::TEASER:: DIY HID Retrofit in Halogen Housing for Golf GTI 2010

DIY HID Retrofit in Halogen Housing for Golf GTI 2010 MK6 MKVI

So this is my retrofit w/out the projector installed. It was quite a rough ride splitting the headlight. As you can see, I did custom colors too.






Step 1: Red Line vs Blue Line.
So I chose to dremel at the red line but the plastic would melt and cut at the same time… if it makes sense. So cut at the blue line!


Cut Off:
The projector themselves are pretty awesome. Its aimed really low right now because the headlight lens isnt on which adds weight and will help mount the cut off line to its appropriate height. Nonetheless, you get the point.










Just Kidding. Here's what really happened.
I was trying to split my headlight w/ a heat gun and literally spent almost 3 hours. The sealant just WOULD NOT budge. Turns out, the housing is sealed by some crazy RTV sealant. Basically crazy enough that it has a higher melting point than the plastic. But before I accepted this… I tried opening it to see if it would make a difference. And uh.. you obviously saw what happened. I lost 180 dollars for being so stupid :[. Nonetheless, I actually use this headlight a LOT during my actualy retrofit as a 'beta.' I did all my projector fittings, and figuring out which wire is wire on this headlight, so it served as a REALLY good guinea pig.































This is the real deal.









So uh... I have to move into my LA apartment tommorow morning, AND i still have to work on my second headlight that night. And while I'm at it, I'm going to record a full video of me doing this. Sorry for all the reserved spots (sorry mod!). I've been organizing this DIY as I've been going along. I put in a lot of time not just retrofitting but making sure this DIY is thorough! The time I believe the DIY will be up is either Tuesday Morning/Night.

Relays and Ballast

If you're ever considering HIDs, I HIGHLY recommend powering your HID's through your relay/car battery. If you do it through you stock wiring, go home. Getting any flickering or failed start ups is NOT a good sign. Even though it only happens for a couple of seconds/minutes, thats a sure sign that your stock wiring isn't thick/powerful enough to initially start up your ballast.

Important note: using relays WILL give you bulb error, even with a 'error canceler'. However, nothing else goes wrong, simply just a light in your dash (yes, super annoying i know). but until I find a solution, i will DEFINITELY post it. It's better to have a little bulb in your dash then to have your stock wiring die and fry up. Plus, seeing your HIDs warm up effortlessly is way better than watching it flicker.

1 Relays
I took OUT the battery and put the +/- battery terminals UNDER and through the case. That way, the wirings stay nicely tucked an hidden away. There is one hex screw on the left side the battery which is keeping it mount/stuck down, remove it.





2 Low Beam Ballast
The low beam ballast is resting on the plastic mount, which the headlight slides on. By the way, you HAVE to take off your bumper and headlights to gain access to this, There are two screws on this mount, very left and very right.
IMPORTANT NOTE: I am using DDM Tuning 35W Slim Ballast. Although there is plenty of room for the ballast, depending on which kind you get and what size it is, it might or might not fit there.



3 Fog Ballast
The fog ballast is located on the front bumper chassis. Never felt so proud of my self when I found this spot.

Retrofitting

1 Open Seasame
So as I mentioned in the intro, I went with dremeling the headlights open. You can see in the pictures where I cut. It was safe dremeling where I did and I didn't have to stress about cutting something INside the housing. PATIENCE IS KEY HERE. I spent around 45 minutes cutting just one headlight open. Its not super hard, you just need to take your time.







2 Headlights Split
Notice how the edges look jaggedy. No worries, these are simply the extra plastic that formed when dremeling. This come off really easily using your hand



3
See? Clean.



4 HIDs in Halogen
Set up your light on the ground facing a wall so you can blue tap the cut off line. BTW, you WILL need the H7 Adapter found on bay. Oh and of course your HID kit.



PS. This step was useless... totally up to you. If you mount your projectors on your halogens correctly, you'll be fine w/out doing this 'test.' And even if youre slightly off, you can make adjustments on your height (only left and right, no diagonal, so be careful!)

5 Retrofitting your projectors into your halogen reflector.
You will have to cut a hole in the middle (look at next step), so the projectors can sit in a little deeper. Don't stress too much about making the holes perfect. Your projector's aim can be tweaked. Of course, you still gotta try and make the hole a good resting spot for your projector.



The nice thing about the halogen housing is that you don't have to worry about the headlights being tilted when you mount them. In our cars, we can simply use the housing itself to make sure the cut off is parallel to the ground.

See how I am using the 'two blue lines' to make sure my projector isn't aiming higher or lower than it normally should. Do this all around 360.



IMPORTANT NOTE: When you are removing your halogen reflector, you have to be really tough and jerk it out fast. No need to worry though since the reflector is REALLY thick and strong. HOWEVER!!!! once you create your hole, the reflector strength is gone. Which is why in the 'joke' and melted headlights, the reflector cracked in half.



6 More on leveling your projectors
Now, this is probably THE MOST important part. There's no point of spending 200 dollars on projectors and not being able to aim it right. When you two blue lines aren't parallel, if you look at the picture of the projector, I used nuts/washers to adjust its height.

7 Nut
IMPORTANT: most people who retrofit and mount their projectors w/ nuts often get long ones. Depending on which projectors you get, (mine is FX-R , make sure your screws DONT hit the little plastic mounting parts.




8 Color
Do whatever you want.



9 Closing of leaking light
Use aluminum tape. I was SO amazed at how EASY it is to apply this thing on and how it molds so well to your needed shape. Not only that, its pretty thick and strong too. I'd stay away from covering the gaps with silicone just in case you ever need to take it out etc..

I used black silicone to cover the little screw hole gaps. Later did I realize, its pointless covering it to protect it from dust because if dust were to enter through the dust cap, crap can still linger around. Then again, you could still do this to avoid light leakage

Note: The black line on top the halogen housing was a hole, which was completely useless. I thought I needed that hole to fit the projectors but I didn't so ignore it.

Technical Wiring

1 Bi-Xenons
This ONLY APPLIES TO YOU if you have bi-xenon projectors and not xenons. Bi-xenon projectors are projectors that have BOTH high AND low beam on it. Setting up bi-xenon on this headlight is SUPER easy!!

2 Solenoid wires (High Beam)
The black/red wires will be spliced into the high beam wirings. If you look at the high beam bulb mount, there are THREE little black wires. You will need to splice the two OUTSIDE wires, the middle one is the DRL. It doesn't matter which black/red wire goes to.

For some reason, when I used tap splices, I don't think there was enough power to send to the solenoid. So I had to sodder it on. I believe crimping would be just as effective.







4
I have no friends so I used painters tape to test the high beam.



5
Look at how awesomly you can hide your solenoid cable. No need to stick it out from the high beam grommet.



6
There should be two wires sticking out your grommet. 1 - your in/out from your D2S adapter, 2 - your low beam signal.



7
So how did I make the low beam signal? Simple, take the two wires that were on the low beam mounting bracket, and splice them into a 9006/5 connector. I bought the connectors off of Ebay.




CRAPPY NEWS
Splicing the solenoid causes a bulb error. But the Bi-Xenons DO work. So I'm getting so many bulb errors. Low beam errors, fog errors, now high beam error. So since I'm getting so many errors, I think i'ma just get LEDs for my parking lights and license plate lights. Woot! saving myself ~70 dollars on a ridiculously price license plate led lights. Hopefully in the future, there will be a way to disable ALL error bulb warnings via vag-com or something.

Will have a FULL video posted probably next week thursday or friday

Sorry everything kinda 'messy' and not thoroughly organized. I moved into my new LA apartment and I barely got my internet today. Plus school just started for me and I've been pretty busy with adjusting. Also, I got a new volunteer position which will also probably keep me busy. I'll try my best to clean this up a little and leave you guys with a full video!

FINAL PRODUCT

P2SPECULATED indeed! - love the beginning shock factor, lol.

...whoa

Looking awesome !

that is legit, man. good work.

Looks great so far, definitely had me with the dremel stuff haha.

So finally finished sealing the headlight. heres how it looks mounted, without the bumper on. my brother just had a baby so im too busy to post the DIYs but will do it soon!

Awesome! great job.

Damn man... I thought I was going to have the first MK6 with a HID retro. Really nice work on the retro! What projectors, bulbs, ballasts are you using? And how do you have them wired (or how do you plan on wiring them if they aren't yet)?

updated with diy!