Lighting
I really never liked the Headlights, Barn Doors, Wind Brakes, ect. It just broke up the classic look of the car when they were on. Pop-up headlights are cool, and I liked the lo-pro short headlights but they had been done before and I wanted something different. I first thought of this idea about 4-5 years ago, and sorta pondered the project for awhile (I was Lazy), then someone on the Miata forum did something similar and put me on a kick to finish, and essentially start this project.
Before anyone jumps in and wants to tackle trying this themselves, you must consider the snowball effect this modification makes: First you get lo-beams only (which makes state inspection a problem I would think), you have to relocate the turn signals (mine will eventually be going into the side-view mirrors), you will have to do something with the pop-ups and the holes that will be left when they are removed (this is an option, you could actually kill two of the above problems by keeping the barndoors in and wiring them so they only pop-up with high beams on). I decided to remove the pop-ups to save some weight but then added that weight back on when I replaced the Aluminum hood for a steel one. (can u say contradiction?) So the hood modification was done for shear awww factor. I did get to move my intake to the cold side of the engine seen on my
performance page, so it wasn't
all for show.
Above: Here's how it started. Just lining up where the lights housings would be located. The Lights are replacement headlights from early 90's GM [sic] cars (camaro, storm, grand prix).
Above: After finding the best location, I hot glued the housings in place and covered the surrounding areas with tinfoil, this is so the fiberglass doesn't stick to the car.
Above: Its kinda hard to tell but this is the fiberglass layered on to the headlight and opening to give me a mold to work with. The fiberglass I'm using here is commonly called Gorilla Hair, or Cat hair, it's stranded pieces of fiberglass in a fiberglass resin, you add hardener and slop it on. It's generally not as strong as the fiberglass matting that you brush resin and hardener over, but its good for making molds in tight locations and when you have to make something with some density. I always use the mat fiberglass for the finished layer of any fiberglass project, because of its smoother finish.
Above: This is the first test fitment after the mold was released and cleaned up via 80/100 grit sandpaper done by hand.
Above: This was the first working test of the alignment of the headlights left to right and up and down. This was about 6 months ago and I'm still working on the perfect alignment of them.
Above: Here are the semi finished painted products, they have since been painted to match the car.
Above: And these are the way they looked on the car before the car was painted.
I used a fairly crude mounting system to mount the lights, so I won't show you any photos of that but a better one is in the works to make it easier to remove the assembly.
I used OEM GM connectors to wire the lights up they were salvaged out of a Geo Storm.
