http://www.aus300zx.com/forum/...68586
http://www.300zxclub.com/showthread.php?t=148926jschrauwen;868149 wrote:Hi GuysFor those of you that have already registered on 3ZC, here is the link for all of the information. http://www.300zxclub.com/showthread.php?t=148926 For those who haven't and will eventually if they are interested in this product, I'll try to give a brief intro.Andy "ANDY93Z" Anderson a regular member from 3ZC has already placed events in motion to have clear headlight lenses made. These new lenses will be completely clear with no exterior nipples as in the USDM Z's and have no interior fluting as is the case with every Z headlight including the Lambo guys.He has already made prototypes that have proven very very effective. So much so that he's almost doubled his functional illluminating capabilities while still using halogen bulbs in his projectors. Those of you who have already split open their headlights and by chance have hooked them and turned them on prior to replacing the fluted oem lense will know exactly what I mean by the effectiveness of our projector if not incumbered by the flutes on the oem lenses.Included in that 5 page thread is another link for another thread wherein a member did a projector (e43) swap using the Z's 2.5" projector lense in that swap. The beam pattern produced is something that is highly praised by criticall eyes on HID Planet. AT any rate that other person had though he had the ultimate headlight improvement until it came time to replace the outer lense. As soon as he did that the beam pattern got washed out and slightly blurred. So much so that it almost negated any illumination improvements that he made.The bottom line here is that this is addressing one of the Z's biggest sore spots - headlight illumination. Although many of us have already done an HID upgrade, this lense upgrade could be characterized as improving your illumination by the same amount percentage-wise after the HID refit. To me this is fantastic news. On top of all of this Andy has already invested a measurable amount of personal funds in the R&D of this product and as a result has found a manufacturer and is basically committed to having 500 pairs made. In order for this to work, he's asked a few people (like me) to spread the word. Something I don't mind doing. Andy has already established himself as a bonafide maker of Z goodies that can be verified in the various regional club. He's made ZX logo plates to replace the Nissan hamburger, ZX center caps for our wheels, ZX keychains, ball hats, licence plate holders etc, etc etc. This is one of two big projects that he's getting very excited about. His thread will also offer the option of having the lenses tinted. What you should also know that by him willing to have the manufacturer produce 500 sets means that he wants to be able to sell all 500 sets. With that goal in mind, you can anticipate a very very good product for a very very reasonable price. Don't even ask what the estimated cost will be because I and he doesn't know for sure and it's not good business to speculate in public less the public will challenge anything that's not within those confines. Lets just say that Andy's not planning to retire on what little profit margin is achieved. Heck, he's not even sure if he's going to break even.I know for my self that anything that's going to produce the results that I've seen in past R&D pics and other's headlight projects, is definitely going to get my support and money.I strongly urge anyone who's been looking for that edge on better headlight illumination, be it to augment their HID upgrade, improve on their halogen bulb's (globe's) capability or looking for that perfect outer lense after doing a projector upgrade, should seriously consider Andy's new clear headlight lense.
No I'm not the middleman who will take orders or will field all questions. I will answer some of the easier ones but I will always defer to Andy.He's already had someone develope a website to sell this and a few other future products that will enable the buyer to do the click and buy now type of thing from.So, take the time to register on 3ZC if you've got aspirations of improving your Z's lighting.
Cheers,John
ANDY93Z;1644230 wrote:Thinking about producing these:
I am making them out of Polycarbonate , the same stuff on late model cars. I'm only running some Sylvania "blue" type of bulb , not any kind of Hid. The light dispersment? (spelling) at night is awesome...reminds me of my 2002 300ci BMW we used to own. My Drivers side lamp goes down the road about 45-50 yards perfectly now and the Passenger Side (ditch) side goes down maybe 70-75 yards perfectly too. The light "cutsoff" about 5-6 ft off the road and looks really great.
I will make these for you guys if enough are interested. Please keep in mind that the ones you see are my prototypes and before I invest anymore money I'd like to know if you are interested in have a clean shaven headlamp lens.
Thanks for looking , Andy
jschrauwen;1644535 wrote:I can't tell you how desireable a clear healight cover is. My experiences with other car forums where a similar oem fluted headlight cover posed a significant problem. People who tried to modify their headlights through conversions from standard halogen to Xenon projector would invariably have a fluted oem cover to contend with. Although those covers were made of a plastic/polycarbonite material it was extremely hard to remove those flutes.I don't have the link right now but last year there was a member hear who made some real significant improvements to his lighting situation by replacing our halogen projector with an e46 Xenon projector. His project work was top drawer and every detail was done with precision. His posted pics of the beam patterns (without glass cover istalled) during the build process were very inspiring. It wasn't until he replaced the oem fluted glass cover on that his project went south. The fluting made a mess of his beam pattern and distorted the light output to a point that it negated all of his hard work. He never finished his How-to thread and I'm sorry that his efforts didn't come to fruition.Now Andy's new headlight cover removes that obstacle that this person had and I'm hoping he'll see this thread and capture a renewed approach to his project.So, for me, this new headlight cover presents a number of opportunities to the Z owner. Not only will it motivate me to crack open my headlights for the first time, but while I'm at it I'll be able to clean the inside of the projector lense. Those of you not aware but a significant amount of potential light output from our headlights is compromised by the umteen years of accumulated dust and grime particles that does accumulate on the inside portion of the projector lense. We all have it and some more than others. Thosethat have cracked open their headlights and have cleaned their projector lense can attest to the amount of film that does accumulate. Not to mention the significant improvement to light output that's achieved by this simple cleaning is the fact that the removal of the flutes from the inside of the lense even compounds the effectiveness. It makes it all worthwhile for me now to finally open up my headlights and basically kill two birds with one stone.Again, Andy kudos to you for taking things to the next level so that the rest of us may benefit.
*EDIT*Here's the thread I made reference to;http://www.300zxclub.com/showt...t=e46JDM RICE hasn't made a post since 21/8/08. I don't know if any member here knows him personally, but it may be uplifting for him to know that there's still possibilities for his project now.
Andy is trying to find a dedicated soul who is willing to loan him a set of the 99/00 Spec Xenon inserts so that he can make a large reproduction run to compliment the clear lenses.jschrauwen;1644761 wrote:Perhaps I didn't quite get my point across correctly. I believe everyone who owns a Z32 with the usual amount of mileage will have a sufficient amount of film on their lense. The lense I speak of is not the clear lense that Andy is making but the 2.5" diameter lense used for the projector within the headlight. Most won't notice or for that matter realize that there is a film over them on the inside portion because it is very uniform in it's coverage. Our projector lenese are one of the very few that are clear whereas most other projectors they're opague.Here's something that may help the non believers about their projector lense;http://www.twinturbo.net/net/v...62286
What most of our lenses look like. Notice that there's no REAL indication that they've got anything on them;
Now the same projector with it partially cleaned;Notice the difference? Of course those that have unreal low mileage will probably be less coated but for the majority of us, consider yours to be as coated or even more.
Another combination of cleaned projectors courtesy of Biz;from Biz as well;http://www.300zxclub.com/showt...aning
Another example; http://www.300zxclub.com/showt...aning
Now that we can see that our projector lenses need cleaning, we can justify cracking open our headlights to do this and at the same time install Andy's headlight cover/lense.Why do we need to use Andy's headlight cover replacement as a reason to do this? I'll explain.
"JDM RICE" (one of our members) decided to do a projector retrofit after seeing Biz's accomplishments and decided upon using the Infiniti FX projectors as a suitable replacement (which was a good choice).Here's what he got for a beam pattern after they were fitted in the body of the Z headlights using the Z's 2.5" lense instead of the FZ's;[IMG] http://img399.imageshack.us/img399/5811 ... 3.jpg[/IMG]It doesn't get any better than that.
Now the same projector but with the fluted oem headlight (not projector lense) cover/lense placed back on;http://www.300zxclub.com/showt...ector
So by not only cleaning the projector lense (while the headlight is split open) but also adding a clear cover /lense we stand to improve our lighting capabilities dramatically.
More info wrt this subject;http://www.300zxclub.com/showt...ector
Related info.
As you can see, I'm pretty pumped about this new innovation/initiative by Andy.KevinZtwin;1649491 wrote:Yeah, cost for something like that would not be worth it. You would be better off getting the film like zil32 did. He got it more as a protective film to protect his $1600 Jspec headlights, but the blue tint he has does look good. It is very slight. If the lenses came with a "built in" tint your lights would still get rock chips, etc. Get the lenses and put the protective film over it for like $20 or something. Our lights do it pretty well because all the edges of the film can be covered by the rubber around the lights.
Here is a site that I would order from, everyone else overcharges like crazy. Just order the bulk square and cut it to size (I don't know how big our lights are 8"x10"??), trying to line up the pre-cut ones are much harder. I'd get mine from this site, but perhaps you can ask Arnel where he ordered his from. I didn't ask, but I will be putting some film on these new lenses to protect them.http://www.lamin-x.com/Universal-Covers-s/289.htm
Cheers,John
