courts

i have recently purcahsed a cheap toyota windom 1992 (lexus es300) as a project car

my first idea is to change the lights before it gets painted L18 black.

i love the lights on the newer es300 1997 modles etc
clear housing etc looks much better

does anybody know which lights i can have for the car to make it look newer?

after that im painting it getting 19"s and slamming it !

if anybody could help me would be greatly appreciated/

Thanks
Courtney

courts

sorry guys im talking about the front headlights....
but chaing the back ones would be cool too

Pheonix

No, you can't change them to anything. Anything would be completely custom work. The best thing you could do would be mod your headlights to accept HID bulbs by either cutting out the cut-off, or shimming the lens out about 3/8-5/16", or custom swap in some new HID compliant projectors.

"To each, his own. "

Projectors look way better! Most of the 97+ owerns would kill for the 100% crystal clear 92-94 projectors. Look at it this way, your windom is pimp b/c it has 6 projectors on the front of the car!

Pheonix

& no, there is only one known set of aftermarket tail lights. They're JDM, and don't really look better than stock IMHO.

3000

The 93 OEM headlights are clear housed. They don't have those ugly lines across, and they're not dark on the inside.

Example: mine

Pheonix

What he said

courts

so your saying i cant use any aftermarkert lights or even any LEXUS lights to replace my ones?

there must be an es300 light which is all clear which fits???

can anyhbody help? its the first step i need to take before painting as when it gets painted he will take out all the glass and the lights so its easier for me to just put the new ones in the middle of the painting stage


this is my car at the moment
the lights look like ****... and preferably i dont want the ones with the orange part on the bottom


im getting it painted L18 black all over and getting 5% tints.... i have all the badges and the lex badge that sticks up off the bonnet.

please help?| !! redirect me to a website or something !@???

courts

i mean i can replace the bulbs with white ones or whatever but it still doesnt help the fact the side of both headlights is a murky black dark colour and orange at the bottom !

3rdelement

iTrader: (1)

ok, well it sounds like he already answered your question.

but to restate, yeah you can change bulbs, (hid v/s halogen) but the actual body of the light there is nothing else that fits in that area by any other manufacturer. if you want a custom look, dissassemble the headlights and pull the orange strip out of them. it gives the car a whole different look. besides that just enjoy the fact that your stock headlights are something that most people upgrade to.

mine before the suspension work

Pheonix

You can always stick them on a throw away cookie sheet in a 250*F oven & take them apart.
You can clear & clean it once you get it apart...

I recommend shimming the lenses out & putting them in the dish washer to clean them. It's amazing how nasty the lenses get!

courts

ok ... plastic in an oven? youve got me there.... wouldnt it melt

blux

Naw... no melting. I usually put them in a 215deg oven for about 5 or 6 min. basically if they are just about too hot to handle with bare hands, they are hot enough.

Get a scraper or some kind of blade like thing to stick in the edges to start to separate the glue and plastic bond. After you get a corner going, (my favorite corner to start with is the inner corner when you’re looking at the headlights head on) start pulling with your arms, use some elbow grease, and they will split in two.

I would really recommend blacking out the headlight housings, ESPECIALLY if you are planning on using an "HID Upgrade Kit.

I wouldn’t condone this at all (read: use of hid kit), because I have tried it, and it performs rather poorly in terms of output (however depends on color temp) glare (chrome housings and projectors designed for halogen, emit too much light upwards to light signs) If you must do it, stick to 4100-4300K bulbs for the best output. Anything higher than that is just an absolute joke, and a poor representation of what HID actually is, IMHO. I can go into this more if needed...

After using a 5000-6000ish hid plug and play "kit" on my car with stock halogen projectors I immersed myself into the HIDPLANET forums and started researching how to retrofit actual HID projectors into my car. After some self reflection I figured out how bad the kits actually are, and how terrible it looked on my car.

I ended up buying 2 Valeo D1S DOT projectors and ballasts and custom mounting them into the es300 housing. I chose them not based on output alone, but also color. Valeos are known to be one of the most colorful projectors, but they dont have the "best" output, like for example the S2000 or LS430 or TSX projectors might..

This was a large pain in the ***, for lack of a better phrase. The stock halogen projectors are 3" in diameter and are basically built into the headlight. There is a whole cast iorn assembly that includes both hight beam and low beam projectors bound together by a plate and then pivoted over a nub that allows for vertical and horizontal aiming. I took out a grinder and saw, and cut the whole damn low beam projector off. I then made brackets out of some thick aluminum to mount the valeos to the high beams and aiming bracket.

However the end result was nothing short of amazing. The light output has at least doubled, and glare has been minimized to nothing. The light color is 4100-4300K wich is amazing. The color band is huge, a blue and purple mix, then right below it is a bright yellow tinted white light.

After the custom job was done, I painted my housings matte black and sealed up the headlights by heating them up in the oven to soften the glue, and then using silicone sealant over all of the openings..

The 92-96 headlights take on a whole new look when black. If I were you I would suggest leaving the amber piece for the corners in, as it looks really nice when contrasted on black. ( I whish I would have kept mine, but I broke them out when clearing the corners a couple of years back)

I will post some pictures later if anyone is interested.

(I also ended up retrofitting 60 super flux LEDs into the tails, and 60 for the rear turn signals. As of now I am ordering 120 more amber and red super flux LEDS to throw even more and complete the job)

(Edit: Clarifications...)

Pheonix

If you clear your corners, buy the silver tinted orange bulbs so that they're invisible.
The good news is that it's really bad on many cars, but really hard to see on these headlights as 3rdelement's picture shows.

courts

hi guys can you please post pics !!! im gonna do it probly..

courts

bluxx i dont get it how you painted your housing black? with paint or did you actually smoke them, in my country that would make it very hard to get a Warrant of fitness

or do you mean you painted the inside backing of the housing and then put the bulbs in


i dont like the orange at all i want to get them to be clear everywhere if possible, and with silver tinted bulbs for indicators

please post pics phenoiex and bluxx would be appreciatted