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Finished projector retrofit...pics

Brad09

Ready to race!
Well I actually finished this about a year ago, just haven't gotten around to posting. I haven't had any issues yet, for what it's worth. Going from oem projectors on my mkv to halogens on the mk6 was not going to cut it. In an effort to save some money while still using a good quality projector, I decided to pickup a kit from The Retrofit Source. I went with the fxr stage 3's because I wanted a 3" projector, the 2.5" ones I have seen look a little too small to me. I also got some Morimoto xb ballasts and 5500k d2s bulbs.

This is what I started with:







After removing the headlights, I used a knife tip I picked up for my soldering iron and opened them up:





On the first one I cut it so that the upper bracket stayed with the lens, but that ended up causing issues when remounting the open housing to align the projectors. So on the second one I cut between the lens and the upper bracket so it stayed on the housing, but it was a big pain as there is almost no room to cut between the two.

So I pulled out the reflector bowl and made my cuts:







I then taped all the gaps with aluminum tape and went to town with the jb weld. I didn't have room to mount it with bolts because of how big the fxr's are and how far they need to be recessed. The jb weld was plan b, but alot of people do it that way with no problems:





I went with the Iris shroud for simplicity and painted the reflector bowl black with a white ring to match the car:



I then used the same knife tip on the soldering iron and melted the seam back together. I did a test piece first and was not able to break the plastic at the seam. It was way stronger than I expected. I haven't had any condensation in the lights over the past year:



Here's the finished product. The color at the cutoff is amazing. I only had to shim the bottom of the bowl on one projector to get them to match. The light is very even on the road, and the cutoff is sharp:





Here's some shots on the car:







I don't have any output shots of the road on this computer, but I'll try to update this thread with some when I get home. I have been very impressed with the setup. It is way better than the oem projectors/hids on my mkv. If I had to do it again, I would probably go with a smaller/lighter projector because the fxr's were huge and hard to make room for. Plus I would have liked to have the option to mount them with bolts for adjustability. I would also go with Morimoto 6500k bulbs because the 5500k I have are closer to 4500k (there is a little yellow in them, but not as much as oem). I think the 6500k bulbs are closer to straight white, which is what i wanted out of the 5500k. I was able to do this over a week that I didn't need my car. It's probably not a weekend project if its your first time doing this. There aren't alot of threads on doing this, so finding information was really time consuming. Hopefully this is helpful, let me know if you have any questions.

*EDIT*

Here are some pics of the light output, sorry for the iphone quality. The dark spots at the bottom are right in front of the car, you can't see them when driving. You can't see any lines in the beam pattern either, just even light across the road. Also, these are bi-xenon projectors so I have my halogen high beams set up for flash to pass and they also come on with the hid high beams:



 
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Tony48

Go Kart Champion
Wow, fantastic work and great write up / pictures. The headlights came out looking great. I'm sure you're thrilled with the end product and your increased light output.

Before reading this I didn't know how people cut into (and resealed) the OEM headlights. I'm curious to see a few more pics of exactly where you cut around the housing. I've always thought it would be cool to black out parts and add some LED strips or slight accent lighting to my OEM xenons but am too chicken to do it.
 

riceburner

Autocross Champion
very nice work!

I used to retrofit cobalt ss lights all the time, was much easier in our case to just heat up the epoxy at the lense and peel it off; obviously cant do that with these cars.

I was considering doing this to either halogens like you've done, or to my ebay projectors, since the projectors themselves totally suck. The issue is i just don't like the positioning of the projectors in either case. They are too far to the outside, wish they were more toward the middle or inside of the headlight. Do you think there would have been room to fit a projector in the other bowl?
 

mikeleemk6

Go Kart Champion
very nice work!

I used to retrofit cobalt ss lights all the time, was much easier in our case to just heat up the epoxy at the lense and peel it off; obviously cant do that with these cars.

I was considering doing this to either halogens like you've done, or to my ebay projectors, since the projectors themselves totally suck. The issue is i just don't like the positioning of the projectors in either case. They are too far to the outside, wish they were more toward the middle or inside of the headlight. Do you think there would have been room to fit a projector in the other bowl?

You for sure can do that. No need to cut. Just heat up and pull apart.
 

riceburner

Autocross Champion
i definitely tried with my ebay projectors as well as mkv oems and no luck at all
 

lilonespaz

Drag Race Newbie
You wanna make another pair and sell me it?
 

Brad09

Ready to race!
I added a few pics of the light output to the original post.

Wow, fantastic work and great write up / pictures. The headlights came out looking great. I'm sure you're thrilled with the end product and your increased light output.

Before reading this I didn't know how people cut into (and resealed) the OEM headlights. I'm curious to see a few more pics of exactly where you cut around the housing. I've always thought it would be cool to black out parts and add some LED strips or slight accent lighting to my OEM xenons but am too chicken to do it.
Thanks, I'm not sure if I have any pics of where I cut on the top of the housing between the brackets and lens. I'll see if I can find something.

very nice work!

I used to retrofit cobalt ss lights all the time, was much easier in our case to just heat up the epoxy at the lense and peel it off; obviously cant do that with these cars.

I was considering doing this to either halogens like you've done, or to my ebay projectors, since the projectors themselves totally suck. The issue is i just don't like the positioning of the projectors in either case. They are too far to the outside, wish they were more toward the middle or inside of the headlight. Do you think there would have been room to fit a projector in the other bowl?
Yea I've seen a few people put 2.5" projectors in the high beam bowls for a quad setup. I use my high beams for the flash to pass feature quite a bit, so I needed halogens for that.

You for sure can do that. No need to cut. Just heat up and pull apart.
I'm almost positive you can't do that with oem halogens. The housing will melt before the glue. I think cutting them open is the only option, and if you do it the way I did it is much quicker/cleaner than using a dremel.

You wanna make another pair and sell me it?
Unfortunately I don't have a good setup for aligning the projectors off the car. I had to mount them in the car and used a jb weld steel stick to get them to hold in the right spot before I did the epoxy. Getting the rotation correct was the hardest part, especially with the weight of the fxr's. So it isn't something I would be comfortable doing without a car to test fit them on.
 

lilonespaz

Drag Race Newbie
Unfortunately I don't have a good setup for aligning the projectors off the car. I had to mount them in the car and used a jb weld steel stick to get them to hold in the right spot before I did the epoxy. Getting the rotation correct was the hardest part, especially with the weight of the fxr's. So it isn't something I would be comfortable doing without a car to test fit them on.

Makes sense they look really good
 

mikeleemk6

Go Kart Champion
I added a few pics of the light output to the original post.


Thanks, I'm not sure if I have any pics of where I cut on the top of the housing between the brackets and lens. I'll see if I can find something.


Yea I've seen a few people put 2.5" projectors in the high beam bowls for a quad setup. I use my high beams for the flash to pass feature quite a bit, so I needed halogens for that.


I'm almost positive you can't do that with oem halogens. The housing will melt before the glue. I think cutting them open is the only option, and if you do it the way I did it is much quicker/cleaner than using a dremel.


Unfortunately I don't have a good setup for aligning the projectors off the car. I had to mount them in the car and used a jb weld steel stick to get them to hold in the right spot before I did the epoxy. Getting the rotation correct was the hardest part, especially with the weight of the fxr's. So it isn't something I would be comfortable doing without a car to test fit them on.

If I remember, I’ll take a pic when I get home of my oem Headlights that I opened up without cutting. Nonetheless it looks like you did a great job.
 

mk6'12gti

Drag Racing Champion
You could of opened them up without cutting the back of the housing. Plus if they were oem with permaseal you can get the lenses off without cutting takes some time though. Looks good though.
 
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