Ok, I was able to spend more time this weekend to get the Fog Retro 95% complete. It is mounted in the car, but I need to add vertical adjustment later(it is shimed and fixed now).

Decided to paint the reflector low gloss black.

Since the D1S bulb holder is not very well sealed, I decided to use ABS plumbing coupler for a place to dump silicone around the gaps so that it is fully sealed.

Test fit

Cut off, not happy with it. Foreground limiter isn't symetrical as you can see. Driver side bowed a little. I didn't want to spend any more time tweaking it after hours and hours of tons of cutting, fabricating, glueing, sanding, tweaking again. With the amount of modification done to the projector, I was OK (not happy) but OK with the cut off...I know..could be better.

Close up

The back of the housing and how it sits in the mounting bracket. Very tight fit.


Lens back on and siliconed.

Mounted and done.


I really can't stand the AE Ebay Headlights. Looks pretty good, but the output is dim, spotty, and just plain ugly.

 

Those fogs came out great! Not perfect but good enough for fogs. Keep up the good work.

 

Half way down the process of completing the project, I realized that the projector was just too big for the fog housing, but I hate to waste it and didn't want to spend any more money buying smaller projector like Matchbox or Mini. Matchbox should be perfect fit in there, even Mini should be much more do-able.
Second from the right is the Valeo D1S, compared to Mini is bigger and longer.


If I would do this over again, I'd use Ford Fusion Fogs since they can be mounted outside stand alone makes it easier for any weather proofing.

 

I did the mini but I cut away a little at the bumper behind the fog area. Well done, sharp/perfect cutoff isn't necessary for fogs anyway. I've used the matchboxes but I really don't think they're that wonderful. I wouldn't have limited the foreground personally, I like seeing the light fall right in front of the car and all over without the empty spot right in front.

 

So do I. This is why I like the FX35's over the FX-R's. Their foregrounds are so limited.

 

Test fit for both projectors. RX330 High beam, E46 Bi-X Low Beam. I'm going to have to lower the shield on E46 about 1-1.5mm to expose more light to improve the low beam intensity. The thing that I love about the E46 is the high beam, it is comparable to E55 and TL. lots of intensity right down center. I think with custom shield, it should also bring up the color and improve sharpness of the cutoff.

Reflector housing is completely mangled, what you see is what is left in there. All adjustment are still intact and I'm planning to use it. Contemplating to get FX-R but I think It'll be enough. I also like the look of the 3" lens.



I like the way the projector sit now. It doesn't look like "fish eye".



It's going to be difficult to figure out how I'm going to mount the projectors permanently on the reflector housing, aiming is going to be a nightmare, not too mention sealing the back which have been cut to clear the projectors and high beam selenoid. I might replace the stock E46 high beam selenoid with smaller selenoid to reduce amount of cutting.

 

This is amazing

 

Get some ZKW-R clear lenses for those E46's if you really insist on using those for your low beams.

 

Yes, I already have them. They are not installed yet. I'm in the process of making curve shield for it. I was in a friend E46 bimmer few nights ago and I like what I saw. They are not as sharp as FX, RX, or TL but beam patter is very uniform and distance lighting is better than RX I believe. Searched few threads on the HIDPlanet and few people were able to bring this old E46 Bi-X alive by custome shield, clear lens, and adjusting the shield all the way back.

 

Hm, I'm interested to see how they turn out with all those modifications. They might turn out to be pretty decent! Good luck.

50-55W ballasts would be nice in there

 

Ok, Bulbs, ballast, distance (35' or so), ambient lighting, camera setup are all the same. The only different is Custom Vs Stock.

OEM shield.

Custom Shield


More uniform beam pattern IMO. Sharper cut off thru out. The blue band is a little thick for my taste but pretty uniform across the width. In the middle is purple and yellow band, pretty cool. This reminds me of my old FX35

 

Much better! They don't even look like E46's anymore. I now approve of them. Good job.

 

Oh well you know once chris approves that's like all that matters...



:eek5:

 

Thanks guys,

Selenoid sticking out the bottom of the housing isn't an issue anymore, so I don't need to cut the back fo the housing since I replace the stock selenoid to smaller ones.

 

We're not friends anymore

 

 

OMFG..... (wipes the drool from his chin).... that is awesome!! I just picked up an absolutely mint pair or tsx projectors for a hundred bucks and am hopefully going to install them when my shrouds get here, just ordered them from TRS, exact ones you have in the low spot... working on getting bix's for the high spot, but I just cant wait.... reading your posts, and progress makes me all wet and happy!!

 

Another set back, a little frustrated. I was in the middle of beam allignment when I rotated the projector with too much force and snap the left/right adjsutment mounting bracket. Beam allignemnt was very tough to get it right, had to fabricated difiicult mouting brackets since there is no flat surface. .

Picture showed I'm holding the left/right adjustment screw bracket that was snapped.



Picture showed high beam back housing which is pretty much cut open since I needed to mount the RX deep. You can see that the bottom of the low beam back housing is cut also to accomodate E46 Bi-X selenoid.





Lesson learned so far:
1. Unless you are OK with the projector sticking out the reflector, your projector choice is very limited to be able to mount it deep, especially with projectors that have wide mounting flange. The deeper you try to mount it, the more interference you will have with left/right adjustment screw and brakcet. For those of you trying to attemp the same, my suggestion, Mini D2S/H1, these projector are skinny enough to miss the adjustment screw while being short enough that you can mount it deep.
2. Finding straight line that is horizontal/level to the ground is tough.
3. Shrouds choice is difficult, I've gone 3 different choices on shrouds, wasted about $40 worth of Shrouds now. Since the reflector bowl is shallow and it is about 3.3" in diameter. There is flat at top which means that you will need to cut the shroud. I'm starting to entertain the Vacuum Forming shroud, but short of fund at this moment.
4. If you cut the reflector and there are not enough meat anymore especially around the ball socket joint for up and down adjustment, it is very hard to install/un-install the reflector to the housing. In order to snap in/out the ball socket joint, you need a little force and if there is no are to push without breaking it then you'll be pissed realy quick.
5. For those of you who think the old E46 Bi-X is not good, think again, with a little mod, it can be very colorfull with increase sharpness and width. For the performance alone, I'd pick modded E46 Bi-X anyday over Mini D2S/H1. Not as fancy as FX-R but it's half the price already with clear lens. These projectors are cheap nowaday, I got mine at EBAY for $45 shipped. Can't beat TL though.

So, after 1 week of trying, I was so close to make it work last night. Both high and low beam were in the same spot, height adjustment looked good, cut off was level and AWESOME. I wish I took the picture of E46 cut off overlapping the RX330's, it was beautiful. The RX produced deep purple and orange/yellow and the E46 produced thick blue......untill I try to tweak it just a little bit more to get perfection and I snap my alignment bracket. Without this, the reflector will be too wobbly and you can't adjust left/right, which is a no go for me.

I think I'm going to re-group and see if I can salvage it. This 5.5 gen headlight isn't a cake walk to do retro correctly. 5th gen headlight is soo much easier to work with since you have plenty of room to place and mount your projector. Based on what I've seen, it is do-able to mount even the TL in the 5th gen housing. I just like the RX330 so much. I could make RX330 to have Bi-X capability but the high beam sucks.

 

How does mini h1s or mini d2s in the high and low beam sound. Easily possible yeah? Since yours isnt working out I'm thinking to change my plans around. Was hoping to do mini h1 high beam, fxr 2.0 low beam. Quad h1 sounding better now.

 

Easy..not as easy as Matchbox, but it should the same difficulty as your Mini Fog or easier. FX-R...hmm not confident at all, unless you are OK with projector sticking out. FX-R has wide flange, so the chance is that you'll running the same problem I have. The selnoid is sticking down also, you might loose your vertical adjustment. Go with Mini please before you run into nightmares....

 

Yeah I prefer to play it safe. Just got my minih1 in the mail today. Gonna take out the matchbox and put them in the high beam.

 

Let me know how it goes......

 

So, you were trying to flush mount it, is that why you had to make the hole soooo big????

 

Exactly. The low beam hole was soo big because originally I wanted to put RX330 in there, but after few days trying to make it sit flush, I gave up and move it to the high beam spot, as a result I have big stinking hole for the E46 projector.

 

Ok, I also finished the shield building and while at it, I replaced the OEM selenoid with Mini selenoid. Made the projector way more compact. It looked like MIni with 3" lens, I wonder what happend it I put 3" lens in the real Mini. See those washers at the bottom lens holder mounting? I had to that to bring up the purple and sharpened the middle cut off section. I was trying to move the shield closer to bulb to gain sharper cut off but was unsuccesfull. I also ended up using curve shield, I don't know it looked like it helped the sharpend the cut off a little plus I already have a bunch of them built for my RXs.



Here is 35W Matsu with 851122+(30F)


Here is 50W Mori with 5000K Mori Bulb. Really like it. The projector handled it pretty well I think.



Both projectors

 

NICE!

 

[moved to proper thread]

 

Pictures would be much better. So that we know exactly what you are trying to do and give better directions.

No offense to you but this thread is to log my build process. You could post this question in "post your HID question here" thread. It would be better this way for you and everyone else so that information don't get mixed up

 

Sorry, didn't mean to thread-jack - I moved it over.

 

Great progress man, sorry to hear about the adjuster set-back. I wish we could squeeze a decent projector in there and run duals without having them bug-eyed.

 

Thanks,

I'll let the project sit while I'm hunting for a better projector to fit in there. I still want RX330 in the high beam and I'll find something smaller to fit in the low beam. I'm going to need a new reflector since fixing the adjuster is really not worth it.

In the mean time while I wait for a good deal on the reflector only, I decided to retro the current AE headlights with E46 that I've been tweaking for the past week or so.

The E46 Bi-X has Mini Selenoid, custom curved shield, and ZKW-R lens. Why use the Mini Selenoid, because it makes the projector more compact (less height) thus less cutting on the floor bottom.



So much easier to fit this in the 00-01 housing.





Both projectors on


The passenger side projector is pretty much mounted and adjusted to nominal in the reflector. Tomorrow will put it in the car to finalize the aiming and tighten all bolts and nuts, cut the shroud, mount the CCFL, and close it back up. Hope to be done with both projector moutned in the car by Saturday.

I was going to make the RX330 Bi-X but with there are tons of material to remove in the lens holder to place the selenoid I decided to leave it alone and use E46 Bi-X instead. I really like the E46 Bi-X, they have very well beam pattern and it shoots out at distance. The curve shield helps to sharpen the cut off and gain extra width plus I'm not a big fan of slope shield.

 

These cars look so good. Wish I could customize mine, but not a mechanic.

 

CCFL is mounted. Tried out with fake carbon fiber vinyl. I know it's fake, but for the look, it's not bad for $25.

What do you guys think? I really like the contrast betwen the CF and chrome. I might also paint it matte black in some area then wrap it wit vinyl CF.

I gotta get this car done before monday, otherwise I won't be able to go to work.

 

Wow, that looks really good!!! Which is a surprise, but i would have to see it with the lens on too. So I guess you"ve put away the other ones for now eh... that blows!! I was really hoping to see it all buttoned up and on the car so I can gauge what it looks like (and what mine "might" look like) .... But Trust me I have this thread subscribed so I am looking forward to all of your accomplishments... Also keeping an eye out for a partially wrecked headlight just for the part that you broke!!

***** Edit***** Also wondering how your mounting the projectors into the low beam position... with Epoxy, or the JNC method with the brackets and tabs???

 

I used brackets or when possible JNC style no epoxy, maybe a little silicone to dampen vibration.

Still waitin for good donor, the old one was pretty much gone

 

The CF vinyl looks good. Have you ever thought about painting the stock halogen reflectors maybe flat black?

 

Cool idea with the CF, but I fear it's gonna melt. What colour is your car anyways?

 

CF looks great to me.

 

I think that would look better. To be honest, the shroud is t0o big IMO, it sticks out a little more than I want to, but It was a choice between using OEM dust boot or custom boot which I'm at in the mood of doing. Oh well, I'll probably open it again in the future.

 

I thought about it that too, but the only way I know for sure is to try it. I will keep you guys updated though. I also ran 50W on Mori 5K bulbs, so it's a little hotter than usual 85122+. We'll see.