I was a little suprised when I saw that eyelids for the 8 where $150 or something. So, I decided to get a little creative, I made my own!

It was pretty simple and I took some step by step pictures on how I did it.

This is the end result.....

Neat duct tape...

:D

Go down to your local sign shop and pick up a 2 feet of Vinyl Calon II. (they will know what this is) It's like a giant colored vinyl sticker, but it's made for outdooor use.

You will also need:

Windex (or water)
Razor blade
Tint squeegee
paper towels scissors
scotch tape
a tape meassure

Cut the vinyl down the middle to make two peices.

You want the outsides to be stright.

Hold up the one of the pieces over the lens to get an idea of how you would like it to look. I made mine 2 1/4 ".....

Here I am meassuring where it looked the best.....

Hold the tape measure to the top of the lens and place a small piece of tape at 2 1/4.

Do this at least times.......

Peel the backing off the vinyl, this stuff is pretty forgiving and not too tough to work with....

Now obviously, the tricky part. One thing about the vinyl is you can put it down and lift it back up a few times. line up the bottom of the vinyl with the top of the pieces of tape....

Do not apply any pressure yet!!!!! You will get tons of bubbles!

You will get some rinkles. "LAY" the vinyl down from top to bottom...

it will look like hell at first......

The glue on the vinyl will not affect the paint or the lens....

Then spray everything with windex (or water)...

The more wet the vinyl is the easier it will go down with the squeegee. If it's not wet enough, it can rip...

Now, using the squeegee, hold up the top with one hand while pushing up with little strokes with the squeegee....

Take your time, you will get a lot of bubbles if you rush it...

Again take your time, push from the center out, working towards the corners......

Remember, keep it wet during this process. You will get a few small bubbles, you can take the corner of your razor and make a little prick, the push the tip of the squeegee in a circular motion around the bubble and it will disappear...

Then take the razor and trim aroung the lense, you don't nee to press to hard to cut the vinyl and you definitely don't want to dig into the lense. Use the squeegee for a guide if you have trouble making a straight line...

There you can see one of the bubbles I was talking about, it is now gone and can't even tell it was there. Keep triming...

Peel away the excess

Work out the last remaining bubbles and rinkles, clean with windex and a towel (press pretty hard with the towel to get good adhesion )

And wa la....

Finished product....

one more...

Oh and by the way, the shop I went to had several hundred colors including metallics. I got siver metallic and it's pretty much a spot on match.

dugless...great job! i'm a DIY type of guy and it's guys like u that make the forum worthwhile for me. :D

thanks!

good job. I think I have seen you in ur 8 around Irvine.

it turned out nicer than I expected

Nice if you like that sort of thing, but I think it looks rather ugly. The eyelid now appears to cover part of the light, and it really ruins the balance of the lens.

Terrific step by step walk-through. I wonder if it would have been easier to trim the vinyl to size before peeling the backing off.

Either way, it's a great set of directions. Anyone wanting to do something similar should be able to follow along easily.

I would be concerned about longterm discoloration of the product. Seems the piece you have would allow you to reapply in the future if needed. What was the cost of the material.

Great job Dugless! Thanks for the detailed DYI. Can you come and do mine?:p

Did you also do the upper windscreen?

If you want to get the same results with zero bubbles...

wash the area with hot water and dishwashing soap while its wet put the vinyl on it will slide around and you can place it perfect and squeegee the bubbles out.

Thats how the apply most vinyl art kits.

Yea, I did the windscreen the same way. The vinyl for the headlights cost $5 and the windscreen was $12.

At 2.25" does it sit to low and effect the lighting at all?

not at all

Dugless, I applaud your creativity, but I'm a little iffy on the look of the lights. No offense, but it kind of looks like a stoned RX8. I think some cars improve with eyelids like the SRT-4 and Accord, but I think the RX8 lights look fine as they are.

great work

This is why we need a DIY section.

Why not just paint them on?

If you can live with the Michael Jackson-style cosmetic irreversibility, you might like having a perfect color match.


EDIT: I see this has been suggested before.
(http://www.rx8club.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=194730#post194730)

good job. personally i like the stock headlights. but i will do this to my civic.

I think that looks really cool. Thanks for posting the info. and pics. I would do it to my Titanium with black.

Like some of the others, eyelids on the 8 are not for me. But I applaud your creativity and this gives me a few new ideas to toss around in my crazy head. Thanks!

wow great job, would prob look a little better if you put the curve in, POLAK needs to do this!!!!

Originally posted by Rx8Freehk
wow great job, would prob look a little better if you put the curve in, POLAK needs to do this!!!! PoLaK, you're getting a reputation! :D So......?

Check this post out like i said ill be looking into it on monday.


http://www.rx8club.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=267367#post267367post267367

nice work man. they look great!

I would be worried about the heat from the lights causing the temp differences and possibly causing the light housing to crack and/or melt onto the lense itself.. Not too sure about this.

The bulb is too far away from the lense for it to be a problem.

Polak,
Did ya make CF headlight covers yet?

Im really in-between yes or no..... carbon fiber I could do but I doubt I would sell more then 20 pairs.

The other problem lies in color matching, currently the colors I use are pretty much the same as OEM paint, however you can never get vinyl to give you the color depth that real paint has. So at dead on angles the color will bleed the background though.

If I went directly to lets say Avery and asked them to make me the OEM colors in vinyl that would be outrageously expensive and the whole point here is to offer a solution to buying $150 eyelids...

Give me your opinions.

Hmmmmmm.....let's go with the highest quality solution and not worry too much about the initial cost....mabye a group buy for your first series,if you choose to do 'em?

Dugless - your initial post to this dates it back to November of last year. How has it held up? Any problems with washing, sun, rain, birds, bugs, rocks, small animals, pedestrians, etc?

Just curious as to how many times this would have to be done....

I, also, applaud your step by step photos and instruction. Well thought out and presented!

Tall.................

Pedestrians? LOL! :D

Nice work Dugless!

Not exactly for me, but a very worthy DIY contribution. Good-on-ya.

Cheers,
Hymee.

is it me or are there no pictures?

I was wondering the same.

I was wondering the same.

Yep, No pictures.

why are pics gone?????

Uh, because the OP was in 2003!!!!!! I doubt he still has the pics posted in the same place. Hell, I doubt he even still owns an 8.

probably has an evo now

haha, my bad, i bumped this thread back from the dead sorriez

The whole problem with it right from the start is that they are vinyl.

It just screams BUDGET. Like anything in life, the best is always worth the added expense. Not that I'm biased or anything... ;)

Ironic that I found this post today. I literally did this exact thing yesterday and was going to make a DIY of it.

However it was a bit easier for me since my dad and I own a sign and graphics shop so all I had to do was sneak off with some vinyl after work ;-)

My 8 is silver but has a lot of black on it I just made matte black eyelids. The reason I wanted eye lids is because my headlights have a weird smokey (almost burnt look) towards the top. Almost completely covered it with the eye lids. I'll post picks soon.

Glad to see that someone who doesn't work at a graphics shop figured this out though. Good work!

posting random pic to see if i can get the others to show up.

EDIT: nice, it worked!