Thread: retro fit

Originally Posted by BoostJunki3

hell yeah projectors sold pending payment and copped a free set of black housing headlights.....soon to be installed.....morimoto retrofits with graphite shrouds and morimoto 3five balasts and bulbs....

should i go 5k or 6k? my switch backs are rated at 6k....so im thinking 6

You're wasting $150 dollars, what do you need morimoto 35 watt ballasts or $50 morimoto H1 bulbs for?

Little hint DDM $30 bucks 5000k you will see no difference in color or output. Morimoto ballasts are $135 and the bulbs $50, just seems silly. DDM's ballast have lifetime warranty. Morimoto's don't!

Originally Posted by BoostJunki3

i thought light quality is determined by the quality of bulbs n ballasts?

A ballast is a ballast, it ignites the bulb or not. You may see better light output from say a phillips 85122+ bulbs but I really don't justify it by spending that much on bulbs. 5000k from ddm is pure white and imo the best, not a fan of yellow or blue in my lights. You could buy 4,5,6 pair of H1 bulbs from DDM for what some of the high dollar bulbs cost.

Back to ballasts, the Morimoto's may indeed be better probably why they cost so much. However it doesn't really matter because if something happens to the ballast out of warranty your stuck buying another. DDM will ship you a new ballast for the life of the kit. They all do the same thing you will see no difference in light output from a DDM 35 what ballast and 3five Morimoto ballast.

Light output and quality really is directly related to the projector or the lense itself. Morimoto is a clear lense projector, hence the killer output and sharp and wide beam pattern. My experiences with ebay projectors which is minimal is that they're somewhat not as efficient because of a fresnal lense. Morimoto's and FX-R projectors bar none are the best projectors you can buy for the money. It's just food for thought, you can spend your money however you'd like. However I see it as wasting money that you can use for something else.

Originally Posted by 4THGENCAMAROFAN

thats some good info clean but i have a question....while the expensive bulbs cost more do they last longer than say a DDM kit? or is there not really a difference in the life of the bulb.

Industry standard is somewhere around 3000hrs I do believe. So if you're in your car say 2 hours a day your looking at 4-5 years on a set of bulbs. There's other things that can contribute to shortening the life of your HID bulbs but they last just as long if not longer than halogen bulbs and what's really mucked up is they're $15 for a set compared to $40-50 for a set of silverstars. Kind of a no brainer really.

Originally Posted by Tommyp2010

Looks nice! How did you mount them?

who me?

Originally Posted by 4THGENCAMAROFAN

ive always thought about that too. an entire hid kit is cheaper and brighter than silverstars, even ultras. exactly a no brainer lol

I have I buddy that swears to Silverstars and Ultra bulbs. Once I did the morimoto retrofit he couldn't argue the point anymore. He has a Saturn Outlook suv that comes with halogen projectors. I've told him a 1000 times to put an hid kit in it. He's so old fashioned, like stuck in the 70's with his beliefs it makes me sick. My HID fogs are brighter than his Silverstars and foglights put together.

My wife's civic has a 9004 kit, just hid kit though. No projectors in that, it would be kind of gay to be rolling around in a base civic with projectors hahaha. I will never in my life buy halogen bulbs or drive a car with halogen bulbs again. I've said it 100 times and I'll say it again, once you hit a deer at 60+mph you'll change your tune on halogen headlights. It almost spun my gtp around when I hit it, quite scary!!!!

I'm about to swap out my chrome housed morimoto retrofit for the all black housings I'm almost done with. If I wouldn't have stripped a lock nut on one of the projectors I'd been done by now. Resealing the lenses is kind of a pain also because the lense on black housed oem style lights has all kinds of gaps from the factory in it. I seal it using black silicone however I hit it up with some clear silicone on the outside edge to insure no moisture getting in. The gaps in the corner lights of black oem styles are even worse than the headlights capsules.

It's really not even worth it to do retro's for people because everyone complains about the labor rate. There's way to much stuff to do to offer anything less than $250 to do a set. It's really not that fun, there's always a setback, hence the 2 or 3 times I've had to repaint the housings because of scratching them trying to cut and fit the shrouds. I covered the top and bottom of the projector housing with some aluminum foil tape to keep any unwanted "Ugly" light from escaping the projector into the headlight housing. If you don't where you cut the shrouds to fit you'll have light escaping instead of all the light being projected like it should. Hope this all makes a little sense if you're trying to do a set yourself.

Originally Posted by Odi

^^

whoever complains about labor rates never attempted a retro fit. people who know how much work it takes will gladly pay 250 for a retrofit u ask. just my

Well the way TRS markets their morimotos makes it sound like you just hack off the back of the headlight and lock it down. Although that would be great that's not even 1/10 of the bs you have to go through. The funny thing is the people complaining about how much money it takes to do a set are the same people that will buy 2-3 sets of headlights trying to do a retro and then break down and buy spyders or pay someone to do them right. The 1st time you do a retro I will guarantee you that you'll be unhappy with your work. It took me a good 3 or 4 sets to really get it down to where they're acceptable imo. If you complete your 1st set and they're perfect you can consider yourself a professional.

Originally Posted by SilvaMan61

^^^ well that's somewhat discouraging

Why do you say that?

I'm just saying take extra caution and time if you're going to try and complete a set on your only set of lights. It's possible for them to turn out good but even more possible for them to turn out completely full of fail. It would be wise to order 2 pair of shrouds also upon starting your retro so you're not stuck sitting there for another week if you mess 1 up. I've messed up my fair of shrouds. I have a template now that I use, helps a lot. You can mark them outside of the housing before you dremel them but the angles and cuts change as you finally get them to fit inside of the housing.

Originally Posted by BoostJunki3

lol im in the business to prove you wrong my sets gonna be *****in

After 78 private messages asking how to do them I'd hope so....