So I went ahead joined the club and decided to retrofit my TL with TSX projectors.

Costs:

Used Headlights - $75
TSX projectors - $80
5000k D2S Bulbs - $60

Total: $215

I just baked the headlights, took it all apart and painted pretty much everything black except the turn signals and highbeam. The Dremel was the primary tool I used to cut and to drill the holes. I didn't do a shroud because I just didnt' wanna do a coke can or cheap plastic, although it might have looked better, maybe I was just too lazy to do one. Besides, the main idea of the retrofit is to get better light output and have a nice blue/purple cut off line and to keep the light out of other driver's eye.

During the installation I went ahead and did a#8 washer color mod. I put 2 #8 washers in each of the bottom pins... results.... a sharper bluer/purpler cuttoff line. The whole process took me a whole sunday from 10 - 7 with about 5 hours actually touching the project. Other time used to eat/drink/spend time with the girl.

here are the pics... enjoy and comments please!

 

wow that's freakin beautiful. I might do this as a cheaper alternative.

 

Looks nice but I think you shouldve left the shroud chrome instead of black

 

? I don't understand... what shroud are you talking about? you mean the chrome piece right behind the housing lens in front of the reflectors? if that's what you're refering to then yeah, I was contemplating about the same thing whether I should leave it chrome or paint it black. So I just went for it while i was at it.. now i wonder what it'll look like =]

 

holy crap dude...that shit looks hot!!! Came out awesome!!! Did you have to aim them before or after putting them back together?

 

I preaimed them before i put the lens back on. and then i did the final adjustments with the headlight bolt to raise it up more.

 

Sweet

 

I'm talkin about the piece around the projector should be chrome for the contrast

 

ok, i see what you mean, the chrome piece that comes with the TSX projectors are still chrome. It's just there to hold in the lens. I simply took that and the lens off to spray the rest of the body black, and then i put the lens and the chrome piece back on. So yes, you are right, it does look better kept chrome and that's how i left it.

 

hot damn that's good stuff for 225 clams

 

what do you mean by the #8 washers? Where did you put them and how did they sharpen the cutoff line? I do like the cutoff btw...very clean and straight...and I like the TSX's blue/violet ban across the top!

 

good shit. welcome to the retro fit club. Not sure what it is, but the alignment is a tad off. you can see it from the pic above.. Other than that, looks great though. TSX projectors were the first projectors I used also.

 

To color mod the TSX project, you use a #8 washer to put in between the the reflector bowl and the lense part. there's two nipples on the reflector bowl where the top lense sits on. That's where you put a #8 washer. Pretty much, it spaces the lense further away from the reflector bowl and makes more color.

 

thanks

 

good stuff...i put my projector mod on hold for a minute...i broke my dremel so i need to get a new one...looks gr8 tho!

 

yeah, you got those projectors for a great price. i purchased my TSX for 120..

 

it was a steal. no way i could pass that up. I got a hell of a deal on the headlights as well.

 

you gotta do it man. I upgraded to the S2000 projectors. It's TIGHT

 

lights look sweet

 

Nice, you should of got some bezels for them though.

 

ah..i sees...good writeup...so if u do not put a washer there, is it more yellow? and if you space them out more, you get more blue?

and here's a dumb question, which part exactly is the bezel? I'm lookin on ebay for some tsx projectors now...do they all come with bezels or do i have to buy separately? and are they necessary for aiming or clarity?

 

it's fine if you dont put a washer there. You still get that cool blue cutoff in the stock form. If you space it out too much, you loose output and your cutoff line will become blurry. Just mess around with it. Experts will say that color modding with decrease your output. Not by a lot, but it will decrease output. So people would say to keep it in the stock form. But there's people who like some color, so to each it's own.

A bezel is used to cover up all the ugly shit you dont want people to see. Like screws and shit. You can use bezels from cars that have it stock, or you can make your own. Something like this.

W/o bezel/shroud



W/ bezel/ shroud



Much better ehh?

I also made a shroud for my friend's S2000 Projectors in an E46

 

Good work! IMO, the smaller headlight in the 99-01 TL lends itself better to retrofits, looks-wise.

 

 

I did leave the chrome piece aound the projector chrome... look at the pictures again. i only painted the body of the projectors black, but left the piece around the lens chrome... or am i misunderstanding again...?

 

You see how the high beams are chrome everywhere you should have the same around the projector......you get what I'm sayin ?

 

did u make that last shroud urself? or did u modify one to fit?

 

oh i see. hmm, never thought of that. I might try something like that on the next one. only reason why i painted the whole thing black is because it conceals the construction of the retrofit. can't see my screws and stuff huh?

 

^^^ I made it myself

 

I sees...it does look a lil beter...although blueyece's are hidden pretty well with all the black...

amgala, I agree, i think the smaller headlights look pretty good with projectors, but volly illusionz and taliza's look pretty good dark with bezel/shroud...

btw, that's an awesome job u did with the e46 lights..how did you make your own bezel? what is it made of?

I also may be winning a bid for tsx projectors...although there are 2 bids for one projector each for way cheaper, one tsx and one s2k..are they different enough that I would want to get a matching pair? or are they similar enough that i should jumo on the separate deals? it would be 200 for the tsx, but 90 total for the tsx/s2k if i buy them separately...

 

Yea, Blueyece's are hidden very well. I would recommend a shroud though.

For the E46 Custom shroud, I bought a light hanging from Ikea and cut it to fit. It's made from some metal. Then got a coffee mug and took the lid off and used it as the tip. Cool huh?

Your prices are confusing me. Send me a pm..

 

yea thats pretty damn cool...u always come up with the cool ass homemade shrouds lol

 

haha. yeah. it works. Plus the original E46 Shroud goes for above 100 bucks now adays and is hard to get a hold of.

 

go with the matching set. don't do one tsx and one sk2, it'll be wierd, and you can find a better price than 200.

 

looks good.

 

Nice work

I think they are supposed to be like that. The driver's side is a little lower to not blind oncoming drivers.

 

Awesome picture man. Wish I could try something like that w/o breaking shit..lol

 

Not really. It's not supposed to be like that. The two bottom cutoff lines are supposed to be lined up to each other. Some people like to leave the driver side a bit lower, but it makes two cutoff not line up. There's a reason why there's a step on the cutoff, and the reason why the step starts from the middle and goes up is so that it can light up the street signs. While on the left side, light isn't aiming up to blind oncoming drivers.

If you look at all stock hid projectors from the factory, the bottom line of the cutoff are aligned. Ask the experts and they'll tell you the driver side is either too low, or the passenger side is too high.

it's supposed to be like this... the bottom of the passenger cutoff lines up to the bottom of the driver side cutoff

 

That's exactly what I was thinking.

 

Very nice work