POP-UP Headlight customization

[Hugabuga]

Hi PrimeMembers!

I am "playing" with my pop-up headlights, doing some modifications, and decided to share the experience with you

I have a french NSX, therefore I have FDM (France Domestic Market?) YELLOW headlights.
The yellow lights for all french vehicules became mandatory in France in 1936 to easliy identify the German enemies by night as Nazi's would have normal white lights! Although the WWII ended in 1945....all french vehicules kept their yellow lights until 1993!

In this famous 70's movie " C' etait un rendez vous", you can see the effect of yellow headlights
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<iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/gWVde1pWl24" allowfullscreen="" width="480" frameborder="0" height="390"></iframe>

This movie was shoot by Claude Lelouch, he is the actual driver of a Mercedes SL450 doing 200km/h in the middle of Paris, back in the 70's!
A Ferrari 275 sound was then added to the movie to make it more fun, hope you like it:biggrin:




Here are the yellow JDM/FDM NSX headlights:

Nowadays, yellow headlights give a too outdated look to the car to my opinion, and you loose 20% of luminosity

So, as the first step of customization, I decided to remove the yellow filter at least for the low beam!
To preserve the original historical look, I will keep the high beams in yellow

So, it was time to bake the headlight!!:biggrin:

After removing all metalic parts and the JDM electronic levelling device, I placed them in the oven and I managed to carrefuly remove the front glass

 

[shawn110975]

Hugga, there was another video just like that but it was at night i think.

the story goes this guy made a bet, 1 million dollars that he could make it from point A to Point B in under 2 hours. thru paris as the middle point in the video, and he did it. but your video
looks the same and the end was a women that comes out of the bushes but it was all filmed at night all you can see in the video is what ever the headlight beams hit. and traffic lights

it was bad ass he almost hit a guy on a bike, and runs redlights in the video, and one red light he ran there was traffic moving thru the light he misses them all in a miracle act. ever heard of this video?

it was bad ass and I think the camera was inside the car so you could see the RPM's and speedo.

 

[Nukem]

I wonder if thats why in the LeMans and American LeMans Series that the GT cars had yellow headlights. 24hours of LeMans is a French event. I used to(when I was younger) want yellow headlights cause It reminded me of GT racecars.

 

[Hugabuga]

Well shawn110975, this is the original movie, all others are copies or remakes, I have not heard of your video
This one was not made for any bet, just needed to shoot it continuously under 10minute session or he would have run out of 8mm film...meeting that girl at the end explains why he had to drive that fast :biggrin::biggrin:.

Absolutely Nukem, now you know why Lemans race car had yellow lights!

So here is the projector out of the headlight case

The filter is located right behind the lens.
I removed the metalic cover and was able to separate the filter

filter is made of real yellow-colored glass, not tint or clear coat, surrounded by a protective rubber.

 

[Hugabuga]

an intersting design of the projector, is that there is a gape behind the lens to hold that filter.

I thought that would be specific to a french headlight, projectors could be different but in fact there aren't, I noticed that a white headlight also have the same gape, so all headlights were designed to hold that filter, like an option!!

So this type of modification is possible in both ways, you can "yellowize" any OEM white headlight, or "de-yellowize" a French yellow one with that filter

Now that my glass is out, I will go further in my modifications... :biggrin:
I am thinking of LED, hallow rings or body-colored / blackened headlights of course..any idea??

 

[Hugabuga]

To continue the "domestic market configuration" mods, the low beam also have the LHD or RHD specific shade plate behind the lens, mine are LHD or course, but we could easily shape it to a RHD plate with a rasp or sand paper...or even make a laser cut plate to replace it why not.

 

[Sudesh]

Here are the yellow JDM/FDM NSX headlights:

After removing all metalic parts and the JDM electronic levelling device, I placed them in the oven and I managed to carrefuly remove the front glass

Nice work! and interesting results.

Just to let you know, JDM NSX's never had the yellow inserts, it was only euro spec and specific to certain countrys in europe.

Also JDM NSX's dont have the electronic levelling, again this is specific to most of europe and UK.

 

[Hugabuga]

You are right Sudesh, by JDM what I really was thinking was HONDA and not Japan Domestic Market.
I believe all HONDA NSX have the same headlights (being for Japan or anywhwere else in the world), however the ACURA NSX headlight are differents, the glass is different, the "E2" european/japanese homologation numbers are missing in the USDM glass, they have like 3 "drops" bumps in the the glass (not flat as the HONDA)..and even the bulb is different

 

[Sudesh]

Yeah I noticed a few different bulb configurations between JDM and UK even on tail lights and side lights.

I can see the regional code on you lights are KF, which is France, Italy, Portugal.

So are you going to have a go at the body color you mentioned?

You are right Sudesh, by JDM what I really was thinking was HONDA and not Japan Domestic Market.
I believe all HONDA NSX have the same headlights (being for Japan or anywhwere else in the world), however the ACURA NSX headlight are differents, the glass is different, the "E2" european/japanese homologation numbers are missing in the USDM glass, they have like 3 "drops" bumps in the the glass (not flat as the HONDA)..and even the bulb is different

 

[Hugabuga]

That would make sense, KF for France

Well, first I have this crazy idea of inserting some white and amber leds...the funniest part being that only 1 headlight will flip once you hit the turning signal :biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:, and of course the Audi LED lights, I am not too fan of it, but that could give me me an excuse to drive with my headlights up.

This will of course be controled by a switch, probably located in the glove box so i can turn this "Knight Rider" mode off anytime I want:wink:

 

[Hugabuga]

So today I found some time to work on my headlights

As I want to fit some LED's on the chrome plastic part and I want to darken it to boby-color match my BLACK NSX, I sanded that chrome part (yes that really hurts, I know...) and now I am ready to cut/drill it to fit my LEDs. I will paint it at the end of course

I found some chinese LED in the market, 18cm /18 led, that fit perfectly the headlight shroud...
I was amazed by the high power/intensity of the white color, and as they work directly on 12V and already connected all together, so I decided to give them a try instead of building my own strip led bar

I want 2 strips of led per headlight, as I will also fit an amber led strip for the turn signal ,so that is 36 leds/headlight, 1 led every 5mm :biggrin::biggrin:

and here is the first picture of the light effect with the LEDs on, not aligned yet.
I managed to remove the led strip plastic cover to reduce its thickness and height, the glass will surely have some light difusion effect.

 

[Hugabuga]

After carefully cutting a lower section of the plastic cover and sand it to smooth the edges, I then glued the 2 led strip bars to it and left it for 1 hour in the oven to dry...

I then painted the plastic cover in mat black...then reassemble the headlight and turn on the LED's, here are the first pictures:

The leds are really powerful, I like to "gost" effect it gives to the whole headlight glass, what do you think??

 

[Hugabuga]

Then the amber LEDS for the turning signal

and here, with the white leds, and the yellow "LeMans GT" look high beam :biggrin::biggrin:

In the right is a unmodified(yet) OEM headlight, with the chrome plastic of course then...I really like it darkened better, but that is me or maybe because it is just new, I don't know...