now I must warn you, as close to being done as it may look, I doubt I'll finish it this weekend, so be patient. It doesn't really matter, because as of now, the one works, and all the dimensions are sorted out, so its kinda just labor thats left. And a few trips to the hardware store.

These are 1993-1997 camaro headlights. I bought the assembly from a guy who totalled his car for 40 bucks. He used a lot of fiberglass to fix it, so it was hard to cut where the fiberglass was. It doesn't really matter, all of THAT cutting is done. You have to cut the assembly so that there is almost nothing to the left or right of the headlights, and leave the bottom step, but cut the inside of the step. Its pretty obvious where you need to cut, since the car is in the way. On the first one I completely cut off the lower step of the assembly, but this should be left on, which I did for the passengers side. Im just going to have to get creative with the drivers side. You also have to cut the front turn signal housing. (the one that looks like its got clears from the factory) Put a hacksaw in between the circular mount for the turn signal and the rest of the housing (theres a little valley that makes it really easy to start cutting there.) Start on the outside of the turn signal and remove everything from that point outward. I started doing this from scratch, with no guides or anything, so it really just boils down to this. CUT WHATEVER IS IN YOUR WAY. the metal backing for the turn signal housing has to go to, but again, not all of it, just one side. I used plumbers tape to mount everything, which Im not done with yet anyways. I'll update more when Im done, and as for the wiring, I wrote it out somewhere already, so I'll find that and copy and paste it here. ON TO THE PICTURES!!!!

wont let me upload the first four, because they can be found here:
http://dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=216279&page=11
post 320

it will look exactly like a stock 1ga from the outside. I already have everything fabbed up for the drivers side and I started on the passenger side today, but there was an accident on 237 today that made it so it took 1 hour for me to get from 880 to 580, so I got home at 8:30 and the good hardware store was already closed. The other place had some things, but it wasn't what I was looking for. I am going to get some door hinges (except a little smaller) and some L brackets and some straight brackets to mount the lights/ pop up cover. You could just chop off the top of the pop up headlight assembly and it would be a perfect fit, but that metal is so heavy, I figured I might as well do it right the first time and get some aluminum brackets. If your doing it this way, you also need some nuts for 10mm bolts (6x1.5 I believe, but don't quote me on that one, just grab any random 10mm bolt from your car and take it with you and make sure it fits.)

Its super easy, I have no idea why I was so afraid of screwing up. And the camaro headlights have plastic mounts, so they are about as easy to cut with a hacksaw as metal is with a sawzall. Just make sure whoever you buy the assembly from, doesn't know what fiberglass is. On my passenger side one, the guy put it EVERYWHERE, and its like three times thicker.

The wiring is equaly as easy, you simply cut the three wires that go to the stock headlight, and the big fat red one is the ground, the red one with a blue stripe is the highbeam power source, and the red one with a white stripe is the low beam source. There are two prongs on the camaro headlights, one for a ground and one for a source. I went low beams on the inside, high beams on the outside, but thats only because I use my highbeams to look for cops only, Im young and I can see perfectly. Double the ground and your good to go.

super easy weight savings,and its in front of the front axel, so your getting rid of weight you would otherwise have to counter in the back with weight. (any weight between the axels is distributed between the axels much better than weight in front of, or behind the axels.)

btw, one of those pictures above is high beams and one is low beams, I can't tell which is which from the pictures, but you can in person, and thats really all that matters.

If anyones interested in how its going:
drivers side:
lights need to be mounted, adjusted (so they point the right way and all that jazz) and the brackets for the pop up cover needs to be adjusted so its not so far over to the left. (all left/right references will be made as if your sitting in the car) I also want to make a lock so that they won't flap up at speed, and someone can't screw around with my headlights easily while its parked somewhere. All the bolts need to be tightened down, and some drilling is probably needed to make the brakets fit correctly. Its pretty close, but yet its no where near ready yet.

passenger side:
I basically haven't started on the passenger side, I want to finish one side and know that it can be completely done before I start on the passenger side. I took the old assembly out, but then again, if you can't get that far, you shouldn't be doing this mod.



After this is done, I will have eliminated some serious weight from the nose of the car, I will be able to switch to hids or any other headlights designed for the camaro, and If I wanted to, I could replace the turn signal housings with perfectly clear housings so you can easily see the camaro lights that lurk behind them. I doubt I'll do any of that, as it costs money, and if it doesn't help my car break my neck, I don't care about it much.

That looks awesome!!!

Just curious, but was saving weight your goal here?
If not, and sorry I don't know much about the electrical side of cars, but isn't there an easier way to get that affect from the headlights? I notice that when my parking lights are on, that if I flip my brights on, they illuminate, but without the brights on, there is nothing (the headlights are not on at all). So couldn't you somehow wire up the headlights or the brights to illuminate with the parking lights to get the same affect?
Again, sorry if your main goal here is to save weight, but I got to wondering.

Anyhow, keep us updated!
Brian

edit: Okay sorry, reread a little bit more. It does look great, and the idea behind it is good. My question I guess was a little more personal preference since I don't care much for weight distribution or savings.

I put Fog lihgts in the space below the Headlight. I left the head light in and cut the houseing so the fog light would fit. Came out kind of nice. So when I turn on my running lights my fog lights come on inside the housing looks like the headlight till I turn on my orginal headlights.

you could unplug the headlight motors and they would stay down.....

weight savings was my goal here.... and its probably like 30lbs that I saved. I dunno, Im not a good guesser at weight though. Its enough that I wouldn't wanna have to carry that stuff around all the time.

I had this idea like 2yrs ago but never carried it out. Glad to see it worked well for you. Will you let us know how well do they light up the road? Maybe some pictures

tstkl said:

you could unplug the headlight motors and they would stay down.....

weight savings was my goal here.... and its probably like 30lbs that I saved. I dunno, Im not a good guesser at weight though. Its enough that I wouldn't wanna have to carry that stuff around all the time.

Click to expand...

Well that's cool. I figured from a FWD perspective that the weight in front was kind of good. I understand from an AWD standpoint, though, that the weight loss is very good. I would also like to see the pics of illumination on the road if you can get them.
And I wouldn't want to unplug the motors because sometimes it is very necessary to have the headlights up, in these cases I wouldn't want to stop, get out of the car, and plug them back up.
But again, looks great, and get us those pics if you can.

MitsuRacerX - I'd like to see the pics of the fogs in there also if you have them.

-Brian

Mitsu RacerX said:

I put Fog lihgts in the space below the Headlight. I left the head light in and cut the houseing so the fog light would fit. Came out kind of nice. So when I turn on my running lights my fog lights come on inside the housing looks like the headlight till I turn on my orginal headlights.

Click to expand...

I did a similar thing. I mounted fogs where the old turn signal was and shrunk the turn signal down to a small triangle with some new lights. Now it has fogs + the stockers run up or down. It looks pretty good.

HAHAHAHAHA, I made time tuesday and hopefully I'll at least finish the drivers side then. On thursday its back to work on that honda turbo, hes been on vacation for a while, so I haven't been able to work on that. If you don't know what Im talking about, don't worry, its basically done minus the oil drain line (hardest part). It will deffinatly be done by monday (7 days from now).

hmm 30lb you say? Is that shit really THAT heavy?


BTW to whoever said weight would be good up front for a FWD you couldnt be more wrong. A front heavy car is bad for FWD or AWD. Once I finish my engine mods my next project will be to try to even the weight of my 90 Awd TSi more evenly. I'll consider this but I love my pop ups so i duno.

I unplugged the headlight motors in my car.. looked cool, but those FTP lenses really kill alot of the light that comes out of the headlights. I used to drive around with brights on all the time, and it was still dimmer than the popups were on lowbeams

RipperXX said:

hmm 30lb you say? Is that shit really THAT heavy?


BTW to whoever said weight would be good up front for a FWD you couldnt be more wrong. A front heavy car is bad for FWD or AWD. Once I finish my engine mods my next project will be to try to even the weight of my 90 Awd TSi more evenly. I'll consider this but I love my pop ups so i duno.

Click to expand...

There are two motors, and the whole pop up assembly is made of pretty thick steel, think about it, you can pop them up at over 140 mph, that takes strenght.

as for weight in the front, A lighter car is better, but with fwd, you do want all the weight in the front of the car, because that gives the drive wheels the most traction. This is for drag racing, for road racing its different, but for drag racing you could have a 90/10 weight distribution and be much better off than 50/50. Drag racing fwd cars want all their weight in the front of the car. It makes for less of a coefficent of drag from the rear wheels since their normal force is lower and the rolling friction is a multiple of that. The less weight you have on the rear wheels, the less weight is pushing them down, the less force the earth is exerting up on the wheel, the less the adheision/rolling friction. On a drag racing fwd car you want the least amount of rolling friction and moment of inercia for the rear wheels, so they don't pull back on the car as much. Idealy, you would cut off all the weight in the back and put spair tires on back there, like that one magazine did with their nissan sentra in an attempt to make a sentra run 14's without spending any money.

I'm intrested in seeing the difference in lighting. Will this setup still function as stock head lights when it comes to the lighting up an area.

Looks good so far

I like it and I give you mad props for doing it, but I like my pop ups, If anything I'll switch to the clear plastic headlamps that take the 9006 bulbs, but other then that, I'm cool. But it looks like alot of work, and it's lookin neat.

tstkl said:

as for weight in the front, A lighter car is better, but with fwd, you do want all the weight in the front of the car, because that gives the drive wheels the most traction. This is for drag racing, for road racing its different, but for drag racing you could have a 90/10 weight distribution and be much better off than 50/50. Drag racing fwd cars want all their weight in the front of the car. It makes for less of a coefficent of drag from the rear wheels since their normal force is lower and the rolling friction is a multiple of that. The less weight you have on the rear wheels, the less weight is pushing them down, the less force the earth is exerting up on the wheel, the less the adheision/rolling friction. On a drag racing fwd car you want the least amount of rolling friction and moment of inercia for the rear wheels, so they don't pull back on the car as much. Idealy, you would cut off all the weight in the back and put spair tires on back there, like that one magazine did with their nissan sentra in an attempt to make a sentra run 14's without spending any money.

Click to expand...

That's what I thought/meant, thanks for clearing that up.
Brian

Have you priced replacement for those misbegotten bastard bulbs? Thank you, Chevy.

Anyway, an okay swap. I prefer as much light out there as I can get, and popups are ideal for changing over to European headlamp housings.
Anyone using that weird Olds headlight package? They had one that's only about 3" tall.

I hit a deer when I was still in my first year of driving. It caused a phobia.

tstkl,

Well your right about drag. I have had nothing but road racing on the mind for a while. My bad, but in road racing / autox etc. 50/50 balance is best, and thats what my personal goal is.

Hmm can you remove the motors and crap and still use the little knob to raise and lower them? I have been in Iraq for nearly a yr so I dont recall if that knobs attached to the motor or what.

the knob is kinda the motor itself I think. Its basically one hole big thing, but I was thinking about getting a threaded bolt with a ball on the top (like a hitch except smaller) and using that and eliminating the motors like you want to. If it got really dark you could pull over and raise them, via a bolt and a sliding method.

Well Im basically done with the drivers side now, just a few more touching up things left, but Im going to install the passenger side and drive over to the hardware store and finish it all there. I need two more bolts and two more nuts, at the least. Cutting the radiator support thing is by far the most annoying part ever. Thats why I took a break. The lights are somewhat dim, but It doesn't really bother me. I don't use my lights too often anyways and again, if it gets bad, I can use hids for a camaro easy. Whats annoying is that those last two bolts I have left for the drivers side involves taking everything out and putting those bolts in first. Its not too bad as throughout this whole project I've been trying to make it easily replicated, and easy to assemble/disassemble. Im still amazed that its going so well, normally stuff doesn't work out for me.

very nice and very creative, since you got all the lighting you need coming out of that square now I think it woudl be cool if you got the pope up squares welded right into the hood and resprayed to complete it.

I was thinking about welding the hood, but I made these things out of door hinges, If I ever road race the car I can relocate my power steering pump (I don't have the stock one I have an ebay one) into the drivers side pop up thing, and open the other one to my airfilter.

as for the project itself, IM DONE.... not. Im close enough that I feel like Im done though.

All I have left on the drivers side is to take everything out and drill some holes (haven't decided, at least two, at most six) and buy bolts/nuts for those holes and put everything back together. Then I have to find a way to lock down those pop up headlight things. I was looking at some door locks, I think I have an idea, but other than that, its all done.

the passenger side is equally as far minus the wiring (got lazy), and the front turn signal housing needs to be modified still (again, lazy..). Other than those two little things on the drivers side and four little things on the passenger side, Im done basically. O, I also have to adjust them so they are level, which couldn't be easier with these headlights.

I also got an email with my tracking number today for my fic 1000cc injectors. Checked ups.com, and they are coming tomorrow. Im amazed, fic got the money on monday, and they are getting it to me by tomorrow? Thats crazy fast, florida to california in two days. I didn't even pay for shipping, it was 310 flat. After those come I need to go pick up my chip from dave and get my ecu socketed (anyone in california have a good place to get them).

why am I telling you this? because I've been running like 12:1 afr for the past few months because my 450's can't handle anything else and the 96% idc's were scaring me, so I won't be driving the car until I get all that done, so night pictures won't come for a while, but I can take some pics in my driveway at night, so it shouldn't be too big a deal.

o yeah huh... you guys wanted pics....

well I was lazy the last few weeks and just finished it today, mostly. I think there are a few things Im going to redo, just so its a bit more solid, but they work and stay in place. As for how bright they are, I took my car down to pole vaulting practice today, and I always go through this tunnel thats really dark because more than half the lights are burnt out and its normally pretty late on the way back, so I was going to see how bright they are while driving, but apparently, in between monday and today, the changed EVERY DAMN BLUB in the WHOLE TUNNEL. It was bright as day in there, so all I could do is look at the reflection of my lights on the car in front of me,... at least they didn't fall out or anything. I heard something, but Im hoping it was just a rock . I have extra bolts/nuts anyways.

PLUMERS TAPE ROCKS btw.