New projector lights retrofit

[duratothemax]

Originally Posted by rebpdt

Ben, do you have any pics of yours or advice for doing them?

I tried taking some pictures with my blackberry but they came out horrible, it looks like the lights are awful in the pictures. Ill have to dig up my D70 and see if I can take some better pictures. With the bi-xenon projectors on high beam and my HIR high beams (HIR, not HID), the light amount is awesome.

It was a PITA to do. Mainly because I set the projects really deep into the housings. The reason I did this is because if you do it so the projector lens is right behind the front lens, and you look at the headlight from the side, you can see the back bowl of the projector assembly. I wanted the projector shroud thing to sit flush with the back of the stock reflector. This made the projector assembly stick out of the back of the headlight significantly. I had to cut my plastic headlight mount and cut a little notch in the aluminum core support behind the headlights. I also have to take the grille off now to get the headlights in/out..but whatever, that takes an extra 2 minutes, and its still 100x easier than changing headlights in a GMT-900.

I still have to seal up the back of the headlight housing (where the projector protrudes through the back). I was going to use RTV, but I heard thats not the right stuff to use...so I guess high temp silicone or something?

Im ALMOST considering going down to a 4300k bulb (5000k in there now). With the projector, 5000k looks bluer than 5000k in stock headlight housings.

Bottom line, the headlights are awesome now. Incredible light output, the light is focused down the road (where its supposed to be, not just blasted out aimlessly), and Im not blinding people/drawing attention to myself.

BUT to be honest...to do the retrofit, its probably more work/effort than 95% of guys are going to want to do, especially considering it takes 5 minutes to throw in a plug and play kit and get the impression that the lights are "OMG AWESOME SUPER BRIGHT, DAMN EVERYONE ELSE ON THE ROAD IF I BLIND THEM!!!".

When in reality, YEAH a plug and play kit is bright, but they are fooling your eyes into thinking that you're seeing better!!! You're overloading your near field vision with this blast of unfocused (compared to a true HID projector) light, which in turn hurts your distance vision.

Why do you think GM sets up the stock headlights to turn off the low beams when you go high beam? Because the engineers wanted to devise some grand scheme to piss you guys off?? NO!!! It was because with the physics of lighting and how your eyes see at night, when you overload your near field vision (ie, low beams), your distance vision suffers. When doing all the technical calculations and engineering, GM discovered that keeping the low beams on exceeded the max allowable nearfield illumination...so they decided to turn the low beams OFF when you go high beam. Thats why the fogs turn off too!!!!

Its just the way your eyes work, even if you THINK you're seeing better, technically, you're not.

THINK ABOUT IT. Doing the "all 4 on hi" mod doesnt make the high beams any brighter!!!!! Your low beams are aimed down for near field vision, high beams are aimed up for distance vision. They dont really overlap...IE, the low beam light pattern/illuminated area doesnt really "intrude" to the area where the high beams are focused, depending on the headlight design.

When you are driving on a country road and want to see deer far ahead, how does keeping the low beams on help you see "further down the road". Its physically impossible. With bright ass HID's in the low beams and the all 4 on hi mod, your near field vision is being blasted with 2-dimensional light...regardless of what you are thinking, your eyes will always naturally focus on/be drawn to where the most light is.

So what this bright low beam/HID and all 4 on hi mod does is actually unconsciously make your eyes focus where the most light...right in front of you!!! NOT far down the road, where you SHOULD be looking (for deer and stuff, the area that your high beams are designed to light)!!!

Think about it. Your eyes can sometimes play funny tricks on you. I know its counter-intuitive, but Im not bullshitting you guys.

Ben

[Brennan]

How do you like the HIRs? I've been reading up on them but haven't pulled the trigger yet


Sent from a muddy shoe phone

[duratothemax]

Originally Posted by Brennan

How do you like the HIRs? I've been reading up on them but haven't pulled the trigger yet


Sent from a muddy shoe phone

I like them a lot, they are the perfect high-beam halogen bulb to compliment the bi-xenon HID lows. The bright WHITE light that balances out the cooler HID light very well.

And of course since they are halogen, its instant on when you flick the high beams on. I would never put an HID in the high-beams just because they take almost a minute to reach full brightness. The other reason for this, is because in rain/snow/fog, the warmer color temp of a halogen bulb seems to work much better in cutting through inclement weather.

Ive never had longevity issues with the HIR's either. Silverstars, I went through a bunch of those. Silverstars werent bad, they were whiter than stock halogens, but the life on them was crap. HIR's are brighter, white, and last much longer than silverstars.

Theres a good thread on them here:

New Philips HIR2 scrutinized

Ben

[Brennan]

When my hids finally die they may be the route I take, if I don't go with the projectors. The main reason I did the all on mod was so I could see while my high beams are warming up, I really don't like having diodes jammed in my fuse box


Sent from a muddy shoe phone

[eric-satx]

Originally Posted by duratothemax

It looks like your projectors can be aimed up higher (particularly the passenger side), in the first pic. On mine, I have no problems having the signs illuminated when on low-beam.

OK... I adjusted the leveling a bit to compensate for road crown and tilted the passenger side way up. In the end I settled on the below beam pattern. It resulted in a significant improvement!!

Here is the inside mounting

Here is the beam pattern

So.... mounting in the inside bucket is an option and very easy to do. But, certainly not as sexy as the OP or Ben's retrofit.

[NorCalTruck_com]

Finally, Ive been debating on this mod for awhile now. Time to find an extra set of Lights for the truck so I dont have any down time....

Brian

[chevyinlinesix]

THANK YOU for doing a proper projector conversion Seriously considering doing this to my GMC now, this thread is very encouraging in more ways then one. Glad to see people starting to use real projectors and HID's in the proper manner. I think buying aftermarket clear housings and modifying them will be the only successful way to do it on my GMC though

Ben, may I ask where you got your HIR's from?

[duratothemax]

Originally Posted by chevyinlinesix

THANK YOU for doing a proper projector conversion Seriously considering doing this to my GMC now, this thread is very encouraging in more ways then one. Glad to see people starting to use real projectors and HID's in the proper manner. I think buying aftermarket clear housings and modifying them will be the only successful way to do it on my GMC though

Ben, may I ask where you got your HIR's from?

HIR Headlights 9011 9012 bulbs

9011 is the equivalent of 9005 (03-07 chevy high beam)
9012 is the equivalent of 9006 (03-07 chevy low beam)

Im not sure if the 01/02 chevys or 01-07 GMC's use the same 9005/9006 bulb combo or not??

[youngbuck]

Digging up an old thread here but Ben you never posted pics of your setup when it was finished

[BlueLB7]

sub'd. Anybody have any updates on this setup as far as install or performance goes? I had just ordered a set of HID's from ddmtuning before I stumbled upon this thread. Now, I'm thinking about cancelling my order and going with this setup instead.