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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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Re: My TSX HID retro finally finished!!!! Pics inside
good job...i wouldnt have done all that but um...i give u an A for effort and A-for outcome...just because i dont like silver headlights. good job tho, give u props for taking it on.
Re: My TSX HID retro finally finished!!!! Pics inside
Quote:
Originally Posted by D17sRuNtunable
good job...i wouldnt have done all that but um...i give u an A for effort and A-for outcome...just because i dont like silver headlights. good job tho, give u props for taking it on.
thanks man. i know not everyone will like the silver finish, but i don't like the black or gunmetal finish that a lot of people do. if these weren't already painted when i got them, i would have done them chrome. i would have prefered chrome and may still do that someday if i can get another set of chrome shrouds cheap.
Re: My TSX HID retro finally finished!!!! Pics inside
Quote:
Originally Posted by Devani
looks nice....TSX are they color modded?? they look blurry for TSX projectors..
yeah they are. 2-#8 washers on each nipple, so 8 total washers for the pair. i noticed i lost some sharpness once the headlight cover was on, probably due to some minor scratches and such on the cover. when you're driving though, you don't notice the cutoff unless you're parked in front of a wall. on the road, you can't tell, so i'm not worried about the sharpness. it actually is less fatigueing on your eyes if the cutoff isn't as sharp.
Re: My TSX HID retro finally finished!!!! Pics inside
Quote:
Originally Posted by electric130
thanks man. i know not everyone will like the silver finish, but i don't like the black or gunmetal finish that a lot of people do. if these weren't already painted when i got them, i would have done them chrome. i would have prefered chrome and may still do that someday if i can get another set of chrome shrouds cheap.
High Five... I dont like black or gunmetal housing either
Re: My TSX HID retro finally finished!!!! Pics inside
looks great. how much did it cost and how long did it take from start to finish? I'm still waiting for someone to do a retro with the oem housing because thats what I want to do
__________________ Auto Driver By Force Member #13
Re: My TSX HID retro finally finished!!!! Pics inside
Quote:
Originally Posted by EggRollBandit05
looks great. how much did it cost and how long did it take from start to finish? I'm still waiting for someone to do a retro with the oem housing because thats what I want to do
i worked on it in my spare time. it took about 3 months. it could be done in a much shorter time span, but i didn't have a lot of time to put in to it. i worked on it maybe once a week for a few hours. the harness is turning out to be a bigger pain than i thought. i've been working on it for about 6 hours now and i still have the left side to do. so figure another day for installing the harness. here's some average prices:
OEM ballasts $150-200
OEM projectors $110-350
OEM bulbs $50-150
spare set of headlights $150 (don't think you can do this to your current headlights in a weekend because you'll be without a car! )
a lot of these components can easily be found on the low end of the prices. if you were really hard pressed, you could get a PNP D2S kit off ebay for $120, but you'd only be saving $50 and the reliability factor isn't really worth it to me.
as far as the OEM headlights go, talk to "mikenam". he's got a pair of TL bi-xenons with ZKW lenses. that's pretty much the king of all HID setups right now. it pretty much smokes anything out there as far as output, performance and color. i've seen his car in person and they're very impressive. you're talking close to $500 for the projectors and lenses though. maybe $400 if you can find a deal. problem is that the ZKW's come on specific BMW headlights. so you've got to buy a set of TL projectors and a set of BMW projectors. at any rate, you can go with a set of E55 bi-xenons for around $110 and put them in the OEM headlights for an 01-03. 04-05 would be a tight fit for a bi-xenon, but a single low beam might fit alright. the 01-03 headlights have a ton of room and are a retrofitters dream come true.
Re: My TSX HID retro finally finished!!!! Pics inside
Good job man. It looks good. I'll be getting my headlights from custom lightz soon. I'm having them put e46 projectors in my black chrome password jdm headlights.
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.
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