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Red Halos in Sonars

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Old 08-07-2010, 12:11 AM
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Red face Red Halos in Sonars

Make your Camaro look evil, with Red halos!

Original build thread is here: https://ls1tech.com/forums/appearanc...headlights-90-
completed.html

I wanted to make this how-to a little easier to go through. Thanks to Sparky and haystack for the help


Preview videos (the quality is better than the pictures):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kszzKNSW-Gs quick red halo lights preview (white LED halos are on as well)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrShjgLy40E

Preview pictures:








Part I.

So first is first, pick up a set of projector headlights. I bought the new Sonars that came with the blinker housings (yay!) for about $170 shipped to my door.



Headlight specs: Projectors (H1), two LED white halos, and some LEDs on the side.
Projector choice is all yours, I won't get into detail about that here, but I bought the ebay HID kit, 6000k ($45 shipped)


Now, pick your Halo color. I picked red. Do a google search for them... Nothing came up, huh? After literally days of prowling the internet like a horny 16 year old boy looking for his dad's 1980's playboys, I finally found these: [IMG]http://www.chiefpick.com/v/vspfiles/photos/CF-CCF80RD-2T.jpg
[/IMG]
http://www.chiefpick.com/ProductDeta...Show=TechSpecs

Yes, these are actually 80mm computer fans with real CCFL halo rings and they are less than $6 (sweet).

When your halo/fans come in, there are 4 screws holding the ring in place on the fan, remove those and remove the halo. There will be a plastic ring protector around the glass halo ring, take that apart and do what you please with it. Put the new fans into your computer, it will thank you.



Now it's time to bake your headlights. There are a lot of different ways people do this, this was my way. Baking your brand new, uninstalled, new smelling headlights will make you depressed, drink some beer (I went with Sam Adam's summer ale, but you can pick Guinness or Stella Artois if you prefer).

-Oven at 250, I had a cookie sheet, a sheet of tin foil on that, and a towel on that.

Put them in for 25 minutes (take of those 5 metal clips of course), and take a butter knife to start prying them apart. After a minute of progress, stick them back in for another 10 minutes. You will finally get them apart. Some
people put them in for hotter, for longer, it's up to you. (Please don't message me if your mom/gf/wife/or significant other beats you for making a mess in his/her oven).


Now you have your headlights apart!

You will notice these actually have three sections (unlike the stock headlights). They have the back and lens which you just pulled apart, and they have that black (or chrome if you bought chrome) inner thing holding the white halo rings and the LEDs on the side.

This is held on by 4 screws in the back (you need to take off one side of the actual headlight bracket to get to one of the screws)

Once that is done, pull it out along with some of the wires that come through a harness.


There will be two screws on the back of the white halo ring (the one around the projector lens) that you need to remove, and then you take the white halo out and place is somewhere.

Next, grab a dremel and expand that slot in the chrome ring where the white halo's wires just came out, this is where your new red halo wires will also go. We also need to make room for the ends of the red halo. Do a test fit of
the red halo, and the white halo, they should fit perfectly together, the red halo going inside the white.

Grab some high temp expoxy, mix it up and put some on the back of the red halo ring, then stick it to the chrome ring, it should be solid in a few minutes. Put the white halo back and screw that back in.

Hopefully you have tested your red halos,





For this next part, there are two options for you. You can either scrape out all the glue from the headlight and lens, or you can heat everything back up, then stick it back together using the original glue.

I chose to scrape it all out. If you do this, grab some more beer, get the oven hot and prepare to spend a few hours getting all that glue out.

When that is done, you are going to reassemble the headlight.

Feed the red halo wires, and the other wires for the white halos through the grommet in the back. The rubber stretches pretty easily, so they should all fit if you double up the wires with two of the holes.

Put those fours screws back in to secure the middle piece. Do another test of all the lights, PLEASE. I used one of those little rectangular batteries (what the hell are those things called?) and you can just put the + and - wires to it and test everything.

If you scraped out the glue, pick yourself up some black, high temp rtv gasket maker ($7.95). Put a generous bead around the outside of
the headlight lens, and a medium side bead in the "pocket" of the housing. Put the two halves together and then put the clips back on. I also taped the ends so they had more pressure while the rtv dried.


Presto, admire your brand new, custom projector headlights with red halos (or another color of your choice) and join the ranks of us elite few that have them on 4th gens.








These pictures are horrible; the rings are actually quite defined.



Last edited by hlaalu; 07-18-2011 at 10:55 PM.
Old 08-07-2010, 12:12 AM
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Detailed wiring instructions to a fog light switch will come soon.

Old 08-07-2010, 01:33 AM
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Great write-up. I guess the transformer(little blue box) on one of my headlights went out or got disconnected so I have to open up mine soon, might try adding the 2nd CCFL in there.
Old 08-09-2010, 02:16 PM
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how much brighter were the red halos compared to the blue (stock) halos? i want to get some new headlights with halos but have a few friends who have them and are basically not visible at all. And are yours the ccfl halos to begin with or just the leds? these are the ones im looking at. HOPEFULLY i wont need to mod the halos to make them brighter

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/98-01...Q5fAccessories
Old 08-09-2010, 05:46 PM
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The stock ones are just LEDs, they don't even compare to the red ccfl halo in there lol Not sure how bright those ccfl halos would be in that link you posted though.
Old 08-09-2010, 05:47 PM
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In that last picture, the LEDs are on with the red halos, you can see the difference.
Old 08-09-2010, 05:58 PM
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Looks badass!
Old 08-09-2010, 06:16 PM
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[QUOTE=hlaalu;13702769]Detailed wiring instructions to a fog light switch will come soon.

Patiently waiting on that one,
everything else seems pretty cut and dry......

GREAT MOD......
Old 08-11-2010, 12:38 AM
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Okay, the fog light switch wiring is easier than you think. Grab yourself a fog light switch, I bought two from ebay for $10 shipped.

The three main wires are

brown - power in, I took power from my radio, so the lights only come on with the key in the car.
black - ground, connect this with the other fog light switch.
purple - this will go to one of the wires of the halo, simply run a wire from the halos inside your cab, I have a tiny hole by my clutch pedal were my line lock wire comes through. Then run the wire up behind the radio (it's really easy, just shine a flashlight behind your radio and you will see what I'm talking about).

The rest of the wires just splice into the stock fog light switch.

yellow and green are for the illumination, and the little orange light on the side of the switch that comes on when the switch is turn on.

And for the other halo wire, splice it into a ground wire to one of the other lights, I went into my parking light wire.


So to simplify it, you have a ground wire, from your parking light, going into your halo, then you have the non ground wire coming from your halo, into your cab, into the purple of the fog light switch. Then you have the brown wire from the fog light switch going to a power source.


If your new fog light switch doesn't come with the wires (mine came with them snipped from the previous car they were on) then just compare the holes to your current fog light switch.
Old 08-11-2010, 12:50 AM
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Sick!!!!!!!!!!! If i had a camaro i would definately do this. Good Work!
Old 08-11-2010, 01:50 AM
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is this legal on the street ?
Old 08-11-2010, 08:43 AM
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Originally Posted by killagt
is this legal on the street ?
NO. This is why you run them to a separate switch.
Old 08-11-2010, 09:17 AM
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So, tell if I'm right here.. The normal (white) halo rings go in with the parking lamps? And you wire the RED halo to another switch, and just flip that on when the parking lamps are off?

I was confused as to why you had the red one INSIDE the white one at first. Cool writeup man.

Where'd you grab power for the CCFL's from?
Old 08-11-2010, 10:49 AM
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Originally Posted by hlaalu
NO. This is why you run them to a separate switch.
Old 08-11-2010, 01:23 PM
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looks good I did my car with red halos about 1 year ago I have a total of 6 red halos 3 on each side looks bad *** I did not post pic cause I dont no how so if you tell me how I will give it a try
Old 08-11-2010, 01:42 PM
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great right up, i have the exact same halos on my STOCK headlights man they are too bright! nice work
Old 08-11-2010, 03:04 PM
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Originally Posted by 98 WS6
So, tell if I'm right here.. The normal (white) halo rings go in with the parking lamps? And you wire the RED halo to another switch, and just flip that on when the parking lamps are off?

I was confused as to why you had the red one INSIDE the white one at first. Cool writeup man.

Where'd you grab power for the CCFL's from?
The normal LED halos go on with the parking lights, yes. The red halos are wired to their own switch and go on/off as I please. The red halos are 100x brighter than the LED halos, so it doesn't matter if those are turned off or not

Originally Posted by SS98#633
looks good I did my car with red halos about 1 year ago I have a total of 6 red halos 3 on each side looks bad *** I did not post pic cause I dont no how so if you tell me how I will give it a try
upload them to photobucket, and post the link here, I'd like to see how that came out.

Originally Posted by omarrakeen
great right up, i have the exact same halos on my STOCK headlights man they are too bright! nice work
post up some pics! This is a thread for everyone
Old 08-17-2010, 04:10 PM
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no pics?
Old 07-18-2011, 10:53 PM
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Found some better pics, anyone build some yet?
Old 07-18-2011, 11:39 PM
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It should be no problem to put ccfl halos around the fog lights too right?


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