2nd bugeye wrx retrofit. Goodbye oem look. Hello sheet metal & acrylic. (progress pics)

[gold94corolla]

I'm gald to see you did shave the black diffuser frames to let all the light through.

[gold94corolla]

Yes, the newer picture looks more comforting. Bolting them together; how well does it hold the bumper cover together? I know front lips that come in 2 pieces just like that, and are joined at the center with a pair of bolts, but I didn't think a bolts could hold up whole bumper cover.

I used fiberglass to hold the parts together (however, it was not structurally important, the two halves were bolted on, the fiberglass was just to make it look good).

Does that mean you ran without a functional bumper beam? That would be scary.

Yes, without a beam. Scary perhaps, but I drove accordingly.

Imagine a 22b with the fuel economy of a corolla.

Rather, my point was, seeing a 2b replica out of a Corolla, and without the power to back it up, would have been laughable.

[satrya]

Oh wow, this build is pretty sweet! I love the bugeye gen. Keep up the good work!

Thanks.

I'm gald to see you did shave the black diffuser frames to let all the light through.

Yes, thanks for that suggestion in a different thread. With how it was mounted, it had to be done.

I used fiberglass to hold the parts together (however, it was not structurally important, the two halves were bolted on, the fiberglass was just to make it look good).

Yes, without a beam. Scary perhaps, but I drove accordingly.

I see.

Rather, my point was, seeing a 2b replica out of a Corolla, and without the power to back it up, would have been laughable.

From the performance perspective, sure. But from a green perspective?

[gold94corolla]

From a green persective, the Corolla enthusiasts would think it cool.... but the 22b enthusiasts not so much maybe lol?

[satrya]

Comparison pics: with vs without LED diffuser

Here are some comparison pictures of what the diffuser does to the LED. The difference is much more evident in person; not sure how to capture it better. The top LED is shown bare. The diffuser lenses aren't permanently glued in yet. (simple interference fit for now)

In person, the with vs without diffuser intensity of the LED appear very similar from a similar wide cone of angles. For oncoming traffic, the effect is like amplifying the spot source into a bigger source with similar intensity.

ISO 200, 0.005 second exposure, f/2.8 aperture.


ISO 200, 0.005 second exposure, f/2.8 aperture.


The next few shots are taken with a much shorter exposure. In these shots, the bare LED looks brighter compared to the ones behind diffusers. This makes sense, as the diffuser simply redistributes some of the on-axis light concentration around.

ISO 200, 0.001 second exposure, f/2.8 aperture.


ISO 200, 0.001 second exposure, f/2.8 aperture.


Just for fun, I tried amber LED, taken at the same setting as the first pair of photos. The color makes it look a bit more organic, like the faceted eyes of an insect. Too bad it's too dim to be useful. I need to find a good source for wedge bulbs that can directly replace these blue ones that came with the Junyans. I'm not a fan of the bluer hue. The "blue" ones can stay for now. Need to limit my spending on this project.

[satrya]

From a green persective, the Corolla enthusiasts would think it cool.... but the 22b enthusiasts not so much maybe lol?

I suppose so. But how many reasonably priced green cars look like a 22b?

[satrya]

A few more boring progress pics

I'm still a bit unsure about what to do with the turn signal. In general, I agree with the feedback from this thread. However, I do like the soda can shroud:


I'm going with a hybrid, with the bare turn signal reflector with a diffuser placed just ahead of the bulb. That way, the reflector path is unblocked, but the bare bulb is a bit harder to see. Here's the diffuser holder bolted on, and glued to the acrylic stray light harvester piece:



The plastic to plastic clear adhesive:


A few details to block stray light from the sides of the Mini D2S, glued to the housing with the glue shown.

[branheitz]

Wow. Tons o work. This is great to follow. I love how the e55 looks like it has an eyebrow. Looks mean!
I'm glad you found a solution to your led diffuser issue. It looks good.
I was following that thread too.

[satrya]

Wow. Tons o work. This is great to follow. I love how the e55 looks like it has an eyebrow. Looks mean!
I'm glad you found a solution to your led diffuser issue. It looks good.
I was following that thread too.

Thanks. And thanks for participating in that other thread. I like your creative use of base materials for your June ROTM build. I wish I have access to a wire EDM or power tools for that matter (my cordless drill died, so I have to make do with manual tools and a drill press ).

[satrya]

Paint time

After mulling over this for some time (to paint or not to paint), I decided that painting is the only way to go for this case. The reason is that during all the trimming and test fitting, I've scuffed enough material from the chrome shroud. There were holes cut to fit the extreme edges of the Mini D2S in the area originally reserved for a very shallow high beam reflector. There were also scuff marks and chrome fading from handling the reflector.

A reasonable compromise was to try to gradually apply layers of smoke chrome. My hope is that I can get away with the overall shroud looking chrome enough (i.e. closer to oem look), but make the blemishes less noticeable. I used this Dupli-Color Metalcast series. The color name was smoked chrome iirc. To its left, is the Krylon retroreflective paint. A generic flat black paint sits to its left, and a Rust-oleum frosted glass paint sits on the left most. This is the paint I used to frost parts of the outside headlight housing for my ver.1 build.


Alas, I had to apply ~3 coats to hide the blemishes, resulting in a coat that looks quite dark indoors:

[satrya]

LED difuser frame

Time to mount the LED diffuser frame. The frame is black plastic. To blend in better with the chrome area, I applied aluminum tape (used for HVAC ducting). It needs to fold from the outside to the inside. I couldn't help but generate creases on the lip. Oh well. The black gooey thing is the same glue I posted a few posts back.


All 2 x 3 affixed. I gave up on more complicated ideas to fill the gap between the shroud opening and the projectors, and went with what gold94corolla suggested; use the acrylic halos that came with the headlights. Only I decided not to wire them up to a light source, and painted the back of the smaller (top) one with the same Metalcast smoke paint. Imho, it helps make the Mini D2S disappear / blend into the dark upper area. The idea is that during normal use, the dark area separates a generally lit LED array on top and the e55r + stray light collector (both aluminum "eyelid" and acrylic light bar). The Mini will either be barely noticeable or look like a very big turn signal assembly.


Here are just the shroud, with most painters tape removed.

[gold94corolla]

Interesting paint scheme, is that all you are going to paint?

[satrya]

Interesting paint scheme, is that all you are going to paint?

I certainly don't want to paint the reflector area around the turn signal; function is more important to me than form.

I debated about painting the bottom part minus the turn signal area, but I don't like the odd triangular silhouette created by the lone chrome turn signal. It looks something like this one on sale:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/FREE-SHIP-02...sories&vxp=mtr
(The price for a pair has gone down significantly since I bought mine Oct 2011, oh well. Some vendors even sell them with plug&play HID kit <eek> )


Of course, I didn't want to paint the top part either, but I had to entertain that option because of the scuff marks and holes I created along the way.

So, at the moment, this is the least conflicting paint scheme.


I did check how it looks under the clear outer headlight lens. The difference is not that stark, so it blends much better than that pre-painted one on sale above.

I suppose if I hate it enough, I can just paint the top part silver (not chrome). I hope not.

Suggestions, ideas?

[gold94corolla]

Thing is, I'm not sure how you should paint it. But I was thinking that the curvy flowing pieces would be silver (not chrome) and the insides would be black, or like the Audi head light you showed earlier. But now that I see it painted, I'm not sure how that could be done.

[satrya]

Thing is, I'm not sure how you should paint it. But I was thinking that the curvy flowing pieces would be silver (not chrome) and the insides would be black, or like the Audi head light you showed earlier. But now that I see it painted, I'm not sure how that could be done.

The flowing pieces in silver would be close to the unpainted pieces, where it was more of a "brushed aluminum" finish. If I hadn't caused enough scuffing and holes on the shroud, I would've kept all of them unpainted, perhaps with a retroreflector spray applied on most of them for better visibility.

If I didn't care about the turn signal functionality (I do), I would've painted everything smoked chrome, including the acrylic pieces and custom shields inside the e55r and Mini D2S.

So, I'm currently out of color scheme options.

thx for weighing in