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deserted building + dark night + 4 HID projectors = good beam pattern pics

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Old Jan 22, 2006 | 10:43 PM
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Default deserted building + dark night + 4 HID projectors = good beam pattern pics

I'm officially a lighting nut. I had retrofitted X5 projectors into my G35, but the beam wasn't wide or bright enough. I ended up putting in TSX and TL projectors.

Bulbs are 4100K philips. I've been down the 8000K route. After awhile, I didn't care if other people noticed my lights, I needed better illumination. (this project took 3 months to do, and unfortunately there's no way I could reproduce this for anyone due to time constraints).





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Old Jan 23, 2006 | 07:39 AM
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holy crap, that looks really nice.

what i've always wondered about retrofitting projectors is how the projector is held in place inside the headlight and how everything in the back is covered in the end. Can you explain it?
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Old Jan 23, 2006 | 08:28 AM
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The projector is held to the metal bracket inside the light with bolts/nuts/washers/loctite.

You're also correct about the concern of the back of the housing. The projectors are longer than the reflectors, so they tend to protrude too far out in the back. Fortunately for this project I was able to mount the TSX low beams forward enough to still use the stock dust cap without modification. I've seen several retrofits that required big time modification to the back of the housing, and plenty of JB Weld.

The fog/high beam area with the TL projectors has plenty of room. I mounted the extra ballast to the back of that area where the dust cap previously was.
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Old Jan 23, 2006 | 09:28 AM
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Originally Posted by Jun
holy crap, that looks really nice.

what i've always wondered about retrofitting projectors is how the projector is held in place inside the headlight and how everything in the back is covered in the end. Can you explain it?
I would suggest you goto hidplanet.com and just start reading EVERYTHING. The information there on retrofits, hids, and the processes involved is astronomical.




EK - NICE JOB! Very nicely done. I want to retrofit a set of bixenon LS430 projectors into mine. Too bad it would cost close to 600 bucks.
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Old Jan 23, 2006 | 09:31 AM
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Pic's aren't showing up.

edit: That's better !!

Respect
JET
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Old Jan 23, 2006 | 09:39 AM
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nice... i actually hate the cut off of the z's lol
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Old Jan 23, 2006 | 10:16 AM
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Nice. Acura/Honda's projectors put out the cleanest brightest light I've seen. My S2000 had way better coverage than my 530 or 350z.
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Old Jan 23, 2006 | 10:54 AM
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wow i would like to see that in person.
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Old Jan 24, 2006 | 11:51 AM
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I totally agree that the Stanley (S2000, TL, TSX, LS430) projectors are the best out there right now.

In case anyone was wondering what the actual headlights look like (had already posted pics on G35driver).




You can see that the TL projector's lens was replaced with a clear one (no fresnel lines).








This is the back side of the light. The stock dustcap for the low beam is unmodified.



The inside. Everything mounted with bolts and nuts and washers. Red loctite works well in here, but I also used locknuts just in case.
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Old Jan 24, 2006 | 11:55 AM
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Thanks for the pics!

My question is, how the heck do you know if they are aligned perfectly straight before you seal them? And are you able to adjust them once they are on th car?
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Old Jan 24, 2006 | 04:49 PM
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Guiness.
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Old Jan 26, 2006 | 12:06 AM
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Since everything is bolted down, how did you insure you were not pitching in/out/up/down? You obviously can't adjust them.
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Old Jan 26, 2006 | 06:56 AM
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Originally Posted by MrGraphics
Since everything is bolted down, how did you insure you were not pitching in/out/up/down? You obviously can't adjust them.
Everything is bolted down to the stock metal bracket. So I use the stock adjusting mechanisms to adjust the lights, same way as stock. The stock adjustments will allow you horizontal and vertical adjustment.

What it won't allow is rotational adjustment and adjustment of the lower projectors in relation to the upper projectors.

So after I installed them, I did the vertical and horizontal adjustment. The passenger TL projector was too low though, even though I thought I had it worked out before I sealed the lights. So I opened up the passenger side, and then adjusted that TL projector slightly upwards while both lights were turn on and installed on the car. Then I resealed that side.

In the initial aiming stages, before the lights were sealed, I had already worked on the rotational adjustment and making sure that the Z cutoff lines were in line with each other. That took a week.


For example, here's the TSX projectors in the low beam. It's bolted to the low beam reflector, then that reflector is just screwed on to the headlight as if it were stock.
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Old Jan 26, 2006 | 11:48 AM
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did you use the factory bulb and ballast?
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Old Jan 26, 2006 | 02:38 PM
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Wow - this is quite impressive.
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Old Jan 26, 2006 | 05:59 PM
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Originally Posted by JPsZ
did you use the factory bulb and ballast?
All four ballasts are the factory ballasts. Two of the bulbs are factory D2R bulbs with the black coating scraped off. The other two are Philips D2S 4100K bulbs. Even though the D2S aren't factory from nissan, they're OEM for cars with projectors.

I used to have 7500K bulbs with my first retrofit, but I scrapped those.
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Old Feb 16, 2006 | 05:13 PM
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WOW....now that is just plain f*@*ing nut's
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