[R3dFyre02]

Ok, there has been some discussion here of late about HID kits. having run all sorts of kits and what not over the years, here is what i have learned. Stock halogen light suck. HID lights in stock reflector style housings suck. they seem brighter when you look at them, but when your driving the beam is so scattered it is all but unusable. "ricer" projector housings are not to bad with the recommended halogen bulbs in them. "ricer" projector housings are better with HID bulbs in them. but if you want the best light output possible, bright, usable, non-blinding to other cars on the road, you cant beat a decent set of HID specific projectors swapped into a set of our stock housings.

Here are a few pics showing the differences between stock reflectors with HID, halogen projectors and then HID projectors...

First is stock housings with 9007 HID bulbs swapped in. note all the light that is going up. this does you no good and in fact is blinding oncoming drivers. yea, im sure you aimed yours down a bit more to compensate, but really what is that doing for you? nothing. it is simply wasting light, and creating a dangerous environment for oncoming drivers.



Next up is the aftermarket housings with halogen projectors in them with the proper halogen bulbs. not to bad, but the cut off is blurry. good thing is that you are not going to be blinding oncoming drivers and you can aim them properly. I have a set of these, but I swapped a set of low beam projectors from an Acura TL into them. not going to do that again, as it was a PAIN!!



Now we have the same basic housings from the last pic with HID plug and play kit installed... not as bad as the stock reflectors were, but we are starting to see a bit of break up and glare showing up now. and the "Step" is being overpowered and burned out. yes you can open the projectors and play around with the shield and lens spacing, but that really should be left for those that know what they are doing... many times i have had to revert back to stock setup and restart because my modding is unrecoverable...



now we have the final product.... HID bulbs in projectors that were designed for them. the reflector bulb had been shaped for the HID bulbs position and shape of the arc in the salt bubble, the shields are optimized for the HID's and, well i will let the picture speak for itself.



Here is a quick shot of my 02 Mustangs light output....



notice the nice flat even cutoff? see how no light is going above the cut and shining into oncoming drivers eyes? well lets get into how i did this.

I have done this a number of times, and used varying methods for mounting, but this seems to be the simplest way to get good results. I personally prefer to have them mounted in the factory reflector bowls, but with the Mustang lights due to their small size I feel that the material left after cutting them for the projector just leaves them to weak and breakage can occur, such as what happened to me last week.

Time taken: about 2 hours per side.

Materials used:

all screws, nuts and threaded rod (all-Thread) is in 10-24 size.

4 U shaped speed nuts
4 3" sections all-thread
2 6" sections all-thread
20 nyloc nuts
16 #10 steel washers
10 #10 rubber washers (sometimes called sealing washers)
Welding plate 14G, 12X16
aftermarket cobra style headlights. (factory will not work. the glue Ford uses was crafted in the depths of Hades and only there can it be softened enough to disassemble the housings.)
HID Projectors ( I went with FX-R from TRS
DDM 55w HID kit
philips D2S HID Bulb

Total Cost::

180 housings
150 projectors
40 metal and random hardware
85 Philips D2S bulbs
60 DDMTuning.com 55w HID balasts
30 Hi/Low controller harness (from TRS)

545 total... Mind you this is with out shipping on anything.... Sorry. i dont remember how much that was.

If you need a complete kit for your HID, TRS does sell total kits, bulbs, ballasts, projectors and shrouds for decent prices as well.

Disassembling the lights:

Looking at my new housings I found that there was one metal clip on the top and a screw back by the turn signal bulb that i needed to remove. once these were gone, I needed to heat the Butyl sealant that is used to hold these suckers together.... I heated my wife's oven up to 150 and set the headlights in for about 5 minutes. Perfect! Now with a couple large screwdrivers and a bit of patience I pried the housings apart.

here is a shot of the headlights taken apart...



inside the housing you will need to remove the reflector bowl. once it is gone you can remove the factory adjuster and the two brass colored pivot balls that the reflector rides on. here is a pic of them after removal...



the adjuster is indexed like the turn signal bulbs plug... here is a shot of the index teeth. just simply rotate it and it pulls right out.



now on to mounting the projector.... you can carve your reflector bowl and mount the projector in there, but as i found out sometimes the bowl will crack gong over pot holes. So I made a metal plate to mount the projector on. i believe it was 14G metal i used, but not to sure... I just looked for something that was sturdy. here is a shot of the plate as i was drawing it out and begining to cut it. the only reason that the bottom 1/2 inch is bent at a 90 angle is for rigidity. not sure if it needed it, but hell I had access to a break so I used it.



Marking the area to cut out for the projector...



hole cut out and roughly shaped. the ears that are cut out are so i can adjust the horizontal rotation of the cut off.



And here is the plate mounted to my projector.



Assembly:

to mount the plate to the housing I drilled out the threaded holes where the pivot balls were mounted and ran a length of all thread through it. on the back i used two nuts as jam nuts so that i could turn the rod from the back of the housings. the way the rods are set up is so that i can adjust both vertical and horizontal beam angles. rods are assembled as such...


jam nut 1, jam nut 2, metal washer, housing, metal washer, rubber washer, metal washer, nyloc nut

In this pic the large fended washer was the headlight housing... just easier to show it this way.... tighten down the nyloc nut so that it is snug to the housing, but not to tight... this nyloc nut is used so that it will not loosen or tighten as you turn the entire rod via the jam nuts at the out side once the plate is mounted... here is a shot of two of these rods mounted in my housing...

[R3dFyre02]

if you notice the top rod has a large metal washer behind it... this is where the factory adjuster was removed from. i simply used two fender washers with two of my small metal washers between them to cover the hole left so my threaded rod could be used.

The lower rod in that pic has a metal washer, rubber washer, metal washer on the outside of the nut... More on this later, but I don't use this rod as an adjustable rod....

On the metal plate I marked the holes needed for the three rods and drilled them out. 10-24 speed nuts of the U shaped clip on style was pushed over the holes for the rods to thread into... again here is the plate mounted on the projector where you can see these...



and here the plate is mounted int the housings...



notice that lower rod I mentioned that is NOT an adjuster?? after i put the plate on the rod, I added a metal washer, rubber washer, metal washer then a nyloc nut and tightened it down until the rubber washers both in front and behind are compressed about 50% or their thickness. This point is and anchor point and used as the pivot for the other two rods adjusting action, both horizontal and vertical. The rubber washers in both of these stacks allow for the nut to be tight, yet the plate still move as you make your adjustments.



I had to do a little trimming to the black part of the headlight inside the clear lens so it would clear the plate once together...



trimmed the top inner part....


here its mounted together...


now before I put the black trim piece and the lens back on I have to find a good flat wall and aim and align the projectors... the following output pic is from these projectors, but mounted differently... this was before my reflector bowls cracked on me... loosen the screws that hold the projector to the plate and simply twist the projector until the cut off is nice and horizontal...



let me explain the marks on the wall in that last shot... the inverted T's are where the projectors center points are when I had my car maybe 3 inches from the wall. the longer horizontal line is just a even line that is 3 inches below the projectors height. this is so when they are lighting the road the light hits the road and doesn't just go infinitely flat out in front of me. Yes I know they are shooting way right... I was in the middle of adjusting things and mainly was concerned with getting the cutoffs even and level.

at this point I again heated them in the oven at 150 for about 5 minutes to heat the sealant and then put the trim and lens's back on. clamps are your friends here... get them good and snug, then let cool with clamps on and replace the clips and screws.

double check the aiming and enjoy having a TRUE HID kit.

these are not smoked lenses, i simple sprayed everything with a nice coat of flat black before final assembly.

[04GTAMPA]

Nice work. If you clean up the grammar and get more specific on materials, sizes, etc... I think this should be sticky material. Also make some bullet points on how long it took, total estimated cost, etc... You took the time to do something that so many people should do instead of just slapping a chinese HID kit and blind half the drivers on the road. (I'm guilty)

also post pics of the front of the car.

[R3dFyre02]

Edited, couple new pictures added, few more details... If anyone has questions or want me to explain anything out better let me know.

[liljojo4711]

very nice. about how much did this cost u? if i already have a 6000k HID kit, can i use anything from the kit like ballasts or bulbs?

[PonyBoy02]

This is a fantastic idea

+reps

[wrecked2001]

Got a question, will HID bulbs fit in aftermarket projector headlight assemblies like the ones that AmericanMuscle and CruizinConcepts sells? I like the Idea and the look of your lights, but I don't have the time to do something like that.

[R3dFyre02]

yes wrecked. you can, although the HID will tend to burn overpower the center of the cutoff. i have a set of what I believe is called the Gen II projectors. they are all black with the low beam projector (H3) and high beam reflector (H1) and i have a set of HID H3 bulbs in it. it works fine especially compared to 9007 HID bulbs, but they leave a bit to be desired against true HID projectors....

Let me find a couple pics I posted earlier and drop them into the first post to show what i mean about the light reflection and scattering with different housings....

And as far as time... it takes a day.

Ok, first post updated with comparison pictures of various housings and projectors...

[freefallin2000]

I would seriously send you my lights man. This is amazing. Looks great too. NIce work for sure.

[R3dFyre02]

glad you liike it Free. Im about to buy another set of housings from AM so I can kinda standardize this and make certain aspects of creation easier. I might start building sets for people in a month or so. still beating on mine to make sure the proof of concept will hold up. my poor car has never hit so many bumps and potholes....

[o2gtstang]

Great write up man!!! been thinking about this myself for the past few months just been busy with other projects

[Zatrekaz]

Originally Posted by freefallin2000 I would seriously send you my lights man. This is amazing. Looks great too. NIce work for sure.

I am waiting on that as well. I really want this on mine.

OP... could you get a pic of the car from various angles in front with the lights on?

[R3dFyre02]

yea Z, I got the pics... guess i kinda forgot to up load them. Oops. my bad!

here you can see the color flicker. nice and blue. but the light output on the road is nice and white.


not sure what other angles you want Z... let me know and i can get them for you tonight when the lights go out outside.

[03SonicBoom]

Looks awesome.

[06z28eaTer]

great work

[Mach1cz23]

i need this! You could make these and sell them...

[Lefty]

Stickied for you.

[R3dFyre02]

Thanks Lefty!!

[Lefty]

Yeah no prob. Now make me a set!

[sikedsyko]

One day I WILL do this. Just need to get $600 I'm ready to blow on headlights