180Custom

I was going to post this process in a work log I'm going to start for my S4, but I figured this could be useful to a lot of "DIYer's" so they could take a shot at this.

I didn't want to do the typical grille everyone is buying/painting, so my grille and headlights are completely disassembled for prep and paint work. I'm also doing a few custom modifications to the headlights.



Grille:

The grille consists of 44 pieces... the most detailed and labor intensive work I've ever done ! Every piece is going to be properly cleaned/prepped, painted, and reassembled back together. [headbang] All the chrome trim is hot glued from factory, so I had to sit there and remove the glue off each clip !

Started with removing all the hot glue...


It became so overwheling, had some good ole NYC style Chinese food (sesame chicken <3 )


Here's all the pieces the grille consists off. Believe it or not... the red boxes near the "S" emblems are actually vinyl decals, how cheap of Audi...considering Infiniti paint's their "S" on the rear badges. So if you're crafty, you can get some CF or any other color vinyl, carefully remove the factory RED decal, trace it around on the new piece of vinyl, carefully cut it out with a razor blade and stick it onto the emblem.





Headlights:

Disclaimer... my company offers cosmetic modifications, including headlights, and I've been working on headlights everyday for the last 4+ years, so I have thousands of hours in experience. I've taken apart some of the most expensive headlights on the market, and these Audi headlights have been the hardest I've ever worked on. It took me nearly 1 hr to figure out how disassemble the housing on these headlights, and after all the paint work, I'm paranoid putting it all together because of the way the plastics are attached, these headlights are definitely assembled by a machine, and not a human. [wrench]

ONE headlight consists of 56 pieces (3 are not pictured- ballasts and small cap)





Enjoy

tofuking

WOW! Good luck indeed putting the headlight back together.

mellow_sparky

wow - that's crazy - so what exactly are you doing?

skiracerblah

Wow....

BaLLZDeePNYC

1 eighty u are a sick ****...truly insane lol. But that is good ****. Cant wait to see the finished product. I know your work is on point so im sure Ill be paying you a visit when I see the end result.

NWS4Guy

Hmm....since the LED's are out, you could change them

180Custom

in terms of painting, I'm painting the main housing and the inside of the LED strip in Ibis White, some chrome accents and amber reflector in gun metal (shadow). The 2 strips that curve within the headlight will be painted gun metal on the sides, and the thin lines in front will be yellow. I'm doing a white, gloss black, and gunmetal/yellow accents throughout the car, the yellow to offset with the soon to be BBK, the yellow decals in the S4 badges, and a small hint of yellow in the mirrors. There's soooo many different ways to paint these headlights, and I don't want to just paint it black because the factory design is phenomenal and I want to keep the same look just without the flat black/chrome finish. I'm hoping we'll do Finesta's in all black and white, should look sick.

As for modifications... the projector lens is going to be swapped to a clear "euro" lens without the line across it. I'm also deleting the factory turn signal, it's going to be painted gunmetal to blend in with the housing, and the bulb will be removed. I'm putting low profile amber LED's between each slot inside the LED strip, so it'll be dual function turn signal and DTRL


Hehe thanks, def looking forward to doing some work with my triplet.

Never, lol... there's no reason, they're highly reliable, pure white, fit the housing... they're just all around perfect.

skiracerblah

put some aluminum mesh behind the grille while you're at it. It'll look good, plus protect the intercooler/radiators. Something like this....

A&AEuroTuning

NYPD patrolling the area i see. lol

180Custom

Been delaying things because I prioritize customer orders for my painter before mine, so I've only had a chance to paint all the gun metal pieces. Waiting for a free day to paint my grille black so I can put it all back together already.

I decided to have the amber reflector in the headlight wrapped in 1x1 matte CF, also the foglight rings, and as well as the thin strips across the foglight bezels. I didn't wanna do CF, but I'll keep it subtle, besides I just wanted to show it to you guys, worst case I'll sell em or get them repainted.

Here's what's done so far.

Projector lenses swapped
BEFORE
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AFTER - gunna mess with it some more, see if I could get a sharper line
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All the grille pieces in gun metal - first coat of sealer


Emblem, first coat of paint
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Cleared
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