Rep Power: 291

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!

 
Rep Power: 259

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.

 
Rep Power: 291

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.

 
Rep Power: 269

Looks good, can't wait to start my retrofit this summer.

 
Rep Power: 336

looks nice....TSX are they color modded?? they look blurry for TSX projectors..

 
Rep Power: 272

^^ yea what he said. either way goodjob looks nice

 
Rep Power: 291

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.

 
Rep Power: 291

thanks!

 
Rep Power: 0

High Five... I dont like black or gunmetal housing either

 
Rep Power: 291

awesome!

 
Rep Power: 257

looks very original. im digging it.

 
Rep Power: 245

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

 
Rep Power: 304

looking very clean

 
Rep Power: 291

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.

 
Rep Power: 251

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.

 
Rep Power: 291

thanks! you should be pretty happy with the E46's. i've heard some good things about custom lightz. you'll be hooked once you get them. it will annoy you to drive a car without HID's!!! next you'll want HID fogs (if you don't have them already). i've got another thread all about the fogs i have. they're perfect for HID's. awesome results.

 
Rep Power: 291

well, i just got my harness installed. it took me about 8 hours to do it, but i was cutting everything to exact lengths on the car and putting the connectors on as i went. originally, the fogs would turn off when the high beams come on, but since i didn't want the HID fogs flashing all the time, i switched it back to where the fogs are independantly controlled by a switch inside the car. what that means is that i can have lows, highs and fogs all on at once. i know that's illegal as hell, but hey, so are all H4 PNP HID kits. i have 100w H1 halogen bulbs in the high beams. i just took it for a drive after aiming the high beams some and with the fogs, lows and highs all lit up on a dark country road, it's like daylight! it's just stupid the amount of light on the road!!! i pitty anyone that might get a glimpse of that before i can turn the high beams off! although, i do feel safer driving on dark roads since i can see so much better.

 
Rep Power: 325

good work on the retro..hope to do one someday here. i gotta get my car outta the shop though

 
Rep Power: 352

they're not adjustable, are theY? meaning you can adjust them anymore once they're sealed up? i didnt see any adjustment screws.

damn, seeing this makes me wanna post mine up. hahhha

 
Rep Power: 291

i can't adjust the rotation, but i've got full up, down, left and right adjustment of the projector. there's 3 screws inside the pvc fitting that you can't see. due to all the crap behind the headlights, i can't adjust them in the car. i have to take the bumper off and remove the headlights. i've done this so many times in the last 2 weeks though that i can have the bumper off, remove the headlights, adjust them and have everything back together in 10 minutes. so yeah, i can adjust them without having to unseal them.

 
Rep Power: 812

we need pics on white wall! and pics of the lights on the car.

 
Rep Power: 352

very nice bro.

 
Rep Power: 291

still no white wall, but here's some other shots. i tried getting a shot of the flicker, but didn't really get it well. kind of got the left one, but not the right. i think i needed to stand farther over to get both or something.


here's a closeup of the low and high beams on together.


low beam only:


low and fogs:


low fogs and highs (actually before i aimed the highs up a little)

 
Rep Power: 434

Flippin' sweet retro! I wish I had more time to do another one (the right way...)

 
Rep Power: 249

**** son that is alot of light..looks good!

 
Rep Power: 251

Damn that's bright.

 
Rep Power: 291

thanks man. that means a lot coming from you considering anytime someone asked me about a retro, i'd refer them to your DIY. your DIY is how i got started, and then some help from HID Planet.

yeah, these are done. not sure i'd call them "the right way" based on how much i had to hack everything apart, but the end result is good.

i've got to reaim the headlights though. i put a trailer hitch on the car. it only weighs maybe 35-40 lbs, but since it's all the way on the back of the car, it pulled the back end down about a half inch. that combined with having about 300lbs of stuff in my car (i'm moving), i was getting flashed like crazy last night because my beam pattern was in people's eyes. i didn't realize till i was half way into a 2 hour trip because i left right before sunset. by the time i knew how bad it was, i couldn't do anything about it. now i've gotta rip the front end off again and fix them. that will have to be a project for the weekend.

and thanks to everyone else for the props!

 
Rep Power: 0

They looks very smooth, bet they turn a few heads at night. what advice would you extend if you were to do those again?

 
Rep Power: 291

thanks. looks just like a TSX at night (especially since a TSX is just an overpriced 7th gen civic). i did re-aim them and i love them now.

as far as advice, definitely buy a second set of headlights if you plan to do any retro, not just this one. the TYC's were very difficult to deal with due to the irregular housing. installing these in an OEM housing would have been easier. even if you don't have a seperate high beam like the 01-03's, these things are bright enough i have only used my high beams to flash people. i never feel the need to use them for more lighting at night. either way, take your time and do it right. don't rush. use the regular JB weld, not the quick. it takes overnight to set, but it's much stronger.

 
Rep Power: 0

hi,

i impress, just wandering much thus it cost you if you dont mind asking. i'm thinking of upgrading mine. thanks.

mikey