How to retrofit projectors in your jdm headlights

Materials:
One piece headlights
hid kit preferably d2s bulbs
some kind of projector
pieces of strip metal
screws
dremel
drill
philips and flat head screwdriver
heat gun or oven
sharpie *optional
oven mits *optional
bbq black paint * optional

other than that you need ALOT of time!

pics

First thing is first. Take apart the lens from the actual headlight. Take off all the metal tabs and screws that hold it together. Preheat your oven to about 200 degrees and put the headlights in there. Leave it in there for about 10 minutes. Take it out and start to pry apart the lens from the housing. Using a flat head screw driver was easiest for me. After you pry the lenses off the housing take off the inner housing using the adjuster screws. The parts that are silver have to come out. The foglights come out first then the housing for the regular high beam and low beam. After you are done with that it should look like this.

When you get the housings out you gotta cut the back away and enlarge the back hole to make the back of the projector fit with a dremel. The hole should be about this big.

sorry don’t have any shots of the back part.

You should grind down the parts above and below the projectors. They look like little bumps or tabs. You will find out when you try and put the projectors in the housing. Sorry no pics of this either.

Also if you look at the picture above you will have to cut holes in the bottom of the housing to make the projector fit well.

Start to fit the projector into the housing now. I eyeballed it and made brackets out of pieces of metal strips and drilled for holes. Mark with sharpie if necessary. Drill holes and make the brackets fit.

(Optional) Before you drop it in, if you want black housing paint with the bbq paint. Other parts you might want to paint is the trim around the fog light and parking light. Make sure you mask off what you want to keep reflective.

Make sure the holes are in the right place and drop the projector in and screw it in with nuts and bolts.

Cut the back of the headlight to make the projector come out the back part of the head light like this

Put the headlight back together with the adjuster screws.

(Optional) I’ve never done it but you can sand down the flutes in the lens and polish it out like this. Picture is courtesy of a honda tech member guywitada.

After doing all of that preheat the oven again at 200 degrees. Put the lens in there and let the glue get sticky again. Press it together. Put the whole assembly and let sit for about 5 mins. Make sure you seal it really well.

Hook up your hids and install the headlights.

The rest of my pics

Nice job. Looks great and perfect.

Does it matter what kind of projector you use with your particular HID kit?

For example, could you mix and match and use say a modifyed H4 HID kit with D2S projectors or would you have to stick to particular bulbs to make them fit (ex: D2S only) ?

im pretty sure that the different bulbs can fit with some trimming. I haven’t worked with other projectors. I think most projectors come with the clips to hold in the bulb… that is what is important i guess. Also the tsx projectors have a pretty good cut off, but the s2k i heard are better. I’ll try get some night shots up tomorrow. I still have to figure out what kind or weird wiring problem i have.

Without sanding down the fluting, the light output will never be right. I had the same retrofit about two years back and I ended up going back to halogen reflectors. The fluting on the one pieces just focuses the light too much on the foreground and it’s too intense in my opinion. Not only that but the cut off isn’t even straight, it’s two rainbows basically. I’m sure you’re getting similar results.

hey i that looks great good job. do you ever plan on clearing out the flutes? its very hard but i didnt have a dremel. its hard to make it even and not get any low spots. also hard getting it to polish clear again.

that looks great - nice job!

pics of it on the car & on?

yes i do plan on getting the lens flutes out one day. I’ll try get some pics of the teg with the lights on tonight when i get my electrical problem fixed

here are the night time pics sorry car isn’t the greatest.

thats really not that bad… the cut off it pretty good with all the flutes still threre. its hard to tell with the quality of the pics but it looks really bright.

it is pretty darn bright =) im happy with the end product

What kind of projector did you use? it seems to fit in pretty well.

i used the tsx projectors… lots of fabricating involved… =/ and lots of time

were you still able to able to adjust the lights to the right position? with the flutes sanded it looks good

that was the best i could adjust the lights… has the hump as you can see in the pics

bump up

i just came across a set of tsx projectors for 50 bucks. so look forward to another retrofit soon.

nice write up. I think if you got rid of the flutes, you’d have a much better cut off and you could see the projector with the lights on. does your bright lights indicator light up at all? mine does for some reason. now if I just had enough time to clean the yellow off mine…

looks good though. great job!

ya my high beams indicator comes on… i don’t mind… it reminds me if i have my lights on… haha this is well worth the time and money if you drive alot at night…