at your own risk, I am not advocating breaking the law.>

HID general info.

I am still only in the research stages of this part so everything I write will be from information I've gathered via reading. I have not purchased an HID kit and have no first-hand experience with HID other than seeing them on the street.

I'll start off by saying that the intent of going to HID (for me) is not for the cool blue looking light but for increased visibility. I'll admit it and say that the bling factor is nice and that I wouldn't be disappointed if maybe they do have a bit of blue to them.

As of right now, I am running the Osram silverstar lights. These are very similar to the Sylvania silverstars, but do not have the tinting on the bulb which the Sylvanias have. This makes the Osrams appear more halogen and yellow-like. When I bought my car, the sylvania units were already on there and I was surprised at how white the light looked. I decided to go with the Osrams because they provided slightly more lumens (and I didn't know I was running sylvania silverstars at the time ).

Osram silverstars are available at;

www.suvlights.com

Sylvania and Osram are the same company, the Osram name is more geared towards the european side of their business. I do not believe the Osram silverstars are DOT legal. The sylvania silverstars are. If you keep your eyes open you can find ~$5 rebates or so on these. They're available at your local pepboys and wal-mart.

Anyway, the halogen lighting is nice but it doesn't compare to my buddy's 911TT HID setup. I've always said to myself that the next car I buy HAS to have HIDs... I decided to get an rx7 over a new car with HIDs .

I've been stressing OEM D2S bulb for several reasons. From the reading I've done, there are a lot of companies selling bulbs which do not perform as well as oem bulbs. A lot of companies are offering rebased D2S bulbs. This means they take the D2S bulb and adapt the base to fit whatever housing you have (H4, 9006, 9003, 9007, etc). I have yet to be able to find one for the H9 setup. It is important that if you do an HID conversion that you get the proper bulb conversion to ensure that the focal point of the bulb matches that of your halogen bulb. Otherwise you will throw the optics off and have reduced lighting (not to mention a bunch of pissed off fellow drivers). Rebased bulbs are only as good as the person doing the rebasing... results vary.

Another reason for going with an OEM D2S bulb is that there are MANY bulbs out there which do not perform as well as the oem ones do. OEM bulbs are available in very limited kelvin ratings. This refers to the "color" which these lights emit. All OEM bulbs have a 4100K rating. This is a WHITE light. The blue hues you see on oem HID setups is due to the optics created by the HOUSINGS. You can also get a 6000K bulb made by Phillips, called their "Ultinon" bulb. I don't believe this is street legal. Phillips has also come out with a 5000K bulb which IS DOT legal. The higher the kelvin rating, the more blue you will see. I've seen kits go as high as 12000K - an almost purple color. Again, do NOT get these kits. Their light output is LESS due to tinting placed on the bulbs to raise their kelvin rating.

See autolamps-online for more info.

http://www.autolamps-online.com/gasdischarge/index.htm

(I'm not sure why they list 4200K bulbs, from all the reading I've done ALL oem bulbs are 4100K)

See HID-online for rebased HID kits. If you want to keep your stock popups and convert to HID, this may be an option for you. I don't recall what the stock lights are now, I think H4 or 9006(?). These are plug and play kits, very slick.

http://www.hid-online.com/hidonline/...ns/carkits.htm

A little pricey but the kits look very good. If this is an option you want to pursue and you don't like the look of you headlight lens (ie, you want a CLEAR headlight lens) you can sand the lenses down from the inside. This sounds like a very tough thing to do, a project saved for the truly ambitions. An AWESOME example of sanded lenses...

http://hidforum.com/forum/showthread...hlight=sanding

I don't know what they looked like before, but those lenses look CLEAN.

I've already decided that I'm going to purchase Hella ballasts. I believe the hella and phillips ballasts are identical (phillips are rebadged hellas). I think there is one other company which makes oem ballasts but the name escapes me now. Don't go with the cheap Taiwan ballasts as they are prone to breakage. Hella ballasts, igniters, and bulbs can be had for ~300 on Ebay. I'm getting the 4100K bulbs. These provide the best light (most lumen output).

 

Converting the Hella 90mm low beams for HID lighting.

Some things I missed from my last post;

- Beware of certain HID kits. I have read that results from the McCulloch kits are not as good as the oem stuff. Also, the Catz kits have been recalled and replacement bulbs are difficult to come by (and expensive). The Catz website states that these are under recall and should be returned to the vendor - except that vendors won't take the kits back because Catz won't reimburse them. And of course, beware of the kits built in China/Taiwan

- More detailed HID information...

http://www.intellexual.net/hid.html

Thanks to Rich **** for putting together a VERY informative web site.

Before I start, Susquehanna sells a similar 90mm housing already converted to HID. They're ~$500/headlight (ouch). For an additional $10 per side (no kidding) you can get bi-xenon lights! Chuck at Rotary Extreme offers a much more palatable upgrade (~$600 to upgrade his standard kit to low-beam HID). Still out of my price range but sounds reasonable to me.

Okay... if you decide, as I did, to get the hella 90mm low beams, these can be modified to accept an oem D2S HID bulb. The D2S designation is for projector-type housings. The D2R designation is for reflector-type housings. Be sure that you get the D2S type bulb.

The H9 housings are almost ideal for this conversion because the focal points are 0.4mm apart. That is, the D2S bulb will have to seat 0.4mm deeper than its current configuration. This can be done via modification to the housing or base of the bulb.

See the lighting faq for conversion information;

http://faq.auto.light.tripod.com/hella-90mm/

Go down to "Tweaking". If you decided on the ECE 90mm housing you need to modify the shield inside the housing otherwise your lighting will be all off. You'll also notice that the writer states to use "oem D2S" bulbs... another reason for my pushing the oem thing, I'm not sure what the differences are between an oem bulb vs the other stuff other than the bases. At least an oem bulb will have a well-built base.

http://faq.auto.light.tripod.com/hel...hilips-D2S.jpg for an example of a converted setup. Note that this conversion, such as explained in the link, produces some glare to the right. Perhaps moving the focal point to the proper depth reduces/eliminates this phenomenon.

And that about does it!...

Please, no flames about me blinding other drivers and being irresponsible.

 

Information on how to aim your headlamps, thanks to Daniel Stern.

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/aim/aim.html

 

Stan,

Perhaps you should consider the east bear housings. They raise the lights a little higher and best of all they have no lexan cover to discolor or sweat. I did an HID conversion. I used an H11 bulb kit from Japan. The kit is made by Matrix. Box is completely in Japanese. Don't know if you can still find them because Matrix recalled all of there HID kits as well. H11 bulb simply drops right in with great lighting. Once you upgrade the headlights you will want to upgrade all of the other lighting on your car as well.

Chris

 

Full view:

 

Manatecu - thanks for the suggestion but I'm not a fan of how the lights sit up above the lines of the car. I really like how the RE lights sit below the car's profile. To be honest I never gave the east bears much thought because I didn't think you could buy the buckets separately. Keep in mind, one of the motivators for doing this myself is I didn't want to pay the $800+ price tag most of these kits are going for. The RE lights are $850 new which is pretty good compared to the 1000+ for the other kits. I've seen used kits going for ~800 as well but I like the look of the RE setup, I think it's the best out there.

I just talked to someone who did the HID conversion and they said the oem d2s bulb positions perfectly into the hella housings. You need to clearance the housings a bit for the return wire but other than that, the bulbs sit just fine. You would need to make a ring to secure the bulb to the housing, but there's no need to worry about the bulb being centered (one of my bigger concerns).

Hmm... just ran across a picture of someone who did this conversion and used lexan covers - sure enough, there's a large hotspot that goes up towards the sky due to the covers being in place. I'm not sure if this would annoy oncoming drivers or not, but it definitely means a reduction in lighting. Maybe painting the buckets in a flat black would reduce this phenomenon.

Between the hid low beams and hella high beams I think the lighting will be just fine

I really ought to have my screen name changed.. I was going for stanG94GT but missed the "G" before I hit enter. My other car is obviously a mustang.

CAM

 

love that view...how ya liking it up there?

 

Ohio is a different world. I love the job but I am finding it tough to find some cool people. I guess it just takes time. 2 months and I have not seen one other FD, FC, or FB - kinda sad.

Chris

 

i have the rotary extreme kit and those buckets purchased from jay sheih. chuck modified the headlights pods in his kit to fit the hella projectors. the inner base is shorter to clear the hellas. the pods jay sheih is selling is an exact replica of the original re amemiya kit. re amemiya used the thinner ipf lights. to sum all this up, you will have to modify those pods to accept the hella projectors

 

PICS OF THE SLEEK HEADLIGHTS KITS

 

Awesome, thanks man! I figured I would have to do some cutting but didn't know how much. I figured I would wait until I got the hellas and fabricated my mounting bracket. This gives me a little more to start with. I wonder what would happen if I recessed the lights further back. The low beams should clear okay, but the fogs may run into the coolant reservoir and washer fluid reservoir. Perhaps a staggered bracket would do the trick.

Thanks again!

 

Hmm... looking at the RE setup it looks like the low beam is on the outboard side. I wonder why that was done... by placing it on the inboard side you could recess the lights further back (ane maybe minimize on the cutting) and at the same time you would have more focused lighting in front of you with a wider spread to the sides. Maybe by moving them to the inboard side the light becomes too focused in front of you and does not provide a wide enough spread to light up the road in front of you.