Quad Bi-xenon retrofit? woot woot!!!

[smitty5150]

Nice work so far. I can't wait to see the finished product. I'm getting close to the first finished quad retro on a tb I've ever done, an just got another set for a Silverado for quads. I as thinking about putting micro h1 projectors in my high beams in the future, but I don't know that I will have the truck ling enough to make it worth the investment.

 

[Blckshdw]

Thanks man, it's been an adventure, that's for damn sure. Lots of learning by trial and error. The next retro will be much better, and go much smoother, I know that much. I am leaning towards painting the projector area. I goofed and got some ink on the shrouds while marking the bezels for trimming. When I washed it off, I rubbed some of the chrome finish off.

I have to take the projector lenses out anyway for the demon eye part, might as well tape off the projector reflector bowls and get to sprayin...

 

[jimmyjam]

The next retro will be much better, and go much smoother, I know that much.

good, don't want you to screw mine up! lol!

 

[Blckshdw]

good, don't want you to screw mine up! lol!

You won't have to worry about that. Smitty will be a fellow bay area member by then anyway.

 

[smitty5150]

You won't have to worry about that. Smitty will be a fellow bay area member by then anyway.

Truth! Moving into a cheaper apt this month to help fatten the bankroll before we head south.

 

[Sparky]

Lifted the truck so I went to adjust the headlights. Not a lot of room in there... Driver side had just enough wiggle to realign, passenger side... stuck. That one has the been the problem one. The horizontal screw stripped on me so I couldn't move it further right, now it won't go up or down either I might have to take that one apart again to fix it

It isn't awful high but still a tad higher than I think it should be. At least it is the passenger side.

 

[NinjuhhNutz]

when and if this BEAUTIFUL weather is gone for a few days I think I'm going to rip mine back open, clean the inside of the lense, and seal them up properly this time
Just hard to bring myself back to working on them, after the hassel it was to finally get them in!

 

[Blckshdw]

Lifted the truck so I went to adjust the headlights. Not a lot of room in there... Driver side had just enough wiggle to realign, passenger side... stuck. That one has the been the problem one. The horizontal screw stripped on me so I couldn't move it further right, now it won't go up or down either I might have to take that one apart again to fix it

It isn't awful high but still a tad higher than I think it should be. At least it is the passenger side.

My horizontal adjustment screws look like they weren't meant to be touched. At first I thought just a small socket is what I needed, until I tried it and the plastic rounded off immediately. Hopefully I get around to some on-truck alignments next weekend, and that isn't an issue.

when and if this BEAUTIFUL weather is gone for a few days I think I'm going to rip mine back open, clean the inside of the lense, and seal them up properly this time
Just hard to bring myself back to working on them, after the hassel it was to finally get them in!

No final assembly pics? What's up with that?

 

[Sparky]

The aftermarkets I got to work on had horizontal adjustment, and they worked fine until I screwed around with them one too many times.

 

[Blckshdw]

Did some painting last weekend, I'm hoping that the alignment didn't get jacked up when I took the projectors apart

Got the demon eyes done, been putting that off forever. Since I know blue doesn't put out all that bright, I took the strips I had, and cut them down so they had 9 LEDs. Couple of test fires to make sure everything looks the way I wanted it to.

And once that was done, time to put the projectors back together, mount the shrouds, and another test light for good measure.

Next up, wire up the halos. Then I need to put these on the truck and dial in the vertical adjustment, so I can see how well the bezels fit and do more trimming if necessary. Since I've got some chips in the bezel's paint, I need to fix that up. Gonna go the sandable primer route like I did for my mirrors, fill in the texture, sand em smooth and then respray em. Should look a lot better.

 

[ConeKilrAutoX]

Next up, wire up the halos. Then I need to put these on the truck and dial in the vertical adjustment, so I can see how well the bezels fit and do more trimming if necessary. Since I've got some chips in the bezel's paint, I need to fix that up. Gonna go the sandable primer route like I did for my mirrors, fill in the texture, sand em smooth and then respray em. Should look a lot better.

HELL YEAH!!!! :wootwoot:

 

[dmanns67]

Those look awesome! Can't wait for you and ninja to finish these up. I wanna see some output shots.

 

[NinjuhhNutz]

I'm less than satisfied with mine. Somehow, when the epoxy was curing, the projectors rotated a bit, throwing off that crisp sharp line i was looking for. Top that with the headlight lense being filthy on both aides, and I gots some work to do to fix them.

 

[Blckshdw]

Yeah, I'm a little worried about post epoxy movement too. I also need to do some work on my main lenses, as they are a bit hazy too.

These came in the mail today. For those of you on SSOwners, these are old news. I opted to go with some of the rejects, from the seller's Ebay partner. $33 shipped is much more wallet friendly than $80 The flaw is a curved line in the passenger side lens, which is only visible when backlit. I think from a distance, it shouldn't be too noticeable though.

Edit: Ran into 2 major problems with these.

First, the bastards don't fit in the holders. I'm gonna have to do some Dremeling and see how I can make these work.

Second, they are brittle as hell. Around the edges, there were tons of chips and chunks missing out of the box. I didn't think much of it, as that would be inside the holder, but trying to squeeze these in, the little tabs are snapping off pretty easily. At this point I guess that doesn't matter, since I'm going to have to reshape the edges anyway, I figured I was going to have to use some RTV on them.

 

[Blckshdw]

A little closer to the finish line, got all my demon eyes and halo LEDs wired up in modular fashion in case anything goes wrong, I can disconnect them at my convenience until I can deal with them later. David (Decembersend) has the Morimoto XB halos too, and he's had some of the LEDs go out in under a year

I had to reduce the voltage to the LEDs, so they didn't completely wash out the picture.

I think I'm going to try to make some sort of tinted cover for the main park/turn strips. They look a little funny to me when they aren't on, since the amber LEDs are actually orange. It bugs me.

Plus it will look better with the dark corner lenses.

 

[Grey Thunder]

Those look SICK!!!!!!!! Nice work!

 

[ConeKilrAutoX]

oh man!!!! those are awesome!!!

 

[Blckshdw]

After this is done, I think the mod bug will go into a nice hibernation for a while.

 

[dmanns67]

Looks awesome.

 

[Blckshdw]

Last test before getting ready to seal these up. As I feared, the alignment is off. The driver's side is perfect, but both projectors in the passenger side have twisted slightly to the right, and also slightly off horizontally to each other, so you can see 2 steps a couple inches apart. Oh well, I'm not trying to tear stuff apart to fix it. One of my high beam solenoids died on me, just this morning, after they all worked fine last night on my test bench. So I made a small change and will just run the inside projectors as high beams, not that I ever need them... If I hadn't procrastinated so long, I'd have time to get with TRS for a replacement.

I'm glad I decided not to put a covering on the main LED strips, they aren't that easy to see in the daylight, the side strips seem really dim due to the dark corner lenses

 

[ConeKilrAutoX]

does that ever look badass tho shadow!

 

[Sparky]

*edit* nvm I was looking at it wrong!

 

[NinjuhhNutz]

Did you open the springs a little on the solenoids before installing then? A lot of guys on hidplanet were sagging that they were getting stuck from time to time. Thankfully I haven't had an issue with mine so far. Looks hella good though man! How bad off is the cutoffs? I kick myself in the ass every time I pull into my driveway! There's a storage building beside my place with a pretty good size wall, and I can see all the cutoffs on it. The little differences in them drive me nuts

 

[Sparky]

I read about the spring stretch trick. Haven't had an issue yet.

One of these days I'm going to reopen my passenger light and fix the alignment on it. It annoys me because I know it is off, most others really don't.

Maybe I'll swap out the LED strips for something far brighter too if I can find some.

 

[Blckshdw]

Did you open the springs a little on the solenoids before installing then? A lot of guys on hidplanet were sagging that they were getting stuck from time to time. Thankfully I haven't had an issue with mine so far. Looks hella good though man! How bad off is the cutoffs? I kick myself in the ass every time I pull into my driveway! There's a storage building beside my place with a pretty good size wall, and I can see all the cutoffs on it. The little differences in them drive me nuts

I read about the spring stretch trick. Haven't had an issue yet.

One of these days I'm going to reopen my passenger light and fix the alignment on it. It annoys me because I know it is off, most others really don't.

Maybe I'll swap out the LED strips for something far brighter too if I can find some.

My solenoids weren't getting stuck (I was talking to Decembersend about this with his, since his were getting stuck 'ON') he gave them a small shot of PB blaster, and that fixed them. So I did the same before sealing them up. They all worked fine before, but now that one doesn't activate.

Did get a bit of bad news this morning. The RTV had dried, so I went to install them today, so I could snap some night pics, and have less to do before our meet tomorrow. Went through some tests to make sure all my connections were good. HIDs, check. Halos, check. Demon eyes, check. Parking lights, check, Turn signals, . For some reason, activating the turn signals caused the parking lights to flash, AND the halos and demon eyes! (the halos and demon eyes share the same ground in the 3157 pigtail)

I thought I needed to introduce a diode somewhere, and then realized that EVERYTHING in common IS a diode... After some choice words for the mod Gods, I realized what the problem was. The 3157 extensions I bought (and cut off the socket to use as a pigtail) were SRCK, instead of conventional :banghead: So I had to order some new ones, but they won't be here until middle of next week. Luckily, I have enough slack in the pigtail that I can feed it through the 3157 opening to get to my solder joints, so I won't have to reopen these things.

I'm sure the issue with the cutoffs is going to bug me over time. My big worry is breaking off one of those mounting tabs again, cuz that royally sucked. I would rather do the alignment ON the truck, since that would give me a much more accurate frame of measure. Maybe for the next retrofit...

 

[NinjuhhNutz]

Haha "the next retrofit" yea, I thought the exact same thing when I wasn't happy with my finished product. But, I plan on it being on the project civic...so 2 of the BIGGEST&BRIGHTEST projectors I can get my hands on... half the work lol

Honestly, if i could go back n do it again, differently? I would have mounted the projectors in the bowls ON the truck with some JB steel stick, and once they cured, carefully pop em out and finish securing then in. I find a video of a guy ding it that way AFTER mine had cured. And cursed him for everything I could think of, for not showing up in my search results earlier

 

[Blckshdw]

Halos and parking lights only...

HIDs on...

The worst part, the rotated alignment. Now the driver's side has rotated too. I determined it's from connecting the ballasts to the projectors, since the D2S versions involve a push and twist movement, like opening a child proof pill bottle (rotating the other way of course) It wouldn't be quite as bad if they were rotated the other way, but the high side faces oncoming traffic I lowered the beams a bit to try and compensate for it, should only affect vehicles far to the left. I dropped the passenger side so the left side of the beam aligns with the right side of the driver's side beam, so I can fake like I meant to align them that way On the passenger side, you can see the double steps, from where those drifted apart.

I might try to mess with them, see if I can get some vice grips through the back, onto that lock nut, around the ballast connectors, and see if I can twist them at all. At some point these things are going to come out again, and I'm going to apply RTV on the reflector bowl/inner gasket seam for some added anti-rotational grip.

 

[triz]

I'm starting to think you photoshop these lights in all the time since I never see them...hahaha

 

[jimmyjam]

They look terrible. I'll do you a favor if you give them to me I'll throw them away for you

 

[Blckshdw]

I'm starting to think you photoshop these lights in all the time since I never see them...hahaha

I know right? I fought with these things for about 2 hours yesterday before the parking/turn signal strips would light properly. The shrink wrap on the pigtails was preventing them from seating and reaching the contact pins. As long as those don't act up some more, they are in to stay for a while, so you'll get to see them Thursday. Finally.

They look terrible. I'll do you a favor if you give them to me I'll throw them away for you

Honestly, they could look better. Definitely should have bought aftermarket headlights to work with. I bought some smoked vinyl, and was going to cover the halos, so the yellow wasn't so visible, but decided not to. The halos are crazy bright, and wash out the blue LEDs too much. Who knows, I might let you throw these away for me down the road, for a small fee, so I can replace them with a proper set.

 

[NinjuhhNutz]

I'm not sure if I want to cry, punch someone, or both right now...I finally get around to wiring up the passenger side high beam solenoids (yea yea I know...about time) and the inner projector has a stuck solenoid...wtf did I do to the headlight gods to deserve this kind of punishment with this project?

 

[Blckshdw]

Misery loves company, that's what it comes down to...

 

[NinjuhhNutz]

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

 

[Sparky]

I found out why my LED turns aren't as bright as I wanted, and why the white isn't as pure as I wanted. I ordered LED strips with 3528 SMDs and ordered cool white

So now I'm looking at 5050 SMD LEDs, and natural white. Yes, this means opening the lights to change them out But I need to fix my passenger light alignment anyway. This probably won't happen until spring if I had to guess due to weather and all.

But this gives me the idea that I should keep one amber 3528 SMD strip in there for the parking light, then use a 5050 SMD strip for the turn signal to get dual brightness again

 

[Blckshdw]

Me likey!! Gives me a much better idea of how LED strips inside the housing are gonna look. Any idea what size those are? 3528's maybe? How you figured out the DRL, parking, turn logic through all those relays is beyond me. Nice work though J.

I found out why my LED turns aren't as bright as I wanted, and why the white isn't as pure as I wanted. I ordered LED strips with 3528 SMDs and ordered cool white

It only took 5 months to get an answer to my question... Sheesh!!

 

[Sparky]

I couldn't remember what they were and I didn't bother to look it up until today

The 5050 strips weren't available from superbrightleds when I bought these now that I look at it. The 5050 strips weren't added to their catalog until later.

 

[Blckshdw]

Yeah, kinda figured... I'm sort of in the same boat, I want my turn signals to be brighter during the day. They aren't bad, as I can sometimes see their reflection in the back of the vehicle that's in front of me, but they don't draw your attention. I think when I crack mine open to fix the alignment, I might try building some circuit boards and dump a bunch of LEDs in there like originally planned.

 

[Sparky]

For comparison's sake, the max lumen per foot rating on my current strips is 76. The 5050 SMD strip max lumen per foot rating is 380, 5x as bright

 

[Lilb_1979]

Do you have a pic of the back of the headlights?
I have done 2 retro's with the same projectors, so I'm no noob. I wanna try this with my 03 Trailblazer.

Here is a pic of what I'm talking about:

I just want to know what I have to grind to make them fit. Thanks!

Here is a pic of the 2 retros I have done.

Oh, if you can get a pic of anything you had to grind off on the inside that would be awesome too!
Thanks again in advance!

 

[Blckshdw]

Do you have a pic of the back of the headlights?
I have done 2 retro's with the same projectors, so I'm no noob. I wanna try this with my 03 Trailblazer.

Here is a pic of what I'm talking about:

I just want to know what I have to grind to make them fit. Thanks!

Here is a pic of the 2 retros I have done.

Oh, if you can get a pic of anything you had to grind off on the inside that would be awesome too!
Thanks again in advance!

Welcome to the party man! I don't have H1's, so I can't really say how much you have to grind down, but on post #41, you can see a bit of the back of Chris' reflector bowl. Looks like he took his down quite a bit.

I know with my D2S projectors, I had to grind off quite a bit too, and enlarge the bulb opening in the bowls to get them through. The pic I posted in #113 shows the openings dremeled out.