Porschefile

Well, I'm bored and I just can't keep quiet until I'm finished with my fixed headlight conversion as I've been pleasantly surprised by several things, so this post is a bit premature. It's going to take me awhile to update but, I promise I will with pics and measurements. I know there are plenty out there that have looked with envy at the fixed headlight conversions, such as GT-Racing's, for our cars, though they certainly aren't cheap. Not to mention there are some things about them that aren't the greatest of quality, especially considering the price. Here are the headlights I'm using:

Vertex Racing



I bought those specific units as Vertex is a big distributor/retailer of 240sx stuff and with a good reputation, so I felt I could trust them. There are plenty of other knock-offs on Ebay, some of them for cheaper. I'm not entirely sure if any of the others from different sellers are identical, so for the sake of this thread lets assume that all of this info only applies to Vertex's 240sx headlights. Actually, these are all knock-off's of the originals made by, AFAIK, East Bear in Japan (now discontinued). For the price, you simply can't beat it. You get 2 projector lights, with Halo's (Angel Eyes or whatever you want to call them if you are into those), the bulbs, black painted housing, relays, a fuse (have to check but, I think it's a 30A) and you get a nice wiring adapter harness that's of similar quality to Travis' @ Rennbay's headlight upgrade harness. Upon initial check, it appears that one or both sides of the housing will have to be trimmed a bit as the entire housing is roughly ~1/2" too long. I'll take exact measurements and post up some teaser pics this weekend.

Other than trimming the sides of the housing down to fit, the one other significant modification needed is a custom bracket to mount the whole assembly in a sturdy fashion. I haven't worked this out yet, but there is plenty of room so it won't be an issue. As soon as I do work something out, I'll let everyone know. The sweet thing about these particular units is the angle of the housing itself is very similar to that of the 944's original headlight covers, so it looks like with a bit of modification it could be made to fit very closely to stock. Now, pay attention. Here's the really sweet part. Guess what? The supplied headlight adapter harness is designed for the 240sx. The nice thing? It directly plugs into the Rennbay 944 headlight upgrade harness! Yeah, you heard me right! I'll post pics to prove it this weekend. That basically takes care of any wiring issues. Though you end up with an extra set of relays and an extra fuse, all you have to do is connect all of the ground and positive wires to their appropriate positions. That makes the wiring side pretty much a straight plug and play affair. At this point it looks like these headlights, plus the Rennbay headlight upgrade harness, plus a bit of dremel work and some cheap sheetmetal custom brackets and you have yourself a halfway decent fixed headlight conversion for barely more than the price of a strut tower bar!

I'm still not entirely sure if I'm going to like the way these projectors extend outward a bit, as opposed to being flush on the surface like the GT-Racing units are, however anything is better than pop-ups as far as I'm concerned. Give me a day or 2 guys and I'll get some pics up.

BeerBurner

Hee hee! Those 240 headlights sure do get around. Some people on Miata.net are trying the same thing! I, too, am not sure how well the little bulges will follow the lines of the car, but I would love to see pictures.

Anyway, keep us posted!

BB.

ubercooper

I've always wanted a Zonda 944 , interested to see pix on a 944.
Keep the updates coming
Seb

ausgeflippt951

Seen those also on third-gen 7's. Not my favorite, but to each his own. Good luck and I look forward to seeing progress!

Mark-87-951

Yes, good luck and keep us updated with pics.

ninefiveone

I don't know what kind of lighting is built into this unit but I wonder if you could swap in some Hella 90mm HID projectors?

That I would be very interested in. I've got the full IceShark setup and it's easily as good as the HID's on my bmw but I would still love a fixed setup that eliminated all the pop-up complexity and weight.

FRporscheman

Whether it's the best looking fixed headlight is not an issue. It's always good to have more options to choose from when doing a project. I'd love to see the results of your work!

Scootin159

I'd also be interested in knowing if "E-code" lenses are available for those housings. HID isn't really nessesary, as you can get Halogen's that are plenty bright.

95Juan

juan is very interested.........

Porschefile

I'll take measurements of everything, including the projector lights themselves to see if there might be some other viable alternatives. I can't think at the moment but, I believe these lights are significantly smaller than 90mm (60mm maybe?). I'll post an update tonight to let everyone know for sure. Also, just so there's no confusion but, these aren't HID lights they are projectors but they are just plain halogen bulbs. With all of the upgraded harness stuff installed, I tend to agree that HID isn't really necessary as simple overwattage bulbs around the 100w range are more than bright enough for most people and much cheaper. Still HID looks cool. I can't decide if angel eyes look ricey or not, but I'll hook 'em up anyways for the hell of it.

I've also considered fabricating an "outer" housing with something like a Lexan cover (somewhat like the GTR setup) that this existing housing could attach to so that this whole assembly could be recessed into the headlight hole a bit so that the projectors don't stick out and everything fits flush. We'll see I guess. My main requirements is that I wanted to do some sort of fixed light conversion to help me eliminate as much stuff from the engine bay as possible to allow for more room for my turbo and IC setup, plus the results have to provide good lighting quality as I was tired of having crappy lights on this car (all stock lights before).

Hehe, that's pretty observant of you Ubercooper! I didn't realize they looked like that until you mentioned it.

sharky47

Please let me know where you got them. I want to buy a set just to take the actual light fixtures out to use in a GT-Racing style bucket......

BTW, I just got back with Robert's 951S - I am going to finish it for him here at the RennSpeed Racing super-secret facilities!

billthe3

The one you posted pictures of?

badmofofosho

Links in first post too Vertex Racing

Porschefile

Link

Hehe, I know what you mean. That's such a cheap price that it's worth it to buy, even if only for the projector lights and harness themselves!

V2Rocket

I'm sure with some modifications those babies could fit in the 944 bucket with lexan over them...