Well my donor housings came in last night so I’ve made a little progress…
Looking good Mike.
Thanks Erwin. You’ve done retrofits on these headlights before right? If so have you noticed a huge loss in the total output/focus once you put the headlight lenses on? As soon as I put the headlights together with the projectors behind the lense my output went to shit. The cutoff line lost a lot of its definition, and the total output is definately weaker.
Heres a picture of before I put on the headlight lense.
Heres a picture with the headligt lense on.
The sides are obviously dimmed out and the lense took my color at the cutoff line and threw it around at wierd angles to the sides. I’m just wondering if you’ve had any problems with these lenses. I tried wiping them down with lense cleaner but it didn’t help. Suggestions, advice?
Heres one more of the retro…
^ wow that looks good ! Any more pic with the lights off ? I noticed in the 3rd picture you cutted the bottom part of the headlight. Did you cover it up after ? just wondering cause I have the same headlights and planning to do a retrofit also.
Thanks. Yeah, I had to cut the bottom of the housing in order to fit the solenoid through. If I hadn’t the projector wouldn’t have been centered in the reflector at all. If I had gone with a single xenon projector, I don’t think I would have had to cut the bottom of the housing. I probably could have gotten away with just trimming the reflector. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my high beam though. I plan to seal it up from the bottom and it will be air/water tight. I have tons of pictures though, I just didn’t want to drown out the thread.
Damn that looks like my house today. My stuff came in and I immediately stripped stuff down. I have the same housings but titanium colored. Here are a couple pics back on the car. The lens does take away some but This beats the Silverstars I had by far. 6000k FX35 R Projectors. Will add the aimed pics. the Driver headlight is real low(6-7 inches from where I would like it) and the passenger can come up about 3 inches.
Looks good! I don’t know if you’re on HIDplanet but when you’re aiming the lights do it head on at 25 feet from a wall. At 25 feet the top of the cutoff should be 2-3" inches lower than the middle of the projector lense on your car. So if your headlights are 22" off the ground, at 25’ away from the wall the drivers side cutoff should be 19-20" high on the wall. You probably already knew that but whatever, someone else might read this who didn’t know.
Did you have to cut the bottom of the housing to make room for the high beam solenoid? Where did you get your harness? The retrofit source, homemade, not using one, etc.? How come you didn’t shroud the projector? Are the projectors adjustable at all or are they locked in the way they’re aimed right now?
Not using a harness. The ebay lights came with plugs to extend 9004. Orignally I depinned and repinned for 9007. This time I simply depinned them and am using just the low beam. I am still look into how to make the solenoid work without cutting power to the low. I am a little lost in that sense. they are fixed right now. I cut the reflector housing for the projector to fit into the headlight and the actually split down the middle. Apparently a tight fit turned into to much before i assembled the light. The reflector housing right now is just to fill in the backing till this weekend when I have time to make small brackets that tie into the factory adjustment locations. The actual housing was not cut at all. The projectors sit a bit far forward right now with the reflector housing still in there. I will try to document what I do to fix this weekend if I can. When I aim I do use the 25’ froma wall method. I actually thought though to aim HID the cutoff was to be 2-3" above the top of the headlight. So if the headligth is 22" then the ligth cutoff is 25". I may have misread. I was really gonna just go with the cutoff sits about mid trunk of a car in front of me about 25’ too. I try both to make sure I dont have any glare issues. Oh and I didn’t use shrouds cause I haven’t really found on I like yet.
I can help you out with the harness. In order to have the high beam solenoid work without turning off the low beam, you will want a diode between the high and low beam wires. Diodes only allow current to flow one direction so when you use your low beams the ballasts get power but don’t affect the high beams. When you turn your highs on though the diode will allow the current to power the low beam circuit and power the solenoid. I will draw something up and post it up on here for you. I will be using 2 relays but you could wire it up with one. There should be enough current for the high beams to trigger the low beam relay and power the solenoids. I’m sure I confused the hell out of you so I’ll get a diagram drawn up for you.
As for aiming the lights, they definately need to have an overall slope that angles slightly toward the ground. You don’t want them to aim up at all or you’ll blind all the oncoming traffic.
I know its crude :giggle:… but here’s the general idea. If you have any questions, shoot.
Crude but I get the picture. What type of relays and where can I get them? Also best place to pick up a diode. I am in no rush to get the high beam working right now since the lows are way brighter than I have ever been fortunate to have on any of my cars! I will start piecing these together. I just wanted to avoid $30 for a harness.
Relays and diodes can be had at any Radioshack store… if not… try FRY’s Electronics.
Radio shack had most of the stuff I needed. I spent way more than $30 on parts for my harness though.
Heres a picture of my harness. I still need a couple plugs but its pretty much finished.
great work
make me one!
You need a harness Gil? Are you only using low beams now? I suck at wiring so I wouldn’t want to make/ship/be accountable for any kind of wiring. Problems would just be too hard to deal with. You can make one based on the diagram above and add whatever wires you need. That diagram should work to make the high beams function correctly. I’m still waiting on a ballast so I can’t test it yet. How come your retro isn’t on this thread? This is the place for it.
Mike, I think you need to move your projectors a tad closer to towards the lens. Other than that, looks really good.
I probably should have. I don’t think I’m going to change them now. The sides of the headlights don’t cut off the beam pattern any though. I’m pretty sure its just the shape of the lens causing the dimness and color in the wrong place. On my next set I’ll put the projectors closer to the lens.
Well, I got finally got my second ballast and hooked everything up for a test run… My lows and highs work just like they’re supposed to. :whew: I’m getting really close to finishing these lights up.
