Not technically a "sleepy-eye" mod, I prefer to call it "ultra-low profile HID" or "mean-eye". I got the idea when I noticed a friend's 1991 Pontiac Grand Prix had really small rectangular DOT approved stock headlights and thought they would look great in a low-profile headlight mod. The stock headlights create a huge amount of air resistance on the freeway at night so I wanted the lowest, sleekest looking pop-up headlight possible without compromising performance too much. Through trial and error and a hell of a lot of time, I am very pleased with the result. It was worth it and now my Supra is ultra-unique and night driving is very nice with HID's.
Build tally:
$50 - 3x6" stock headlights and brackets from early 90's Grand Prix, some Cutlass Supreme, some Geo Metro, and I think the 94-97 Camaros too. Mine came off a 91 Grand Prix.
$45 - Misc. brackets, high-temp silicone, JB weld, screws, rust paint, etc
$200 - Pilot ebay HID conversion kit, 6000K (crystal white with a hint of blue), 9006 bulbs (for low beams)
$200 - Piaa 1100 Dichronic driving lamps (high-powered halogens for high-beams, proper 35 degree projection angle, unlike fog lights)
First I turned on my stock lights and marked the center of the beam on the wall with some masking tape so I could align the new bulbs later. I completed one side first to make sure everything was going to fit and work properly, then pulled it out again and created a mirror image on the other side, duplicating everything I did on the first light. I was originally planning to just use the stock GM halogen headlights but after browsing the Camaro forums I noticed that many Camaro owners felt that the stock headlights offered poor performance because they are so small. One owner successfully retrofitted a 9006 HID conversion kit so I decided to do it and upgrade my lighting looks and performance. The cool thing is that the 9006 bulb fits the housing very well and the small xenon capsule that emits the light is in the exact same position as the halogen filament in the stock GM bulbs so the stock beam pattern is unchanged with the HID retrofit.
Removing the headlights was a pain. I had to unbolt the radiator and move it forward to get at one of the bolts for the headlight motors that need to come off. I also had to remove the coolant bottle and bracket. A ratcheting closed-end 10mm wrench is essential for this job. *** I suggest putting a few layers of masking tape on your headlight covers to avoid scratching the paint. I though that working on cardboard would be fine but the paint was really scratched by the time I was done. Luckily I will be painting the car very soon.
The fit was very tight and required lots of cutting and trimming of the composite housing. A dremel worked reasonably well although the material melted from the heat. A hacksaw worked well for straight easy cuts. There's no going back to stock after this mod. Luckily there are lots of parts cars around so it would be easy to do so if needed.
I had to give up one of the metal clamps that the headlight cover bolts to for an extra mm or 2 of clearance. This is where I screwed into the side of the Grand Prix light housing. I wanted to retain the adjustment screws from the stock brackets but there was just not enough room. I designed my metal holding brackets to be bendable for final headlight alignment. Crude but effective.
At first I misjudged the angle and cut out more material than necessary, but the composite material is plenty strong so no big deal. With my headlights in the up position, the headlight cover is pretty much level with the ground. Going by this, I knew that the headlights had to be parallel with the top of the housing. I used "shakeproof" toothed washers throughout to prevent loosening down the road.
To remove the halogen bulb, some Camaro guys were using a torch to heat up the glue holding the stock bulb in the sealed beam housing, but my method is superior. Just clamp the bulb in a vise and twist back and forth and the glue gives up the seal really easily!
Wire brushes are the quickest and easiest way to remove the old glue from the housing
Using high temp silicone, glue in the new Xenon bulb. I left it overnight to cure. Some guys used JB weld but you'd never get it out again to replace the bulb if it burns out! Silicone is the way to go.
The tricky part is getting the headlights to work like stock but only raise up to the height you want. I read that some guys just shorten the connection rod but I tried that and it doesn't work! The headlight motor lever rotates a full 360 degrees during one open/close cycle. This means that both the connecting rod AND the pivot point on the motor lever arm must be shortened. After a lot of head scratching and thinking I'll never pull this off, I figured it out:
I originally thought that I could rely on just the connecting rod to hold the headlight in the up position but I noticed that it had a fair amount of play and would have surely jiggled my light beam a lot over bumps while driving. The stock lights have adjustable rubber bump stops for the open and closed positions so that the assembly always clamps tight against the appropriate bump stop, making the assembly solid and free from vibration. I realized that I would have to modify the upper bump stop to the height I needed. I found a long bolt and used the rubber off a door stop for the new longer bump stop. The thread on the bolt allowed adjustability:
I put the assembly back in the car and adjusted the new bump stop to the exact height I wanted. I then took it out and used a ruler to measure the precise travel at the point where the upper connecting arm attaches to the housing. Since the motor lever rotates 180 degrees to go up, and then the other 180 degrees (360 in total) to go down, the new pivot point must be 1/2 the distance of the travel measured at the upper connecting arm attachment point. Mark that point on the lever and cut off the knob with a hacksaw:
If you have a welder, you may be able to weld it in place although it might be tough to keep the ball clean and smooth. This is what I did:
Clamp it in a vise with copper, brass, or aluminum to prevent from marring the surface. Cardboard would still be better than nothing. Drill it and tap it. (Be careful. Don't break off your tap inside the ball like I did!) Drill a hole in the lever at your mark and attach the ball to its new pivot point. *** I highly recommend drilling your hole at a bit of an angle toward the top of the lever because the surface the knob mounts to is rounded this low on the arm and has a tendency to tilt down. You want it level. This happened on my first arm and I had to put a metal strip in behind to reinforce it but then I had clearance issues with the moving assembly. For my second try, I drilled the hole in the lever at an angle so that when the knob was tightened, it did not try to pull down around the rounded bend in the lever. I decided to reinforce this one with JB weld(requires overnight curing). I made my headlights open the absolute minimum distance possible which is why my pivot point is so low on the arm.
With JB weld reinforcement:
With the headlight in the down position, I marked off where I needed to cut the connecting rod to the right length. After cutting, I screwed the end pieces back on, bolted it all back together and then adjusted the length of the rod with its threads so that it was snug to the bottom bump stop. I then plugged the motor in and rotated it to the up position and adjusted the top bump stop so it was snug against the assembly.
After bolting it all back on I placed it in the car to test. I was pretty excited to see this work like stock and open to the perfect height. This mod requires lots of back and forth testing to and from the car. Many times I had to plug in the headlight motor and move the assembly either up or down to do the work needed. The plastic connecting rod ends pop on and off but take a fair amount of force to do this. Don't break them!
Luckily I nailed the correct pivot point on the lever arm the first time. If I was off a bit, I would have used the dremel to lengthen the hole and move the pivot.
After installing the bulbs I wired them up to test functionality and to align the low and high beams to the marks I made on the wall. I opted to use the separate wiring, relay, and dash switch that came with the PIAA lamps so that I could run both systems at the same time. I am glad I did this because the PIAA's don't make great high beams and it is much better to keep the HID's on with them for high beam driving. I used spade terminals to plug the HID ballast plugs into the stock plug then, wrapped it thoroughly with electrical tape. I had to try a few different wiring configurations to the stock headlight plug to get it to work since my voltmeter provided inconclusive readings for some reason.
Next I cut the trim to fit the new smaller headlight. There was a large gap at the bottom so I trimmed up the lower piece I cut off, turned it upside down and made a tidy bottom piece to clean up the look:
I then wire brushed the rust and painted the entire assembly with rust paint:
Final assembly is tricky. Because the max headlight height is so low, I had to leave the bottom pivot ball disconnected, loosely place the assembly into the car, wire it up, drop the trim piece down underneath the assembly, use a long bar/wrench to pop the bottom pivot onto the ball, then install the headlight cover and lastly the trim peice which hides all the hardware. I left the bolts for the motor and assembly loose so to make it easier to tighten the side trim screws. There was just enough room to get a screwdriver in to tighten the screws. Use masking tape on the fender to avoid scratching your paint.
One quirk that I'm still unsure about: I bought only one side of a Grand Prix headlight assembly from the wrecker so I got one high beam bulb and one low beam. The halogen bulb that came out of the low beam had a metallic cap on it as if to block glare, the high beam bulb didn't. Everything else seemed identical, the bulbs, size, shape, filament; both the high and low beam glass housings had the same lettering on the front so I assumed they were the same. I am wondering if the reflective coating inside the housings are different because one of my headlight's beam pattern is dimmer and a different shape than the other, and I don't know which one was which. **** Edit: see further in the thread regarding this issue ****
Overall, a massive P.I.T.A and not recommended for ameteurs but that's the price we pay for custom looks and performance. I find myself leaving them up a lot and getting a lot of looks. People are wondering what kind of car I'm driving. I really like the mean look and I like the fact that they work like stock. The HID kit was worth the extra $200 and it is like driving a BMW at night. - Brad
Build tally:
$50 - 3x6" stock headlights and brackets from early 90's Grand Prix, some Cutlass Supreme, some Geo Metro, and I think the 94-97 Camaros too. Mine came off a 91 Grand Prix.
$45 - Misc. brackets, high-temp silicone, JB weld, screws, rust paint, etc
$200 - Pilot ebay HID conversion kit, 6000K (crystal white with a hint of blue), 9006 bulbs (for low beams)
$200 - Piaa 1100 Dichronic driving lamps (high-powered halogens for high-beams, proper 35 degree projection angle, unlike fog lights)
First I turned on my stock lights and marked the center of the beam on the wall with some masking tape so I could align the new bulbs later. I completed one side first to make sure everything was going to fit and work properly, then pulled it out again and created a mirror image on the other side, duplicating everything I did on the first light. I was originally planning to just use the stock GM halogen headlights but after browsing the Camaro forums I noticed that many Camaro owners felt that the stock headlights offered poor performance because they are so small. One owner successfully retrofitted a 9006 HID conversion kit so I decided to do it and upgrade my lighting looks and performance. The cool thing is that the 9006 bulb fits the housing very well and the small xenon capsule that emits the light is in the exact same position as the halogen filament in the stock GM bulbs so the stock beam pattern is unchanged with the HID retrofit.
Removing the headlights was a pain. I had to unbolt the radiator and move it forward to get at one of the bolts for the headlight motors that need to come off. I also had to remove the coolant bottle and bracket. A ratcheting closed-end 10mm wrench is essential for this job. *** I suggest putting a few layers of masking tape on your headlight covers to avoid scratching the paint. I though that working on cardboard would be fine but the paint was really scratched by the time I was done. Luckily I will be painting the car very soon.
The fit was very tight and required lots of cutting and trimming of the composite housing. A dremel worked reasonably well although the material melted from the heat. A hacksaw worked well for straight easy cuts. There's no going back to stock after this mod. Luckily there are lots of parts cars around so it would be easy to do so if needed.
I had to give up one of the metal clamps that the headlight cover bolts to for an extra mm or 2 of clearance. This is where I screwed into the side of the Grand Prix light housing. I wanted to retain the adjustment screws from the stock brackets but there was just not enough room. I designed my metal holding brackets to be bendable for final headlight alignment. Crude but effective.
At first I misjudged the angle and cut out more material than necessary, but the composite material is plenty strong so no big deal. With my headlights in the up position, the headlight cover is pretty much level with the ground. Going by this, I knew that the headlights had to be parallel with the top of the housing. I used "shakeproof" toothed washers throughout to prevent loosening down the road.
To remove the halogen bulb, some Camaro guys were using a torch to heat up the glue holding the stock bulb in the sealed beam housing, but my method is superior. Just clamp the bulb in a vise and twist back and forth and the glue gives up the seal really easily!
Wire brushes are the quickest and easiest way to remove the old glue from the housing
Using high temp silicone, glue in the new Xenon bulb. I left it overnight to cure. Some guys used JB weld but you'd never get it out again to replace the bulb if it burns out! Silicone is the way to go.
The tricky part is getting the headlights to work like stock but only raise up to the height you want. I read that some guys just shorten the connection rod but I tried that and it doesn't work! The headlight motor lever rotates a full 360 degrees during one open/close cycle. This means that both the connecting rod AND the pivot point on the motor lever arm must be shortened. After a lot of head scratching and thinking I'll never pull this off, I figured it out:
I originally thought that I could rely on just the connecting rod to hold the headlight in the up position but I noticed that it had a fair amount of play and would have surely jiggled my light beam a lot over bumps while driving. The stock lights have adjustable rubber bump stops for the open and closed positions so that the assembly always clamps tight against the appropriate bump stop, making the assembly solid and free from vibration. I realized that I would have to modify the upper bump stop to the height I needed. I found a long bolt and used the rubber off a door stop for the new longer bump stop. The thread on the bolt allowed adjustability:
I put the assembly back in the car and adjusted the new bump stop to the exact height I wanted. I then took it out and used a ruler to measure the precise travel at the point where the upper connecting arm attaches to the housing. Since the motor lever rotates 180 degrees to go up, and then the other 180 degrees (360 in total) to go down, the new pivot point must be 1/2 the distance of the travel measured at the upper connecting arm attachment point. Mark that point on the lever and cut off the knob with a hacksaw:
If you have a welder, you may be able to weld it in place although it might be tough to keep the ball clean and smooth. This is what I did:
Clamp it in a vise with copper, brass, or aluminum to prevent from marring the surface. Cardboard would still be better than nothing. Drill it and tap it. (Be careful. Don't break off your tap inside the ball like I did!) Drill a hole in the lever at your mark and attach the ball to its new pivot point. *** I highly recommend drilling your hole at a bit of an angle toward the top of the lever because the surface the knob mounts to is rounded this low on the arm and has a tendency to tilt down. You want it level. This happened on my first arm and I had to put a metal strip in behind to reinforce it but then I had clearance issues with the moving assembly. For my second try, I drilled the hole in the lever at an angle so that when the knob was tightened, it did not try to pull down around the rounded bend in the lever. I decided to reinforce this one with JB weld(requires overnight curing). I made my headlights open the absolute minimum distance possible which is why my pivot point is so low on the arm.
With JB weld reinforcement:
With the headlight in the down position, I marked off where I needed to cut the connecting rod to the right length. After cutting, I screwed the end pieces back on, bolted it all back together and then adjusted the length of the rod with its threads so that it was snug to the bottom bump stop. I then plugged the motor in and rotated it to the up position and adjusted the top bump stop so it was snug against the assembly.
After bolting it all back on I placed it in the car to test. I was pretty excited to see this work like stock and open to the perfect height. This mod requires lots of back and forth testing to and from the car. Many times I had to plug in the headlight motor and move the assembly either up or down to do the work needed. The plastic connecting rod ends pop on and off but take a fair amount of force to do this. Don't break them!
Luckily I nailed the correct pivot point on the lever arm the first time. If I was off a bit, I would have used the dremel to lengthen the hole and move the pivot.
After installing the bulbs I wired them up to test functionality and to align the low and high beams to the marks I made on the wall. I opted to use the separate wiring, relay, and dash switch that came with the PIAA lamps so that I could run both systems at the same time. I am glad I did this because the PIAA's don't make great high beams and it is much better to keep the HID's on with them for high beam driving. I used spade terminals to plug the HID ballast plugs into the stock plug then, wrapped it thoroughly with electrical tape. I had to try a few different wiring configurations to the stock headlight plug to get it to work since my voltmeter provided inconclusive readings for some reason.
Next I cut the trim to fit the new smaller headlight. There was a large gap at the bottom so I trimmed up the lower piece I cut off, turned it upside down and made a tidy bottom piece to clean up the look:
I then wire brushed the rust and painted the entire assembly with rust paint:
Final assembly is tricky. Because the max headlight height is so low, I had to leave the bottom pivot ball disconnected, loosely place the assembly into the car, wire it up, drop the trim piece down underneath the assembly, use a long bar/wrench to pop the bottom pivot onto the ball, then install the headlight cover and lastly the trim peice which hides all the hardware. I left the bolts for the motor and assembly loose so to make it easier to tighten the side trim screws. There was just enough room to get a screwdriver in to tighten the screws. Use masking tape on the fender to avoid scratching your paint.
One quirk that I'm still unsure about: I bought only one side of a Grand Prix headlight assembly from the wrecker so I got one high beam bulb and one low beam. The halogen bulb that came out of the low beam had a metallic cap on it as if to block glare, the high beam bulb didn't. Everything else seemed identical, the bulbs, size, shape, filament; both the high and low beam glass housings had the same lettering on the front so I assumed they were the same. I am wondering if the reflective coating inside the housings are different because one of my headlight's beam pattern is dimmer and a different shape than the other, and I don't know which one was which. **** Edit: see further in the thread regarding this issue ****
Overall, a massive P.I.T.A and not recommended for ameteurs but that's the price we pay for custom looks and performance. I find myself leaving them up a lot and getting a lot of looks. People are wondering what kind of car I'm driving. I really like the mean look and I like the fact that they work like stock. The HID kit was worth the extra $200 and it is like driving a BMW at night. - Brad
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