Well this past weekend I had all the parts to do my HID retrofit project so I decided to tackle it. Overall, The result was very good and the only thing I would do differently is get some Phillips 85122+ 4300k D2S bulbs instead of the 6000k bulbs I ordered with my kit. The project took me about 5 hours and then another hour and a half to re-aim the projectors and do the color mod. So here we go!

I bought my TSX clear lense projectors off ebay for $99+shipping and my hid kit with h4 harnesses and D2S adapters for $250 from JRTlighting. I got my 7x6 h4 housings off of carpartswholesale I believe is his name on ebay for about $40.

Now first thing you need to do is take one of the h4 housings and take a heatgun and heat up the glass. heat it around the edges and try to heat it evenly. You should be wearing glove because the glass will get very hot.

when you think you've heated it up enough, use a flat head and gently separate the glass from the plastic housing.No do to there not being any space to mount the projectors and since the projectors are actually longer than the h4 housings I decided it would be best to mount the projectors as close to the glass as possible. here is where I cut my housing in half

With it marked I used a 3 inch cut off wheel and cut it while making sure to cut straight all the way around.

Next thing I did was I got a sheet of ABS plastic and cut it so It would fit perfectly on the back side of the housing.

Next what I did was take a soldering iron and melt the plastic together on the back side. If you're asking yourself is that going to work and hold good?! The answer is yes it will if done properly. We've accidentally broke glove boxes in our shop and have soldered the back together.

Now for the inside you'll need a little sand paper and some epoxy

Sand where the Abs plastic and the housing meet to help the epoxy adhere to both surfaces better.

Follow the directions for the epoxy which is usually a 50/50 mix and apply it to the housing

Next I used a 2 inch hole saw and drilled a hole in the center of the plastic.

Then i cut out a paper template which had the general shape of the projector and outlined it with a marker.

Then I used an air saw to cut it out and a pencil grinder (dremel will work too) to cut out any additional areas to get the projector to fit nice and snug.

My original plan was to mount the projector from behind, but I saw that If I mounted them in the front I could gain some more clearance and they would still clear the glass lense that goes over the housing. How you mount yours is totally up tp you.Now fit your projector in there and use those mounting holes that the TSX projectors have and shoot 4 self tapping screws into the plastic to secure it. I'd definitely recommend using self tapping screws so you don't risk cracking the plastic.

Here is a shot from the top so you can see how far it sticks out.

On the backside of the screws I used speed clips to insure the screws wouldn't come loose.

Now with one basically done we can compare it to the stock h4 housing.

Next I cracked open my HID kit and tested it out.

These D2S adapters are the $hit

Now that you know it works and you're confident that you won't need to mess with the projector again, set the glass housing cover in place and heat it up again. Once it's hot, firmly press it in and it should reseal. I ran a bead of hot glue around the edges just to be sure.

Now to seal the back you can either use some more epoxy or use hot glue like I did. I let the HID run for like 10 minutes and the projector housing did NOT get hot enough to melt the glue. I'm glad I used hot glue and not epoxy because I had to adjust the projector again later on. Now with one side done, wire up your HID kit in your car and mount your ballasts. I used a self tapping scre and mounted my ballast on the radiator support.

I had a few issues with getting the ne housing to fit right, one of the being these little nubs that space out the housing. It made getting the metal ring around the headligt a little difficult.

a little grinding and problem solved!

The other issue was that this metal bar was hitting the headlight plug it needed to be tweaked.

I used my cutoff wheel to do that but ended up cutting out that little piece I had left also because it hit again when I tried to aim the light down more.Now with our clearance issues resolved, lets compare our old halogen to our new HID!

Now we're on the home stretch and you just need to make the other housing exactly like how you made this one. It should take you less time to make since you know how to make it. Cut out that metal bar on the other side and screw the ***** in and fire it up!

Looking pretty damn sexy with that cutoff , no for some outside shots!

Here's my co-worker's civic with just the plug and play kit compared to mine.

Now off to the woods!

After rolling around with them for a night, I knew that I had to seriously adjust them and aim them way down. I was blinding everybody and lighting up all of the freeway signs lol. Supprisingly not one person highbeamed me, I guess they just accept the fact that you have HID's and your headlights are really bright lol.

I tried to use the stock adjustments, but it would only go so low and the beam aimed upwards at like a 30 degree angle at like 100 feet away.

The only way to fix it would be to a) try the sleepy eye mod and hope it fixed the problem or b) angle the projector downwards inside of the housing. So I ended up taking the headlights apart the next day and used spacers to angle the porjectors downwards. I also did a color mod too. Here's how I did it.

Get some #8 washers from osh, homedepot or walmart. I got my baggy for $2.

Take your projector apart and it will look like this.

Next put two washers on each of those alignment things that are sticking out. There are 2 so the means you use 4 washers total.

Now put the housing back together and it should look like this

Now to angle the projector downwards I used a heatgun and heated the glue up from behind. Once the glue is hot gently push the top of the projector inwards. and wedge like 5 or 6 washers inbetween the projector and the housing and screw the projector in place.

I know that it looks like it is angled too steeply but it worked great. I could always raise it up by using the factory adjustments. Now with the color mod done lets take a look!

The clor mod is supposed to bring out that blue color in the cut offline. When you look at your car from far away and slowly kneel down you'll see a bunch of different colors.

I also noticed that my lights were a little brighter with the color mod

before:

After:

Only thing I would do differently is get those Phillips 85122+ bulbs which are 4300k and put out 3200lm. Mine are 6000k and put out 2800 lm and the phillips are brighter and put out more of a white light than mine do. Other than that, everything was pretty easy and I encourage others to try doing this as long as you have the right tools and safety equipment (gloves, safety glasses, etc.)

Now that everything is perfect go out and enjoy!

Looks awesome I'll be trying this one day. Thanks.

Roadshop installers FTW! I wish we still had Alpine though...

Nice fabbing. Its nice you didn't have to buy any materials too

The difference between the two is night and day. Looks great and its much safer.

excellent writeup. ill definitely keep this in mind if i decide to stick with my popups.

teh hotness

I vote best write up, and cleanest HID swap ever.

SERIOUSLY

ingenious, but ghetto fab at the same time. very informative, will write this up asap.

thoughts on a custom title?

damm... no pictures for me... :O( (again)

damn! nice write-up!!

you driver side seems to be rotated clockwise and your passenger side is rotated counter clockwise. the 2 cutoff should be parallel to the ground.

LOVE IT!! I wouldn't consider it ghetto fabrication, I would call it creative fabrication, seeing that everything worked out near perfectly, heh.

I have always wanted true HID's now I can give it a shot... Thanks.

NICE.

nice write up +1.. but if u buy the h4 headlights and the kit off ebay for h4 lights is it nesscesary to do this mod?

excellent write up. i want to do it.....NOW!!!

i agree +1 for nice write up.. makes me wanna keep my pop ups and give it a try...

http://www.hidplanet.com/

When you shut your lights off, do they retract all the way? I've heard in some cases the lights have to stay up all the time because of the projector being too long.

that's some good s**t bro. keep it up.

Wow. F*ckin bada$$.

boj240 wrote:nice write up +1.. but if u buy the h4 headlights and the kit off ebay for h4 lights is it nesscesary to do this mod?

you dont have to. but your lights will look like ****.

btw you should have put on a bezel around it to cover the projector mounting points, so it wont look so ghetto.

I wanted to put a shroud around them, but I couldn't find anything that had a 2.5 inch opening. I didn't feel like making custom shrouds, but if I do stumble upon some I will definitely pick them up and throw them in.

Bob_Sagat wrote:When you shut your lights off, do they retract all the way? I've heard in some cases the lights have to stay up all the time because of the projector being too long.

The headlights function just like stock. I had no negative effects from cutting out that middle section of metal that the plug was hitting.

boj240 wrote:nice write up +1.. but if u buy the h4 headlights and the kit off ebay for h4 lights is it nesscesary to do this mod?

Did you see the comparison pictures of my co-worker's civic? The civic uses h4 bulbs and he has the plug and play kit. There is a difference when you add projectors to your HID's.

kamikazestorm420 wrote:you driver side seems to be rotated clockwise and your passenger side is rotated counter clockwise. the 2 cutoff should be parallel to the ground.

Yes I did realize this once I first fired them up. The passenger side was crooked, but it was only because the hole housing wasn't seated all the way in there. I pushed it into place and retightened that metal ring that secures the housing. If you look at the last pic with the color mod the cutoff is pretty level with the ground. When you so the color mod your cutoff will slightly curve as you go off to the sides.

roadshop ftw. maybe if the interior of the headlight housing was sprayed black or something, it would cover up the epoxy. looks kinda ghetto-fabbed with the epoxy exposed.

it does inspire me to think up a way to fab some projectors in cleanly.

I'm confused on why all this work was needed. I wa sunder the assumption with the h4 conversion housing you just wire in the hid kit. I got h4 bulbs in my vert and my ka-t... Shouldn;t I just be able to wire the hid kit with bulbs....

That **** cute!

If you just use those h4 bulbs you will end up blinding the people that are in front of you. If you ever have been in a car with HID's you will notice there is a line where the light stops at. Apparently the TSX is the cheapest and most available car with HID projectors.

Also, if you think about it. Making a shroud for the inside I would think would be pointless. When the lights are on you wont be able to even see the screws, and when the lights are off they would be shut. No one will ever be able to see them.

tonynalli wrote:Also, if you think about it. Making a shroud for the inside I would think would be pointless. When the lights are on you wont be able to even see the screws, and when the lights are off they would be shut. No one will ever be able to see them.

Mmmhhh... thats true. I was about to ask if painting the housing's interior black would improve the looks or decrease the efficiency of the projector. Well, we can just use the pop-ups switch to open them or make a sleepy conversion.

Would painting the interior black look good?

You could have painted the inside of the housing black or something.

guillermoe wrote:
Mmmhhh... thats true. I was about to ask if painting the housing's interior black would improve the looks or decrease the efficiency of the projector. Well, we can just use the pop-ups switch to open them or make a sleepy conversion.

Would painting the interior black look good?

Painting the inner housing would have no effect on the efficeincy of the bulb, because the projector is right up against the glass lense. If light reflected off of the housing you would see the effects of that in the night shots against the wall.

Right now I'm trying to get in touch with this guy I used to work with that knows a place that sells metal shrouds with a 2.5 inch opening. As soon as I find out where the place is I will pick some up and throw them in and maybe paint the housing black when its all apart.

On second thought, it might be better to leave the housings unpainted because painting the black might cause them to absorb more heat. The reflective paint or what ever they used should help to reflect heat rather than have the housing absorb the heat. I could try painting them and find out, but I think I might just stick with the shrouds.
Modified by Redevil at 8:39 PM 5/30/2007

awesome write up man, i definitely want to do this now asap also interested in what the shrouds would look like.