Well, i finally finished my retro. i still need to get my harness installed, but that should happen tomorrow. right now, everything's in, it's aimed halfway decent.
so i started with a perfectly good set of TYC housings and removed the mounting screws.
as you can see, the TSX projector is much wider than the TYC mounting location is. time to start cutting.
started hacking away. this is about where i stopped with the housings:
the shrouds were not so fortunate. i cut them all to pieces trying to get the TSX projector to fit.
i eventually realized it would have been easier to cut off one corner of the TSX projector mounts and leave the shrouds. so, i cut the projector and took about 2 weeks repairing the shrouds. here they are back to normal.
i had to design my own mounting bracket and method to adjust the projector so it could be aimed after the headlights were put back together. after much cutting, sanding, gluing, banging head on wall, and more, i finally got them mounted.
and the back side. i wound up having to cut a good chunk out of the back of the pvc fitting to clear the support beams in the car. i don't have pics of that though.
and finally ready to go on the car
finally mounted on the car. if you're not ready for your car to look like this, then you're not ready to do a retro:
right side. you can see where the fog light ballasts are mounted.
left side. again, fog light ballast. it sucks because anytime i need to deal with the fogs, the bumper has to come off.
and all back together. i painted the shrouds to be a close match to the silver of the car. i like the final results. i know the big thing here is the blacked out headlights, but i don't care for them too much unless the car is black. black headlights on a non-black car just looks wierd. i like this more subtle effect better. blends in and looks more OEM to me (i know it's not) i didn't want the contrast the black would bring. just my opinion.
and now for some outputs. i drove for 20 minutes trying to find a white wall. damn southerners want to put brick on everything, so this is the best i could do. i'll keep the camera in the car incase i find a white wall at night sometime. at least you get a feel for the cutoffs. this is just the TSX lowbeams.
and just the fogs. i've been fighting with these things for weeks. the rotation is off on both of them. i had to make little wedges for them to sit on to correct the rotation. i still need to fine tune them, but the main thing is that the fogs aren't hitting oncoming drivers in the eyes anymore!
the cutoff was curved on both of them, so i've been tweeking the sheild. it never ends. they're nice to drive with though.
and here's both the TSX and the HID fogs together. i was quite surprized by how much the fogs add to the TSX. the TSX are sweet, but the fogs still add a lot of light on the road.
a couple daytime shots.
oh, parts list....
HEADLIGHTS
Matsushita Gen 3 ballasts
Philips 85122+ bulbs (kind of wishing i got the non + though)
TSX projectors
TYC aftermarket projector headlamp housings
FOG LIGHTS
Blazer projector fogs
894 PNP kit from ebay
next on the chopping block are some 16" rims, Eibach Pro Kit springs and Tokico Blue struts to drop it and an upgraded RSX-S rear sway bar. so there it is in a nut shell. so what do you think? it's my first retro, so be gentle!
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