tiguy99

Couple Closeup shots before I finalize this. The white circle is the area I was discussing about last night.



Shot of the light with no cover on


Shot of the rear in case you were wondering (This is from the previous retrofit) I like how they sealed the ballast into the hole for the rubber boot


More shots in a bit

LexAnt

iTrader: (2)

hey mike,

everything looks great, your pm box is full, could you clear it out?

tiguy99

No prob. Its clear now. I got the good camera too (for the day that is.) I've got a bunch of minute things to do this morning before I meet the entire family at my sister's for the feast this afternoon. I'll push to get some shots taken and updated since I've got one light/lense already painted.

tiguy99

FInally a better camera!!!! (At least temporary)

I'll let the pics do the talking 1st

These are of the Valeo Hyrbid HID headlamp before the lense is placed on

tiguy99

Now here's what I was talking about yesterday



















As you can see, the color on the cuttoff lessens a bit when the lense is placed over the HID projector headlamps. This is due to the bottom curve, angle and thickness of the original plastic design Toyota used when designing their lenses for first gen Sport Coupe. Even after excess sanding, and doing the best I could to cover the glare area with the non reflective paint without sacrificing cuttoff, we ended up with get good usable lenses for HID output with a tradeoff for some of the excess violet/blue on the cuttoff. However, the beam is sharp, wide and has some color on both headlamps and miles away from the old E39 and light years ahead of halogen light and HID KIT light.

What we need is someone who can design headlamp lenses or has access to a plastic molding machine that can mass produce a set of Lexus headlamp lenses in a style that newer cars are made. Meaning we can have a way to swap lenses for the super clear thinner ones Audi or even Lexus uses for all of their late models. I'm currently looking for someone to help me with this as I think it'll be an asset to the HID retrofit world a 999,999,000 times over. In addition to that, I also believe the newly molded lenses would be a very hot ticket item/business opportunity as HID retrofit demand continues to increase globally and more and more people go that route. Hopefully we can find someone for that soon.

I'm going to do the painting for the last headlamp so to fix the glare issue on them and ask that everyone around checks to see if you know someone who has access to a plastic molder and get back with me on that. Thanks everyone for the support and look for those last pics when the other lamp is painted in the morning.

tiguy99

As we build up towards the exciting conclusion for this retrofit project I'd like to post a few more high quality photos of the curve in the SC300 lense I was talking about the past day or 2.






(I know I spilled sandpaper water on the floor in the last pic...I'm gonna clean it in a sec hehe)

3rdelement

iTrader: (1)

awesome job tig!
was the wetsanding on the outside of the lense difficut ? i have an entire weekend open and would love my lenses to look that polished.

tiguy99

I didn't do the outside I did the inside. Its not hard just very time consuming. If you have a weekend open U can sand. However if you plan to do the outside, why not just buff it with rubbing compound and/or plastic polish? You should be able to knock out most marks, scuffs, a dull finish or tiny cracks etc without sanding unless your lenses are extreme and very yellow. Polishing shouldn't take long either. 30 mins tops. Try that first and do some before and after pics too so we all can see too!

tiguy99

Last shots before I sent them out tonight















Now exhale!

Look out for part 2 once they're installed

Jmai22

Wow, those look great man.. I'll bet your never going to be de-lining another headlight anytime soon huh?? haha, man brings back flashback how i started doing mine and half way through i almost gave up but then i remember these are my only headlights. haha

Don't mean to Hijack your thread, but since it sounds like your pretty much done writing up your story, i'll share my pics in this same thread just so more people will start de-lining their headlights. hahhaha.


ps, if you want me to delete this post, just PM me.
Before


After

After 2


Anyone notice the Upside down U?? guess what car they are from... haha yep 5 series/x5. i did't get the upside down U until After i de-lined the headlights






ok enough. haha enjoy

tiguy99

Nawh John you're good. Yes sanding can be time cosuming however I'm not totally closed to the idea in the future

Jmai22

oh really?? wanna redo one of my headlights?? lets just say my girlfriend had a little fender bender about 1 year back and i haven't had even touched my new headlights yet. haha so i'm driving around with 1 de-lined and 1 regular. haha j/k....

i'll get to it one day. your probly busy doing all these other projectrs. good stuff though. yours came out much cleaner than mine did. i just hate the fact that lexus decided to use these super think acrylic which doesn't shine light through very well.

tiguy99

The problem is it has curves and angles that defeat clarity. If you study them and hold them up the light long enough, you'll see for yourself. My old ES300 had lenses like that. I buffed the hell out of them and got the lines down (even the bottom ones) but didnt' get the result I wanted.

Eventually I moved onto this car I have now and couldn't be happier. I can't wait to finish my own TSX retro in the new lights I have for this project sitting around here.

Yup John its about that time for you to get the sanding lol

tiguy99

Bump for all my SC people! And be on the lookout for the exciting conclusion of the Mother of All GS retrofits thread sometime tonight (Finally!)

breed

Man Big Tig,

Check it out guys, what do you think?

And im not sure if anyone has noticed, but check out the parking light covers. Kinda Odd