I've received a lot of PM's during my time on Speedzilla enquiring about my single headlight endurance style upper on my RC. Well I stumbled across some old pictures of the bike while I was building that piece so now I can show everyone what I did rather than try to explain it with words. So here we go:
I initially put out a feeler for this project and got some good responses/ideas from various other members. That post can be found here: http://www.speedzilla.com/forums/rc51-technical-discussion/13430-endurance-headlight.html
My big dilemma was finding a single projector that would support both a high and low beam in one housing. Other than the Yoyodyne unit, I failed to find a single one and I wasn't willing to pay over $200 US for a little light. So what I finally decided on was a 90mm projector made by HELLA. Details on this projector can be found here: Hella. It retailed for something like $100 CDN after taxes, and is available through most auto parts suppliers like NAPA and so on. They have both a high and low beam model, I chose the low beam unit because it had a more focused beam and came with a removable block off plate (the actual horizontal cut off for the 'low' beam) so technically it could be both high and low, just not switchable without pulling the projector apart. It uses a standard H4 bulb which is included.
Now that I had my projector it was time to start fabricating the upper. I found a soup can that fit pretty much exactly over the projector so used that as my tunnel base. The upper itself was a fibreglass ArmourBodies race upper. The outline of the can was traced onto the inside of the upper and the hole punched out. The soup can was smothered in mold release and then fibreglassed to the upper at the hole. For mounting the projector to the upper we used the projector's existing mounting points. Drop nuts were molded into the fibreglass tunnel, we flared the inside end of the tunnel to do this. The plan was to use long bolts with springs and retainers in order to give the projector some adjustability for aiming the light. It also made it quick and easy to pull the projector out for track days. After lots of sanding and some light use of bondo to fill some imperfections here is what we ended up with:
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Thick and heavy right? It wasn't too bad, but we were worried about flex and stress from the wind so we went a bit overboard. I subsequently smashed that upper up in a crash so the piece was re-done on a new upper with some use of kevlar reinforcement. The result was a much thinner, lighter, and stronger tunnel. Here is a picture of the second attempt from the inside, and you can see how the projector is mounted and adjusted from the back:
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I decided that if I was going to have just a single beam, it had better be bright. I picked up a 6000k H4 McCullough HID kit designed specifically for motorcycles which had a much more compactly designed ballast and igniter (separate pieces). This kit came as a pair, so I got 2 complete setups for only $185 US! I cut off part of the block-off plate within the projector so that a bit more light would escape and then aimed it a little high but not so high it would be blinding oncoming drivers. The result? Insanely good lighting from a single unit. The projector had a perfect spread in front of me and the hard cutoff from the block-off plate stopped the HID from blinding anyone caught in front of me. I actually had it wired to the highbeam, so the high/low beam switch on the bars became an on/off switch for the headlight. All told this cost me around $200 (after selling the other half of the HID kit) and about 20 hours of labour/thinking. After some paint and installation, here is the final result:
![Image]()
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I never got around to getting a clear plastic cover for it. I tried the thinnest possible sheet plastic I could find but it wouldn't follow the contours of the upper properly. I was a bit frustrated with trying to make a cover for it to be honest, and never figured it out before the bike was stolen. But anyways, that's how I did it! I hope this helps others who are thinking about doing this.
I initially put out a feeler for this project and got some good responses/ideas from various other members. That post can be found here: http://www.speedzilla.com/forums/rc51-technical-discussion/13430-endurance-headlight.html
My big dilemma was finding a single projector that would support both a high and low beam in one housing. Other than the Yoyodyne unit, I failed to find a single one and I wasn't willing to pay over $200 US for a little light. So what I finally decided on was a 90mm projector made by HELLA. Details on this projector can be found here: Hella. It retailed for something like $100 CDN after taxes, and is available through most auto parts suppliers like NAPA and so on. They have both a high and low beam model, I chose the low beam unit because it had a more focused beam and came with a removable block off plate (the actual horizontal cut off for the 'low' beam) so technically it could be both high and low, just not switchable without pulling the projector apart. It uses a standard H4 bulb which is included.
Now that I had my projector it was time to start fabricating the upper. I found a soup can that fit pretty much exactly over the projector so used that as my tunnel base. The upper itself was a fibreglass ArmourBodies race upper. The outline of the can was traced onto the inside of the upper and the hole punched out. The soup can was smothered in mold release and then fibreglassed to the upper at the hole. For mounting the projector to the upper we used the projector's existing mounting points. Drop nuts were molded into the fibreglass tunnel, we flared the inside end of the tunnel to do this. The plan was to use long bolts with springs and retainers in order to give the projector some adjustability for aiming the light. It also made it quick and easy to pull the projector out for track days. After lots of sanding and some light use of bondo to fill some imperfections here is what we ended up with:
I decided that if I was going to have just a single beam, it had better be bright. I picked up a 6000k H4 McCullough HID kit designed specifically for motorcycles which had a much more compactly designed ballast and igniter (separate pieces). This kit came as a pair, so I got 2 complete setups for only $185 US! I cut off part of the block-off plate within the projector so that a bit more light would escape and then aimed it a little high but not so high it would be blinding oncoming drivers. The result? Insanely good lighting from a single unit. The projector had a perfect spread in front of me and the hard cutoff from the block-off plate stopped the HID from blinding anyone caught in front of me. I actually had it wired to the highbeam, so the high/low beam switch on the bars became an on/off switch for the headlight. All told this cost me around $200 (after selling the other half of the HID kit) and about 20 hours of labour/thinking. After some paint and installation, here is the final result:
I never got around to getting a clear plastic cover for it. I tried the thinnest possible sheet plastic I could find but it wouldn't follow the contours of the upper properly. I was a bit frustrated with trying to make a cover for it to be honest, and never figured it out before the bike was stolen. But anyways, that's how I did it! I hope this helps others who are thinking about doing this.
