Cornering lights

[moroza]

E34 headlights are pretty good, especially for mostly straight-line Autobahn driving, but for those of us living out in the boonies with unlit foggy twisties in every direction, there's room for improvement.

I pondered several ways to effect cornering lights, and settled on trying the following method as it's visually the cleanest, and cheap and easy enough to be no big loss if it fails. I sawed my non-projector foglight housings apart at the angle of the lenses, just behind the attachment points to the aiming frame. Flipped one sawn-off half upside down, and glued them back together. WIT, I cleaned the reflector and lens, and removed the shade structure. Thus reassembled, the 12 degrees or so angle was multiplied by two and reversed, so each one now points 24 degrees outboard. Furthermore, the reflector inside is biased downwards, flipping which upside down lights up things above the road rather than the road itself.

The drops on the floor are from making the best of a particular hazard on such roads, this time thankfully something less taxing on the ol' bumper than venison.

cornering lights 3.jpg


The final step involved wiring. I've long had a modified LKM with all CCM features disabled, so rewiring was a straightforward addition. For now, I have them come on whenever the highbeams are lit, though a later stage is planned to have them come on only when the highbeams are On (forward), not merely Flashed. The idea is that if I'm leaving the highs on, there's nobody around to dazzle anyway, but I do need to be able to flash the left-lane slowpokes without looking something between a UFO, a cop car, and a christmas tree.

For road testing, I put in some crappy old worn random bulbs laying around. Bench testing with my HID kit showed a dramatic improvement in light output - subjectively about quadruple - so I consider the following results unimpressive as such but a promising proof of concept, to be further enhanced by (and money spent on) another set of HID bulbs and ballasts. Even with the dim old junk as it is - note that it was photographed next to two HID and two 9011 HIR - 20-40mph corners are already significantly facilitated, so I have good hope for the HID version. Yet further improvement might be gained by new lenses, clear lenses, and possibly projector housings if they don't interfere with the frame rails.

cornering lights 1.jpgcornering lights 2.jpg

[BleedsBlue]

Well that's pretty cool, and a simple execution - especially compared to what I often see, which is folks wiring up big power auxiliary lights. I can see the advantage easily, from before I moved down to Austin and would drive between that city and Denver regularly to visit my now-wife. The Hill Country covering a few hundred miles northwest of Austin is small game central, and once, at twilight on my way into Austin, I counted 58 distinct pairs of white tail eyeballs from the shoulder...

The drops on the floor are from making the best of a particular hazard on such roads, this time thankfully something less taxing on the ol' bumper than venison.

This almost sounds like you ate the roadkill, which I'm actually not opposed to

[circuit.heart]

Super cool way to hack original parts. If you're willing to take a customer, I would love to have a pair (my old fogs were broken, tossed them).

With that said I don't think this compares to putting, say, a TSX projector into the original low beams.

[moroza]

This almost sounds like you ate the roadkill, which I'm actually not opposed to

"Almost"? I was too subtle, I guess. Best believe I ate all that was edible. Deer is a lot of work and not my favorite. Jackrabbit is among the tastier things I've ever eaten, period. Ptarmigan was ok. Wild turkey is the reason I took up hunting - distaste for store-bought turkey meant indifference to the local abundance of wild ones, and reluctance to deal with one I ran over one afternoon, which I did only out of a sense of ethics/ecology. The experience of eating it was such that the next time I saw a flock in my yard, I enthusiastically dropped what I was doing, ran for my Mosin, et voila.

turkey.jpg

I've gotten one or two every season since, and would've likely never bothered, had fate not crossed that turkey's path with my E34's bumper (the bumper was unfazed, but I lost a lowbeam, one grill piece, and put a crease/dent in one fender).

The lights wouldn't've helped with that turkey, but just might've let me spot the deer I hit in my 544 at 4-something AM some years ago. I had my brights on, the sky was clear, and I was alert with eyes on the road ahead, doing about 110kph. This moron ran across the road at full speed and apparently from some ways away, taking me completely by surprise. I have good periphreal vision but didn't see it until almost after I heard and felt the impact. Better peripheral lighting could've easily made the difference between a moment of adrenaline and an otherwise uneventful trip, and what actually resulted: having to replace my headlights, hood, entire grill, bumper, radiator, radiator support, one radiator hose, fan, serp belt, two pulleys, MAF housing, and I think there was some more I can't remember.

IMG_6187.jpg

For the majority of deer that seem to meander and hang out on or just off the road, my thermal camera does an ok job. I'ven't made a thread about it yet, but will when I get an opportunity to take a good screenshot.

Super cool way to hack original parts. If you're willing to take a customer, I would love to have a pair (my old fogs were broken, tossed them).

With that said I don't think this compares to putting, say, a TSX projector into the original low beams.

Let me optimize them some, then we can talk.

No, they aren't TSX projectors, but perform a different function with different criteria. I looked into the TSX, and would've gone that route for my lowbeams had I seen evidence that they're significantly better than the much cheaper setup I put together (E39 igniters and ALI 4300K 9006 conversion bulbs).

[BleedsBlue]

"Almost"? I was too subtle, I guess. Best believe I ate all that was edible. Deer is a lot of work and not my favorite. Jackrabbit is among the tastier things I've ever eaten, period. Ptarmigan was ok. Wild turkey is the reason I took up hunting - distaste for store-bought turkey meant indifference to the local abundance of wild ones, and reluctance to deal with one I ran over one afternoon, which I did only out of a sense of ethics/ecology. The experience of eating it was such that the next time I saw a flock in my yard, I enthusiastically dropped what I was doing, ran for my Mosin, et voila.

turkey.jpg

I've gotten one or two every season since, and would've likely never bothered, had fate not crossed that turkey's path with my E34's bumper (the bumper was unfazed, but I lost a lowbeam, one grill piece, and put a crease/dent in one fender).

I guess I did understand your meaning, then! I applaud that - on many levels. Not to mention taking turkey with a 7.62x54 instead of a shot shell

Once I had smoked turkey - store bought no less - I couldn't look back on any other cooking method.

The lights wouldn't've helped with that turkey, but just might've let me spot the deer I hit in my 544 at 4-something AM some years ago. I had my brights on, the sky was clear, and I was alert with eyes on the road ahead, doing about 110kph. This moron ran across the road at full speed and apparently from some ways away, taking me completely by surprise. I have good periphreal vision but didn't see it until almost after I heard and felt the impact. Better peripheral lighting could've easily made the difference between a moment of adrenaline and an otherwise uneventful trip, and what actually resulted: having to replace my headlights, hood, entire grill, bumper, radiator, radiator support, one radiator hose, fan, serp belt, two pulleys, MAF housing, and I think there was some more I can't remember.

IMG_6187.jpg

For the majority of deer that seem to meander and hang out on or just off the road, my thermal camera does an ok job. I'ven't made a thread about it yet, but will when I get an opportunity to take a good screenshot.

That is such a solid hit, at a very sensible speed - damn!

I think Greg integrated a thermal camera sometime ago, for this very reason, but I can't recall if it's still in place.

No, they aren't TSX projectors, but perform a different function with different criteria. I looked into the TSX, and would've gone that route for my lowbeams had I seen evidence that they're significantly better than the much cheaper setup I put together (E39 igniters and ALI 4300K 9006 conversion bulbs).

That's interesting. I've had a pair of these projectors on the shelf for a few years, ever since my last car bit the bullet. I had installed UnrulyGrace's old TSX retrofits in that car just a few weeks before the Honda Pilot ran a red and decimated the entire front of that car The light output was stellar for that short amount of time.

I'll have to look into your setup instead, it sounds way less invasive.

[moroza]

I'd like to see any details of that IR camera install. Was it a Cadillac one, a PathFindIR, something else...?

[BleedsBlue]

I've sent up the ass signal

[93FIM5]

I was summoned . . . Burro Grande is here . . . hahaha. It was a Flir Pathfindr unit I integrated and coupled with my phone, was a good little setup but I couldn't make the monitor (phone) setup as ideal as I liked. If you're willing to have a dedicated monitor this wouldn't be an issue but wasn't in the scope of my plans. Plus the headlight setup I developed at the time was extremely potent (Hella Xenon), in fact I'm working on a new Hella LED low beam development for the E28 and E34 that looks to be even better that we'll offer through Angry Ass.

Anyways a few pics of the development work on it.

IR_6 by 93FIM5, on Flickr

IR_7 by 93FIM5, on Flickr

IR_8 by 93FIM5, on Flickr

Loved the person/animal identification boxes the unit has. Wont be reincorporating it due to the display ideally needing to be permanent and not fitting the goals of Angry Ass, but a very cool setup.

- Burro Grande

[moroza]

HID bulbs and E39 igniters arrived, rigged up, tested, successful. The photos are reasonably accurate for how useful these are in the real world. The angles are about perfect.

[Ariccio]

I just want to chime in to say that I *love* that people are working on things like this. It's been on my mind for years!