How-To: 2008 - 2011 Halo Projectors Light Installation

[2011 SE]

For those of you that put HIDs in your projectors WITHOUT an H13 harness, did you just permanently remove the rubber weather cover or cut a hole into it to run the ballast wires through it?

Or did you do something altogether different?

[andrewsfm]

Just bend the HID wires around and out from under the rubber cap.
No need to cut anything.

I don't know what other people did but I hope nobody's rigged up the wiring on the headlights that runs from the outside to the inside because it's not insulated for the high voltage pulse sent to start the bulb, so it shouldn't be used for HIDs.

You're gonna need to splice into the H13 harness if you want highbeams on the HIDs though.

[2011 SE]

Haha...why didn't I think of that...

I'm not sure what you mean by the splicing, but I guarantee when I finally hook everything up tomorrow morning I'll find out real quick.

Also, I went out and bought some M5 nuts and washers. I brought one of the mounting bracket screws to Lowe's and found out it's an M4 x .70, so I'm hoping to test out the "fine tuning" you were saying you wanted to do. The washers are freaking tiny, so I'll be able to get the distance I want nearly down to the millimeter.

I'll be posting LOTS of pictures to add clarity (unless that's not supported in someone else's thread).

[andrewsfm]

Keep me up to date on the number of washers you use and what results you get when offsetting the bulbs back.

Do all the testing with them OFF the car and indoors running off a battery.

Some before shots would be good too to see how bad they are compared to mine at the start.

I actually got a $70 refund (his profit + the original shipping costs) from my eBay seller due to the defect in the design.

Keep in mind, I've actually got 50W HIDs in mine, so if you're using 35W the outcome may be different.

[2011 SE]

Originally Posted by andrewsfm

Do all the testing with them OFF the car and indoors running off a battery.

Hmm...that would be an issue for me. I don't have an extra car battery just sitting around. So I take it if I plug a negative wire to a positive, I'm going to blow my battery?


Suddenly I became very nervous about this

[2011 SE]

Edit: Looks like it was some solder that was on the plastic wiring. Sorry for the panic post.

[Ft_Knox_Focus]

I got mine in. A little condensation buildup(as most new lights get for the first couple of cold days they're installed on a car. Even with being careful and reading the instructions, I still got a tiny scratch from that clip on the bottom. Thanks for the write-up however, going by these chinenglish instructions that came with it, I may have gotten a bit frustrated, especially with the red connector going into the sidemarker socket. I will post pics tomorrow when the condensation is gone.

[2011 SE]

Originally Posted by andrewsfm

Keep me up to date on the number of washers you use and what results you get when offsetting the bulbs back.

Just finished and drove home from the garage I was at. I'll post pictures ASAP. Unfortunately I forgot to get a before picture, but the spacing was definitely needed. Not as dramatic as yours, but I was looking at the cutoff during the middle of the day, so it might have been just as bad.

I took at least one picture per spacing that I tested. I checked 3, 4, and 5 washers. I didn't go any higher than 5 because the beam started getting worse, and a dark spot near the center of the beam started getting larger. The pics will explain it all when I post them.

[2011 SE]

First thing to note, if you're planning on putting HID bulbs in these projectors, do yourself a favor and replace the freakin' phillips head screws. I hate those things. 90% of the time I try to remove one I end up stripping it, like I did with this one:


Once I removed the screws, the back of the bulb mounting bracket looked like this:


I then proceeded to replace those CRAPPY bolts with something much easier to work with (size M4-.70):



Now for the mounting plate gapping. I bought these washers at Lowe's. Note that they are SLIGHTLY larger than the size of the bolts:



Here are pictures of the different number of washers I placed in between the mounting bracket and the bulb housing. They aren't drastically different, but you can start to see some subtle differences with that dark spot growing larger at 5 washers:






Now here are some pictures of where I mounted the DDM Tuning 35w slim ballast using OUTDOOR STRENGTH double-sided tape and zip ties (zoom ins for the harder to see spots):





I chose to keep the gap at 3 washers, using the M4-.70 x 12 bolts. Anything longer than 12mm and it's too long and won't keep the mounting bracket tight against the bulb housing. Here are some cutoff pictures about 20-25 feet from a garage using THREE (3) washers:

[2011 SE]

I should also note that I had a HELL of a time trying to get the directionals to work. Took me about two hours. Apparently the bulb/adapter combo for the parking lights/blinker that comes with the projector has TERRIBLE contacts. I had to take a screw driver and push the contacts on the adapter farther/deeper into itself or else only the parking lights worked. It was such a PITA.

But enough of that - now for some fun before and after shots as promised!

Before:




Halfway there...


The final product (I messed with the white balance - they're actually pure white, not blue at all):