ghettocruiser

iTrader: (4)

Ugh...the poly trans am. That thing is just plain ridiculous.

I really dig the look of their projector/pop up deletes. I was trying to come up with a way to make lexan covers similar to those, but they just wouldnt flow with the front of my car. Also... I was worried that the curve would mess up the light pattern of the projectors. Of course...the poly trans am probably isnt seeing daily driver night time duty hahaha. And for the little it sees the dark, they probably work good.

I need to learn vac forming.and build my table. Then its on. Getting excited to work on this project again.

J.

87bluebird

it would probably cheapest to do it your self. can i expect to see one on you car sometime. if i get the money i may do it. try http://www.wraithinnovations.com/knight.html
they have a couple of variations on this bumper. there site is under scheduled maintenance. so you cant see all of the version rite now. they go from 700-1200 bucks. firebat has one of these bumpers. i mite get one if i can find the money or i'll go with the camaro bumper.

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

thats one very angry firebird haha. wow. essentially thats what i want to do with the projector covers but im not sure how the hard edge affects the beam pattern. the slightly curved surface of the lexan that i made has affected the sharpness of the cutoff slightly.

thanks for the compliments also noecker

Gumby

Were thread jackin here, but Im getting wide body glass rear fender first.

Though had wondered it I could vacuum form me a set out of plaxie once I get the glass ones

87bluebird

sorry about the thread jack but whats plaxie

noecker55

I'm sure he meant plexi, as in plexiglas. If I understand right its the most commonly referred to brand of acrylic glass (like Kleenex to tissue).
The delete on the Polly TA looks good too

87bluebird

delete double post

87bluebird

why would you make fenders or a bumper out of plexiglass? what do you want see thru fenders? so you can put some neon lights behind them?

noecker55

ahha sorry I'm tired, I thought he was talking about the pop-up delete covers. But now I read it again and have no idea what it is. Ma bad i guess

Gumby

Step1 you could paint em

Step2 they would be cheap

Step3 ultra lite

Step4 ???

Step5 profit

duckmanquacker

"Step5 profit"

You money monger

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

haha plexi/lexan wouldnt be a good choice for fenders... doesnt flex enough and likes to just crack and shatter chunks off.

fenders would be better made outa ABS or some kind of absorbant plastic. still tho the stock fenders on my bird in steel arent heavy at all. its the doors that kill us. for weight reduction besides a hood i would start with the glass on the car and the doors. could drop 200lbs easily with some lexan race rear hatch/glass all over the car and some fiberglass doors.

to vacumm mold a fender/door you would need a massive oven lol and a huge vacume forming machine with multiple vacumes but it could be done. depending on the thinkness you would only need to use your original fenders/doors if they are in good shape since ht form would be really close to the stock size depending on the thickness of the plastic being used.

Gumby

I was talking about the rear wide body fenders you can buy in glass, copying them but IM sure you could use heat lamp lights instead of a oven.

Doesn't have to get that hot.

Even a regular over head garage light like a 1000watt MH would pump out the heat if enclosed.

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

id have to dissagree... personally having used a heat gun and an oven, your not going to get enough heat with heat lamps etc. in the oven i had it set to 300... which wasnt enough, i then went to 350 and it still wasnt enough, i had to use 400 degrees at roughly 2:30-3min and then quickly put the heated plastic on the forming machine. on my first attempts i had some bad spots so instead of trying to mess with a pretty good mold i attempted to fix certain spots with a dual temp heat gun(for SHlTs and giggles/experience) that i use for shrink tubing... it heated it enough to make it pliable(barely, more sticky then pliable) but not enough to heat the plastic uniformly and evenly. this casues the plastic to ripple and become uncontrollable.

problems your going to encounter with vacume forming is heating the material enough and evenly without going overboard and melting a hole in the plastic (did that once) an uneven and un-uniform heating will cause the plastic to not mold how u want it/not follow the mold correctly/vacumm form correctly. this is why ovens are your best bet to get a even uniform heating of the material. ppl use regular ovens or make larger ones to accomodate there projects. you heat lamp/garage light will not put out enough heat to vacumm form decent thickness plastic.

this is from my experiences and what ive read on the net. ive worked with .025" plastic and .090" lexan and both needed the same basic uniform heating to work properly. the minimum i could see being structually ok for body panels would be .090".

wakeboardr42393

iTrader: (1)

what if you put the headlights in the stock flip up assembly, but arranged them with smaller reflectors to point forward out of the small strip when the flip-ups are in the down position?

or even just got rid of the main headlight assembly altogether, fabricated the hood so it would fill the holes where the headlight assemblies were, and just put really bright bulbs in the foglights to use as main headlights?

i personally like the look of the pop-ups though. i dont know why. i think with the hood open the look even better popped up for some reason. on most other cars i dont liek them but i actually like them on these firebirds. idk why.

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

projectors are too long to fit in the flip up assembly. they are around 6" and get longer. the headlight assembly is depth from front to back is not enough clearance for the projector to fit inside the mounting area (behind the front of the lense cover to the back where the metal bracing is) the only way would be to cut the metal bracing out behind the headlight assembly in the engine bay and account for the HID projector swinging around as the assembly pops up or is used as a fixed non popup.

ive gotten pulled over for just using the fog lights... cops think they are too low to the ground, and they are right. yes i can see wit the fog lights but the driver in front cant see my fog lights, hence why the headlights are up higher. headlights by law are required to be a certain height above the ground and a certain distance apart from eachother.

not thinking of the headlights anymore... car was stolen and they took my drivetrain, hacked up my harness and took my HIDs/projectors and smashed my headlight covers.

wakeboardr42393

iTrader: (1)

for the headlights in the closed down position, i didnt mean use those projectors, i was talking about just using regular bright halogen bulbs or something. and make some kind of reflector to fit..

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

this has already been covered. RedRaif had done wat your talking about. installed slim fog lights how your saying. worked ok but didnt look right. also the lights were slim halogens so the lighting wasnt the best. halogen lights have nothing on HIDs trust me. it was amazing how much more like the HIDs put out compared to my 100w/90w hyper white halogens and my HID kit was only a 35w kit... i will now be going with a 55w kit

1stCarIsA3rdGen

i like the concept! can't wait to see your next prototype.


does anyone know if i would be able to purchase these lights somewhere, or if they were custom made for this car only?

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

OK guys soooo everyone mostly liked the idea of the non popup headlights but i have the 2nd PROTOTYPE DONE!!! Mainly this is due to the fact that my car was stolen and they smashed my original covers, stole my Hella 60mm projectors and HID kit as well as my engine, radiator, transmission, ECM, radio etc. So i buckeled down after some more research and tried to come up with something better.

It looks exactly like the poly trans am except... I had to black out the lenses due to the projectors openings would basically throw light all out the openings as well which would in turn make the clear lense extremely bright/light up the entire opening of the headlight bucket etc. I asked the retrofit source if i could cover the openings with aluminum tape and they didnt recomend it, esp with the 55w ballasts. the openings are so the projectors have air to cool the housing/bulb which is why putting a HID kit in a halogen projector is bad (no air cooling the bulb etc). So i have a REAL projector now (more on that in a min) and another small cheap halogen projector next to it so it looks like a double projector headlight.

NEW HID headlight upgrades include...
1.) NEW DDM 55w slim balast HIDs
2.) 55w 8000K H1 bulbs as well as a set of 6000K bulbs(remember 55w kits wash out the color so a 8000k 55w bulb really puts out a 6000K temp)
3.) Retrofit projectors mini morimoto bi-xenon real HID projectors, amazing little projectors! only 2.5" tall which is almost 1-1.25" shorter than the hella projectors i had. they are the smallest ones i could find with great light output to fit the space constraints of the small firebird headlight bucket opening. i have no regrets!
4.) Made my own new wiring harness utalizing the stock wiring into a relay for max voltage to the ballasts and to make the Bi-xenon actuators work properly)
5.) cheap chinese remake hella halogen projectors with 55w fog light bulbs (will hardly be used and the HID projectors put out sooo much light they wouldnt do anything anyway lol)
6.) remade plexi covers to look just like the poly trans am covers except they are blacked out to reduce the random light around the opening around the HID projector.

Sorry i dnt have pics yet but I will tmrw when i put the hood on and finish mounting the plexi covers.

EDIT: I added stuff to this post i originally forgot.

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

hears some teaser pics of the install. I wasnt able to put the hood on and mount the lenses permently today... i got sidtracked in making my own ractronix hot wire fuel pump harness.

heres some pics of the install and the lenses. You can see in the pics how much light is thrown out around the projectors and how it has to be contained by blackening out the lenses. otherwise i think the clear lenses looked cool lol like the poly trans am.

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

some more

drknow90rs_ss@y

iTrader: (3)

OOOhhhh! I like! Show us more!

havvek

Loved the look of the TA in the Vid, wish i spoke German so i could understand a word they were saying lol

LIDNR2

i like. very tempted. mass market...

ghettocruiser

iTrader: (4)

Hmmm... Do you have any beam shots against a wall? I feel like that sharp of a bend would cause distortion in the pattern.

They look pretty good though!! Has potential!

J.

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

honestly making the lexan covers is super easy... Since im not vacume forming these. I get a much flatter and cleaner bend with not ripples by not vacume forming. basically heating the plexi enough to form it with straight edges... i made 2 covers in less than 35min. the only real difference between these and the 1st design is the corners. They are like 2 flaps folded over and not a rounded solid corner like the first design. You can see it alittle in the pics of the new design but you cant see it on the car when its all said and done bc u cant see th corners lol.

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

thanks, I too was worried bout that. I tested them with the cover and it doesnt distort the beam pattern at all really. The cutoff is still super sharp but it does wash the color slightly. I lose alittle of the colorful cutoff spectrum when the lenses are mounted but its still pretty good.

I will post pics hopefully tonite if i get the hood on for final mockup. and ill post pics of the beam pattern. problem is that the car is on stands and the tent door is only like 6-8ft away from the projectors so you wont get a full distance beam pattern until the car is done.

david068513

iTrader: (2)

I would have done something like this, I've seen it on vettes and lt1/ls1 birds

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

pics as promised

last pic is of just the halogen projector fog lights

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

more

first pic is of the fog lights on only from the front of the car

second is of the 55w HIDs with lexan covers (slight light dispersment)

third pic is of the HID cutoff, still pretty crisp with lexan covers on.

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

last pic of the front of the car with both fog lights on and HIDs. they look blue in the pics but they are a nice bright white.

I did not post pics of the HIGH beam bixenon tho... i will try to post pics another nite of that.

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

its easy to say u would have done that... but the hard lines of the firebird doesnt allow for a lense like that. throwing a bubble/round type of lense on a 3rd gen would look weird bc the car has hard lines and flat planes.

If i could get something like that to work i would def try it. How much does it cost? and where are the demensions etc.

LS4GXP

iTrader: (2)

very nice job, so are you for hire? lol Live in the same state :P

CaliChevyLover

wow

ghettocruiser

iTrader: (4)

Looks good man!!! Doesnt seem to mess with the cutoff too bad, and doesnt seem to throw light flying in all directions.

I still like my pop up lights...but you def are on the right track with these.

Are you planning to seal the entire area up? Or are the projectors pretty protected?

J.

87WS6

iTrader: (1)

Much better than the frog eye you previously had. How is the rest of the car coming?

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

ha sure! depends on what you want done and how much ur want to pay. where in NJ are u from?

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

I still like pop up headlights but they are a pain in the @SS! sometime they would get stuck open or not pop up... and i had rebuilt the motors myself. Then i would always blow H4 bulbs due to water getting in them (bc they rest upside down with the sealed back of the bulb facing the rain). No matter what i did i could never get the bulbs to last. Not to mention the light output was horrible even with 100w/90w hyper white H4 bulbs. I also didnt like they way they looked on firebirds without ground effects like the base firebird/formula/formula350 (what i have). I could never really see at night and the HIDs with projectors make a HUGE difference. I sold my headlight assemblies just bc I would never go back.

No im not going to seal the area, the front of the lense will block all water coming from the front of the car at speed, the top will obviously act as a roof and the sides/back flaps will allow the water to drain off without getting down on the underside of the lense. essentially allowing no water to get to the projector. But it allows open air and free moving air to cool the projector/bulb which is a MUST with a real HID projector and HID 55w kit. I need the air to cool the projector when on which is why I didnt put aluminum tape around the openings on the projector to block the random light that comes out of it. I was also told not to do it from the retrofit source where i got the projectors from and they know just about everything about HIDs, and projectors etc.

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

THANKS! i know how much you hated the frog eyes lol.

The rest of the car is coming along... i got the ford 31x19 aluminim racing rad in the car (had to lower the rad 1.5" and move it over to the pass side 3" to clear everyhting). i also got the big block ford 521cuin to fit with the 3 speed auto C-6 trans. I just finnished the custom trans crossmember, motor mounts, fans (fan harness) MSD box, firewall clearanced, fuel pump harness ( i made my own hotwire harness with kill switch using 10gauge wire) and i got most of the interior redone. I need to get a stewart warner speedo and wire that up. Right now Im trying to make power steering brackets for the ford big block (they dont exist) esp since im trying to use a stock reman firebird PS pump and pressure hose. I just got the aftermarket ford PS pulley today and moly adjuster. SO LET THE FAB WORK BEGIN!

LS4GXP

iTrader: (2)

Middlesex county, am liking the look alot and if your serious shoot me a PM

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

thanks for the kind words! glad u like it!

Orinackra

Wow I really like those. Your light looks good, and I'm a fan of them not being as obvious as the other ones. I'm not sure how legal this is, but what about spraying some niteshades on those circles? It'd be completely black but the light would still shine through. Either way, major props to you! I'm glad you're rebuilding the car. i remember reading about your tragedy, made me sick hearing about what happened to it.

edit: are you putting a BB Ford engine in your car? That's unique!!

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

thanks, glad u like them. believe it or not i tried spraying some niteshades on a pair of fog lights (the ones in the front bumper from the 1st prototype) and It completely blocked out the light believe it or not, the light showed through (like what it does on rear brake lights, just like my rear tail lights that i have 3 coats of nightshades on lol) but it totally killed the beam and the distance of the light. Basically it just looked like it "glowed" lol which would illuminate about 3ft around the face of the fog light. So no I will not be using the niteshades on these covers.

I Do want to be able to come up with something that would use a flat face cover... something alittle more modern, perhaps a stock part from a new car that could be worked into the opening, this would also involve modifying the bumper definitly and perhaps even the hood opening.

Well so far this setup is completely legal (except if you want to use that rule that HIDs illegal if the car didnt come with them stock) but the projectors are REAL, the HID kit is real, and the projectors are Bixenon so i still have functioning high beams. I will try to post some pics of the low beam VS high beam when i get the chance to take more pics.

YES! im putting a Big block ford in my car, originally a 460cuin from a 76 thunderbird, stroked it to 521cuin, and Im running the original C-6 (3 speed) behind it. Ive already got it to fit with trans, but i had to make a ford style radiator fit, make custom motor mounts and trans crossmember, convert wire harness to carb etc. I just finished a power steering brackets last nite so i can run the stock type saginaw PS pump. replaced the high pressure PS line etc. So offically the cars drivetrain will be completely FORD (engine,trans,rearend) which im not proud of but its the strongest/high performance stuff FORD has to offer! should put out 600hp below 5500 and thats before the NOS shot lol. A simple head/cam swap will net me 800hp about.

EDIT: sry i forgot to mention I only went ford bc i got the complete engine/trans for free, but ive upgraded everything but the block/trans case.

Orinackra

That's great, and if your numbers are right, there's not gonna be anyone talking about a ford motor in there. And the price is perfect!

I can't believe the niteshades blocked all that light out. That's nuts. Oh well, it was worth a shot. Keep us updated!

1stCarIsA3rdGen

looks great! ive been wanting to do something similar to my bird

avelasco13

i have a 92 firebird and im really interested in what you did with you headlights. Do u think we can work something out where i pay you to do the same for me?

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

thanks guys, ive got alot done on the car since then. I wired up the HIDs high beams (they are bixenon) so they work with the stock High beam lever on the steering column. Works Great! its pretty cool to see the metal tag swing outa the way too. I finished the motor mounts, radiator install as well as the trans mount crossmember. I just rebuilt the trans and gave her a paint job. I got all the accessories figured out as well. just waiting on edelbrock heads (hope for xmas!), car also all wired up with the MSD street fire ignition box, all the charging/batt cables are run and transmission coolers/lines all hooked up. Ill be starting a thread on here as well with the ford swap (just dont know where to post it lol) figured engine swap forum but theres alot of fab work too.

As far as the requests for making the headlights. I honestly dont think you guys would like them the way Ive made them. They are still a crude design, they are not curved like the stock headlight covers are (in the inside hood corner) I was able to acomplish that with vacume forming but I need a better mold to create the crisp straight lines that i was able to get with the straight edge this time. If there was anything i could make for everyone it would be the same kind of lenses that I have, basically just bent plexi on for sides. And i wouldnt paint them since you would have to configure the lenses to you situation, create brackets to mount everything, then paint them how you want them.

my projector brackets are steel, and welded to the cars front steel bumper support on the bottom, the upper bracket is thinner steel and screws into the steel behind the headlight which allows it to be removable. I can make the lenses but they are nothing special.

lb9 GTA

I think it would look a little better if it had 2 equal sized projectors in each housing. The outside ones being slightly behind the inside ones (similar to camaro headlights) to folow the v shape of the nose. Just a thought. What you have there looks really good.

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

2 equal projectors would be nice. Since the HID projector is a real one and im running a 55w ballast, there is soooo much light that u cant even see the halogen fog projector right next to it. So putting them both on would be pointless at the same time. However a larger projector would be nice as a fog light bc it would put out more light but then u run into the issue, if you make a fog light large enough it basically becomes a headlight lol.

Also im not sure if you noticed but the outside HID projectors are actually set back behind the Halogen projectors, they follow the hood contour. The Fog projectors are basically right up against the plexi cover, the HID projector is set back about 2" or so.