Quad Bi-xenon retrofit? woot woot!!!

[Lilb_1979]

Thanks for getting them for me.
I knew there would be a lot of grinding off, but its just easier with a pic just to get a general idea.

I think I might just find me a spare set of headlights and practice on them. I dont know what projectors I'm gonna go with yet. I might try the D2S projectors, I'm sure they are better then the Mini's.

 

[Blckshdw]

Thanks for getting them for me.
I knew there would be a lot of grinding off, but its just easier with a pic just to get a general idea.

I think I might just find me a spare set of headlights and practice on them. I dont know what projectors I'm gonna go with yet. I might try the D2S projectors, I'm sure they are better then the Mini's.

TBH, I expected them to look better than they do (output wise), especially for having 4 of them running. Since you've done retrofits before, your alignment technique might be more refined, but I can tell you having to widen the bulb openings, then get these things lined up together, and locked into place without shifting was a royal PIA. I'll probably be cutting mine open while I'm off for Xmas and try to re-align these things. If I had to do this again, I would go with the H1s since they are also 2.5" projectors, but require less modding to fit.

I think the biggest problem is the bulb style. With the H1s, you get the wire pigtails coming straight out the back, then connect to your ballast. You can reuse the rubber caps to close up the back of the headlights with these. With the D2S, the bulb doesn't have a pigtail on it, the ballast has a right angled connector that's like the childproof pill bottle cap. You have to push it in, and then twist it clockwise to lock in place. They also sit just far back enough that the rubber caps won't seat on the back of the housing. If your projectors aren't totally locked down (which I now know mine weren't) that twisting action will rotate them slightly, which knocks your beams out of alignment and makes them cockeyed. See my output pic, notice how the cutoff is tilted to the right and on the passenger side you can see both of the steps from the projectors since they drifted out of horizontal alignment. No bueno... :banghead:

 

[NinjuhhNutz]

I cut too much off of that one. Lol , you would refer to the one that I effed up hahaha
But, the others, if you open up the hold a bit where the high beam is and flatten out the read of the opening where the nut will have something flat to secure the projector on before you epoxy everything up, then it's your discretion on how much to remove. I will say that the more you remove, the easier it is to work with (or was for me) but that point of no return, where you sacrifice the integrity of the reflector is a scary point to get close to.

 

[Sparky]

I just ground/cut out just enough for the screw collar to seat fully and for it to sit in the bowl snugly in the back. The first one I did I went a little overboard and really hacked up the rear of the reflector I realized after that I didn't need to do that much so it came out much cleaner.

The low beam bucket is easy enough to put the mini H1 in. Minimal trimming on the rear of the reflector and the backside to get the nut seated. Putting one in the high beam bucket is 3x the work because it takes a lot more trimming on the bucket and also requires trimming the bezel to fit around the shroud. I had to shave the bottom of the shroud to fit into the bucket also. If you're trying to do the quad low beam like Blckshdw did then add even more work to it getting the projectors aligned with each other. I wasn't as adventurous and just stuck with single projectors for the low beams!

 

[Lilb_1979]

Ok, so after reading all this I think I'm gonna stick to what I know more about. I will do the Mini H1's and do just the low beams for now. The Mini H1's work for Highs too, so I really don't even need to do the high beams. did anyone with only there lows have the solenoid hooked up on there Mini H1's to work as there highs?

 

[Sparky]

I run the outer mini H1 as my low beams, then when I hit the high beams it turns on the inner mini H1 projectors and opens the solenoids on all.

 

[addohm]

Awesome! I'm about to do my retrofit with Morimoto H1 projectors, E46-R shrouds and 5000k HIDs. Any advice or tips on how you split the headlight open? What paint did you use on the reflectors?

Pretty much all headlamp assy's can be baked open at roughly 180-200 degrees ferenheit. Bake them for about an hour at that temp, patiently and carefully pry them apart bit by bit. When I get mine apart, I like to refrigerate them for about 20 minutes to get the adhesive cold and hard, so as to prevent getting any particulates in the adhesive making it easy to clean before I put the headlamps back together.

 

[addohm]

TBH, I expected them to look better than they do (output wise), especially for having 4 of them running. Since you've done retrofits before, your alignment technique might be more refined, but I can tell you having to widen the bulb openings, then get these things lined up together, and locked into place without shifting was a royal PIA. I'll probably be cutting mine open while I'm off for Xmas and try to re-align these things. If I had to do this again, I would go with the H1s since they are also 2.5" projectors, but require less modding to fit.

I think the biggest problem is the bulb style. With the H1s, you get the wire pigtails coming straight out the back, then connect to your ballast. You can reuse the rubber caps to close up the back of the headlights with these. With the D2S, the bulb doesn't have a pigtail on it, the ballast has a right angled connector that's like the childproof pill bottle cap. You have to push it in, and then twist it clockwise to lock in place. They also sit just far back enough that the rubber caps won't seat on the back of the housing. If your projectors aren't totally locked down (which I now know mine weren't) that twisting action will rotate them slightly, which knocks your beams out of alignment and makes them cockeyed. See my output pic, notice how the cutoff is tilted to the right and on the passenger side you can see both of the steps from the projectors since they drifted out of horizontal alignment. No bueno... :banghead:

I agree that this is less than impressive output. I don't want to blind people, but I do expect to see much more of the road. I'll probably stick to HID in stock assemblies.

 

[Blckshdw]

I agree that this is less than impressive output. I don't want to blind people, but I do expect to see much more of the road. I'll probably stick to HID in stock assemblies.

That output is maybe 10' from the wall, so obviously you get more width with more distance. The amount of foreground light during actual road usage is much better. Here's a road shot I took with my dash cam app a couple weeks ago. If I can get the cutoffs to all play nice, then I will be happy for a while.

 

[addohm]

Well I got a video but it is a stupid huge file (uncompressed AVI) so I'm trying to see what I can do to shrink it. Tried just uploading it straight to photobucket but it didn't like that too much

*edit* OK I got it compressed by some program and uploadeded, pardon the annoying "wondershare" thing in the center but it doesn't block anything really important. Video quality kinda took a dump too as those strips don't look like solid lines in reality but you get the idea.

I dig this. My next project

 

[Sparky]

I agree that this is less than impressive output. I don't want to blind people, but I do expect to see much more of the road. I'll probably stick to HID in stock assemblies.

Pics don't do it justice. HIDs in the stock assemblies suck compared to in the projectors.

 

[Lilb_1979]

I would NEVER recommend putting HID's in stock housings that where never meant to have HID's. Unless you like blinding people with the glare. Don't be that dick!!

I will admit I USE to be that dick, then I got smart.

 

[dmanns67]

Guess so...this shit is for the birds man

Hey man any progress on the retro? Any output shots? I have been away for awhile, not sure if you finished or not.

 

[NinjuhhNutz]

Hey man any progress on the retro? Any output shots? I have been away for awhile, not sure if you finished or not.

ahhh, yea lol everytime I think about snapping pics, it's daylight
I need to open them, and re-seal them after cleaning the insides out really well

but idk if I want to tackle that stuck solenoid, or if I'll smack it a few times and hope it comes back up
I'll get to it in a couple days though

 

[dmanns67]

So they are complete and installed? How do you like the quad setup?

 

[Blckshdw]

I emailed TRS about my dead solenoid on Friday to see what my options are. Planning to crack mine open Xmas week to make some adjustments and try to get those cutoffs level.

 

[NinjuhhNutz]

Yea, they're installed, but I'm not quite satisfied with them. The output is quite good, but it's not as crisp as I want it, bc the headlight lenses are filthy on the inside.

 

[NinjuhhNutz]

Low-beams

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Low-beam around a curve

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Stuck solenoid kinda ruins the cut-off :sad:

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High-beam (at an angle

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not really a difference in the pics of highs vs lows, but then again I live in the sticks
in an urban environment, you can tell a huge diff

 

[dmanns67]

Looks good. Is the stuck solenoid on the low beam? Do you get flashed a lot?

When you turn on your hi beams, are all four projectors on in hi beam mode?

 

[NinjuhhNutz]

Looks good. Is the stuck solenoid on the low beam? Do you get flashed a lot?

When you turn on your hi beams, are all four projectors on in hi beam mode?

all 4 are bi-xenons, so I effectively have a low beam that has 3 lows and a high, and a high beam that has 4 highs
and no, I don't get flashed all that much (gotta step up my game ) I think mainly because the stuck solenoid is on the passenger side so it's not as bad as it could be.

 

[dmanns67]

Wow. So having four bi xenon projectors, you have all of them on at the sametime in low beam mode? You must have no issues seeing at night.

 

[NinjuhhNutz]

Lol I figured if I was going to put that much money into it, I was gonna go big
If I could go back, I'd do a higher quality projector...but you live n learn.
But, I have plenty of light where I need it haha

 

[Blckshdw]

Well, TRS claims they have never had a bixenon solenoid fail, so they are insisting that my issue is the stuck cutoff plate, and want me to try adjusting the clips on the edges. I was hoping to get a replacement before Xmas, so while I had them open, I could do a swap when I try to realign them. It seemed to move pretty freely with my finger as I was installing them, so we'll see if getting driven around for 2 months rattled some life back into it.

Initially I was just happy to have them put together and functional. But now, I dread pulling up behind large flat assed vehicles, or in front of any sort of flat wall

Gotta get these puppies lined up right, I think it's eating years off my life looking at crooked cutoffs!

 

[Sparky]

Those solenoids do rarely fail. The shield can stick tho.

One thing I did on mine was stretch the springs a bit. I have earlier mini-H1s and they were a little more prone to sticking, and this was a easy preventative measure. Maybe give it a shot on yours also.

 

[wesman43]

I still have my kit and extra headlights...The best I managed this far was opening up the housing by smashing into somebody...definitely did the job

 

[NinjuhhNutz]

Those solenoids do rarely fail. The shield can stick tho.

One thing I did on mine was stretch the springs a bit. I have earlier mini-H1s and they were a little more prone to sticking, and this was a easy preventative measure. Maybe give it a shot on yours also.

I stretched the springs on mine as well. But, I still have that one that's stuck. Though, I didn't consider it being just the shield that was stuck. Small pick through the back of the projector bowl should give me a bit of wiggle room to play with it? Possibly get it back up until I rip it apart.

 

[Blckshdw]

Chris, how's the visibility of your demon eyes? Mine looked great when the projectors were taken apart. But now that they are together, you can't even tell they're there, unless you are up close, and look at them from an extreme angle. I think I'm going to try to add non SMD LEDs somehow, around the rim, in the gap between the projector bowl and lens holder.

 

[Blckshdw]

Well, got my lights back on the operating table. Did some testing on that failing high beam solenoid, and there's no continuity on it. Emailed TRS, offered to send them pics/video if needed, so I can get this replaced, but they are digging through holiday back log, and haven't gotten to me yet. Was hoping to get the piece before Xmas so I could have it swapped out and everything fixed before 2014 when I go back to work, but no dice

Been doing some tinkering with trying to align both beams at the same time while on the truck, instead of clamping the reflector bowl down, pointing it at a wall and aligning them that way. Ended up drilling holes in the back of the housings in the areas where the horizontal adjustment mount and stationary mount are, so I can unscrew the reflector bowl instead of having to yank on it and risk breaking the bowl like I did the first time. What my problem comes down to is the high beam projector aims naturally high, since the mounts for the bottom screws on the Mini D2S rest on the reflector bowl floor, even though I Dremeled out the top edge of the bulb opening to allow a more downward angle. The mounts resting on the reflector also prevents easy rotation of the projector, which I think caused me to align the low beam projectors to those, and they ended up not being level.

My new approach is to notch out the sections of the high beam reflector where the mounts were resting. Give me a little bit more room to get the little bit of downward projection I need there, as well as the ability to rotate them more easily. Instead of using epoxy on the lock rings, I am going to put a little bit of RTV on the clean part of the reflector bowl, mount the projectors and then align them on the truck. With them 'tacked' in place, then I can take the reflectors out, crank down those lock rings, and hopefully be in good shape.

Decided to revisit the demon eye idea, this isn't working out the way I hoped, so these are coming out. I was going to try to put the older style LEDs in there somehow, but I would want to avoid having them exposed to direct light, and don't see an easy way to do that.

Here's some shots of the LED strip inside the projector. The ones in direct exposure to the light are cooked pretty well. The ones below the cutoff shield are still in great shape.

When applying power, you can see the problem folks talk about with LEDs not liking heat. There is actually some life still in the upper right LEDs, just very faint. Although even when they were new, there wasn't any more output from in front of the vehicle.

 

[NinjuhhNutz]

When applying power, you can see the problem folks talk about with LEDs not liking heat. There is actually some life still in the upper right LEDs, just very faint. Although even when they were new, there wasn't any more output from in front of the vehicle.

That's what worries me about mine
and the secret to them, to my understanding it to have them reflect as much as possible off of the cut-off shields and the inside of the bowl, to give a "full" reflection? I have my single smd mounted between the reflector bowl and the lense bracket, and it glows pretty well.
If I had a way to get around other than the tb, I'd rip mine back apart today, so tired of it bugging me around every corner :hissy"

 

[Blckshdw]

I got my notches in the high beam buckets done, so I'll try to do some alignment on those to make sure I can get the beams level. Got a response back from TRS, they are going to replace the high beam solenoid that failed on me. Have another issue that sprang up the other night. The switchback strips in my driver's side headlight are flickering on the parking light circuit. It seems to be at random intervals and durations. So I played with it on the test bench, turns out the little control module is failing. Checked the iJDMToy website for warranty info, and they offer 90 days, which I'm just outside of, but if you cut/solder/paint anything, it voids your warranty anyway. :banghead: So I'm going to see if there's any chance they can sell me a single control module for cheap, but I doubt it.

I was looking at possible mounting the strips towards the bottom of the solenoid plate. Due to the projector lens, that light would be cast upwards and out, which is where I'd want it (to be seen by people) but I'm at that point again where I just want it done, and functioning properly.

 

[Blckshdw]

Well boys and girls... Wait, are there any girls left in this forum?

Anyway, I couldn't get my cutoffs perfect, this is about as close as I could get them, and this is how they're gonna stay. Hopefully this smaller difference won't bug me too much. I can get the lower steps to line up, but the upper ones don't. I'll probably play with the height adjustments on them to see what I like best.

1. Slight differences between both steps
2. Bottom (left) step aligned, and top (right) step off a little bit
3. Align the bottom step of the passenger side with the upper step of the driver's side

I'm open to suggestions. This pic is with the steps out of alignment, minimizing the difference on either side. The truck is on a slight incline, which is why the beams are so high.

 

[NinjuhhNutz]

Well boys and girls... Wait, are there any girls left in this forum?

Anyway, I couldn't get my cutoffs perfect, this is about as close as I could get them, and this is how they're gonna stay. Hopefully this smaller difference won't bug me too much. I can get the lower steps to line up, but the upper ones don't. I'll probably play with the height adjustments on them to see what I like best.

1. Slight differences between both steps
2. Bottom (left) step aligned, and top (right) step off a little bit
3. Align the bottom step of the passenger side with the upper step of the driver's side

I'm open to suggestions. This pic is with the steps out of alignment, minimizing the difference on either side. The truck is on a slight incline, which is why the beams are so high.

it's sorta a lose lose man...either way, you're gonna be unhappy with the cut-off if it's not perfect (I know I am )
if you align as much as possible with the highest cutoff, and the ones that are barely off shine slightly under the rest, I found that it bothered me slightly less than having 1 or 2 shine slightly above my focused cutoff. make sense?
I think tomorrow I may get a little work done on them, no promises though. gonna try to play with that solenoid and get it functioning again. ::fingers crossed::

 

[dmanns67]

It will definitely annoy you. When I first got my retro back, the cutoff line looked like this. Seemed like when I was driving that is all stared at especially when I was behind a truck with a flat rear end. Luckily, cuttoff line is perfect now, but I only have two projectors to line up where you guys have four. Based on your pic, cutoff does not look bad. I am sure it is different when you are behind the wheel though.

View attachment 32116

 

[Blckshdw]

it's sorta a lose lose man...either way, you're gonna be unhappy with the cut-off if it's not perfect (I know I am )
if you align as much as possible with the highest cutoff, and the ones that are barely off shine slightly under the rest, I found that it bothered me slightly less than having 1 or 2 shine slightly above my focused cutoff. make sense?
I think tomorrow I may get a little work done on them, no promises though. gonna try to play with that solenoid and get it functioning again. ::fingers crossed::

Yeah makes sense, I'm gonna put the high beam connectors on, and re-install the switchbacks tonight, and do another test fit with the lenses off, just to make sure everything is working right. As for your high beam failing, from what I just went through, at least you know there's the possibility that it's the motor itself, and not the shield getting stuck.

It will definitely annoy you. When I first got my retro back, the cutoff line looked like this. Seemed like when I was driving that is all stared at especially when I was behind a truck with a flat rear end. Luckily, cuttoff line is perfect now, but I only have two projectors to line up where you guys have four. Based on your pic, cutoff does not look bad. I am sure it is different when you are behind the wheel though.

Wow, yeah seeing that would have pissed me off!! My first attempt really annoyed me after about 2 weeks. I guess the epoxy hadn't fully cured yet when I put the D2S connectors on, cuz all 4 of them rotated the same amount. At least I was able to align the passenger low step with the driver side high step, so the beam patters matched. But yeah, every time I pulled up behind something with a flat backside, that was the first thing my eyes went to.

At least now I can make the vertical adjustments without having to reopen them to change how it looks. The next retrofit will definitely be just a pair, no more quads for me

 

[NinjuhhNutz]

I'll second that ish for you! NO more quads lol

but I have good news, shitty news, and awesome news...

good news is: my stuck cut-off shield is back to normal (tried a few pic tools and screwdrivers, no joy...so I smacked the living hell out of the headlight and bam )

shitty news is: the solenoid is toast. So, I'll probably just wire my outside projectors to function as high beam for now. or might just deal with the 3 out of 4...we'll see.

the awesome news? I'll have pics tonight of my demon eyes (ahem, Carlton only 6 months late lol)
I keep forgetting, but working on them today reminded me, so I'll snap a few later when the sun goes down


NOT going to open them and clean/reseal today, just not enough time, and a double at work tomorrow mean I can't risk not having them back together by the am...

 

[NinjuhhNutz]

yea booooyyyyyyyyyyyyyy :wootwoot:

 

[jimmyjam]

yea booooyyyyyyyyyyyyyy :wootwoot:

lookin good tho

1. Slight differences between both steps
2. Bottom (left) step aligned, and top (right) step off a little bit
3. Align the bottom step of the passenger side with the upper step of the driver's side

That'd make me not even want to drive it

 

[Blckshdw]

yea booooyyyyyyyyyyyyyy :wootwoot:

lookin good tho

That'd make me not even want to drive it

Chris, those do look good. Where did you mount yours at?

Jimmy, I don't wanna drive this thing anymore. Did my final test fit with the turn signals, shrouds and bezels installed, and the damn cutoffs are tweaked clockwise again. It's not as severe as last time, just slightly, and if the wall in front of me didn't have bricks, I might not have noticed, but I did. I need a new hobby. If I had money to spare, I'd go buy a damn Impala this weekend. That way at least one of us would be driving one

 

[NinjuhhNutz]

idk what that metal material is called, but I found a roll of it laying around, so I got creative.
touch of jb weld to hold it in place, and some aluminum tape to hold the led in place. so far so good. it's pretty well out of the way of the focused light, so not TOO much heat on it.

 

[Sparky]

Like I said, there's a reason I didn't go for quad projector low beams. Single projector on each side is plenty, and none of the alignment irritations going on either.