HID upgrade...the right way!

[SLakin]

Originally Posted by D-BoB'91

Sealing Everything Up
There is no right or wrong way to seal the housing...just make sure it is sealed!

I can't stress this enough either! Melt rubber or plastic all of them , I don't care, just make sure they are sealed. If you do any type of offroading through water or if you wash your truck , nothing will piss you off more to see water built up in your headlights. Sealing them up is probably the hardest part about this retro, ESPECIALLY if you love to splash through water.

[D-BoB'91]

This is the payoff part of the project!
To keep this as un-bias as possible, all pictures were taken with the same camera (Canon Powershot), at the same location (dark parking lot), and on the same settings (night snapshot, no flash). Unfortunately the distance changed. I took the Halogen shots several weeks before I started the project. Once I got done with the first HID, I realized that I needed to aim them at 25 ft. Therefore the halogen distance was ~10 ft further back than the HID. Sorry for the inconsistency.

Halogen (fogs only)-






Halogen (Lows and fogs)-






HID-

At the cutoff...nice flicker color!


After the grille was installed
NO GLARE -





These are of the cutoff on the building. Not a whole lot of foreground light because I was so close to the building for aiming purposes-




Gotta love the color mod-




Here are a few in the driveway
Notice the color of light vs. the porch lamps-




Facing my wife's Honda...if I don't glare her car sitting that low, I think I did good.
The cutoff hits her hood, and from the side it hits the door handle/mirror area-





I will try to post up some more shots of the output on a dark road or parking lot so you can see the USABLE light I gained.

[SLakin]

Great job with the pics. Especially the one showing it shine on another car to show them the point of having projectors.

[americanmetal07]

This should be stikied!!

[D-BoB'91]

Thanks guys. It sucks that I have to tear them back apart and re-seal
The condensation left water spots on the INSIDE of the lens when it finally evaporated out.

I love the cutoff. When cars pass in front of me (perpendicular to the truck) it shines that bright purplish/blue cutoff and bright white light on the lower half of their car. It's nice, I actually like driving at night now.

[Mattman24]

yes that cut off is amazing, what factors make it a clean line like your?

[D-BoB'91]

Originally Posted by Mattman24

yes that cut off is amazing, what factors make it a clean line like your?

It's all about the projector. That's why the major car manufacturers pay their engineers big money, to figure sh*t like that out.

You will never get a cutoff like that from an aftermarket HID kit or even aftermarket projector headlights alone.

The projector is the heart of the HID system. Without the proper optics, the light just scatters everywhere. All that light will do you no good if it's not focused where you need it, not to mention annoying and dangerous to everyone else on the road.

[Mattman24]

that makes alot of sence, i would only do this mod if i was to do it like your way , it gives the headlights a great look during the day(like at a show)

[neevnav]

Glad to see this is a sticky. So much good info in one place
.

[JAYB1RD]

Originally Posted by D-BoB'91

Thanks guys. I'll post some before and after pics of the output.


On the aftermarket projector headlights, the projector is a cheap "lens" that doesn't really have any functional optics. If you take a look at the projector from the TSX you will see that there are two parts, the lens and the bowl. These two pieces are engineered to perform together and create the proper optics to make the nice cutoff you see, and help 'project' the light out further.

Don't worry though, if you were to attempt a retro all you would have to do is cut out that crappy projector and put an OE one in it's place. It would look cleaner than mine since it already has the shroud molded into the headlight. Check out this guys retro into an aftermarket projector headlight.

First of all, great job! I had E46s in my 91 4x4 for a while, but sold the setup when the truck was put up for sale. I know how hard the OBS housings are to work with!

I just wanted to add to your post above. On SLakin's truck, we put FX35 projectors in the place of the halogen projectors in his TYC headlights. The swap itself was easy! It was a very tight fit and required a lot more trimming than I thought it would, but the front lens never even had to come off the housings. They still look like regular store-bought, unmodified halogen projectors, until they're turned on! But now we have some cleaning and resealing to do after he played in the water at Silver Lake

[D-BoB'91]

Thanks JAYB1RD. I've thought about trying to find a set of halogen projectors that I like, and redoing the retro....but I just can't seem to find any that are worthy.

I'm just not a big fan of the chrome euro projectors, and that's all I can seem to find. I went with the smoked euro's for this one and I like them alot, I just wish it looked more 'stock' instead of the exposed bolt heads. And it would definitely be nice to not remove the front lens...I think that is where most of my moisture is coming from. You just can't seem to get them sealed back up as well as from the factory.

How big is the FX projector compared to the TSX? Also, another question I had is mounting the new projector in place of the halogen one...how did you do that? Obviously it wasn't with the bolts like on a non-projector set-up like I did.

[JAYB1RD]

I know what you mean about the OBS projectors, I didn't like any of them either.

The FX projector is quite a bit bigger. The bowl itself is wider and there's the bi-xenon solenoid on the under side too.

With all of the plastic shrouding and mounting for the back of the halogen projector out of the way, I dropped the FX in. The lens sat perfectly in the existing opening so all I did was epoxy some wood blocks in the right locations that had screws epoxied in them as well. That left me no rotational adjustment, but it gave me the factory aiming that the halogen projector had. So I just made sure to get the light horizontal before all the epoxy dried. Other than a little trimming of the adjusting bracket, everything else popped right back together. No need to cut the metal behind the headlight like on the OBS.

[D-BoB'91]

*update*
I use to hate driving back to my hometown at night. It's a long, dark, two-lane state highway with not much between here and there....That's all changed now

I was on my way home last night for the first time with the new lights. It was a very dramatic difference. I had a very good amount of usable light on both lanes and even lit up both shoulders and down in the ditches.
It was fun to drive behind someone with halogens and compare their beam patterns to the HID's. And the difference in color and distance...amazing.

I am in the middle of re-doing the waterproofing on the headlights and will post progress pics as soon as I can. I decided to scrap the plastic cups and aluminum tape for some pvc and plumbing supplies.

I also plan on posting more night pics whenever I can get out there and take some.

[92 sierra slx]

this is great usable info good work i might try this in the future

[oprzclue]

WOW great job i have been looking into hids myself didnt cross my mind to even look to see if anyone on fsc is into retro fitting... great job man on doing hids the RIGHT way.. good to know there are others into retrofitting...

[AK_SIERRA]

I know you have already said "retrofit" and "don't use the HID Kits" because of the projector and lack of output! What do you think about using one of the kits on a pair of factory Denali (01-06) projectors? With normal headlights now my factory Denali projectors aim the light well so I just want the added output.

[SLakin]

Originally Posted by AK_SIERRA

I know you have already said "retrofit" and "don't use the HID Kits" because of the projector and lack of output! What do you think about using one of the kits on a pair of factory Denali (01-06) projectors? With normal headlights now my factory Denali projectors aim the light well so I just want the added output.

Thanks for bringing this up, I have been meaning to ask this question: Are all factory Denali projector headlights xenon, or are there halogen projectors too?
If you have xenon projectors, you don't put a plug'n'play kit in to them. You put OE xenon bulbs in them, 4300k. That will give you the best output possible, and the color will look good too. And there are OE bulbs that are 4800k & 4600k, so you have those options as well.

[D-BoB'91]

Good question guys...I have no idea if there are two styles of Denali projectors. But SLakin is right: if yours are xenon, do not put a kit in them. Go with factory equipment...but if your output isn't that great, I doubt they are xenon HID's.

[AK_SIERRA]

Originally Posted by SLakin

Thanks for bringing this up, I have been meaning to ask this question: Are all factory Denali projector headlights xenon, or are there halogen projectors too?
If you have xenon projectors, you don't put a plug'n'play kit in to them. You put OE xenon bulbs in them, 4300k. That will give you the best output possible, and the color will look good too. And there are OE bulbs that are 4800k & 4600k, so you have those options as well.

Mine definately aren't Xenon, they are just plain old projector housings that a halogen bulb plugs into. So I think both of your replies answered my question. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a plugNplay kit should be the improvement I'm looking for since my Denali Lenses already have the projector housings!

[D-BoB'91]

Originally Posted by AK_SIERRA

Mine definately aren't Xenon, they are just plain old projector housings that a halogen bulb plugs into. So I think both of your replies answered my question. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a plugNplay kit should be the improvement I'm looking for since my Denali Lenses already have the projector housings!

Wrong kind of projector...Adding a pnp kit to your halogen projector housings won't make them true Xenon HID's. You won't have the results shown here and on other HID retrofits. The optics are just different for the two.

It would be the same as buying a set of halogen projectors from eBay and adding a kit...