STI-R Clear lens & shield upgrade
 

I got the STI-R clear lenses yest. And I finished the lens swap this afternoon. I started at 6am all the way until 5:30pm. Loooong day. A lot of testing and adjusting to get the right cutoff and obtail that nice blue color band.
I still have to aim the projectors and take some more pictures, unfortunately it started raining
so I fell behind. Here are some pics of the clear lens installed.


Here is the Frosted OEM lens vs the STI-R clear lens.
http://imageshack.us/a/img820/526/uap6.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img547/2969/jk9r.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img62/3870/mt8m.jpg


new shield I made with the step cutoff
http://imageshack.us/a/img708/6753/2qbd.jpg

More pics coming soon....8)

MY MAN!!!!!!

So, what were you doing to adjust the cutoff and get the nice color flicker? Were you adding washers under the posts and stuff like that?

BTW, this is going to need to be stickied ASAP as soon as you provide more pics and details of your install.

LoL nope. I did not use washers, just the lens swap. The shield needs to be very precise and centered correctly to get that cutoff. It took me a while to get it right but I finally got some satisfying results after 4-5 hours. I suggest you get a used car battery with enough juice. I was using my 12v Battery from a drill gun I have and it kept draining on me very quick so this took a lot of time away from me, plus the rain.
Btw these are still the stock halogen projectors

That's a good idea with getting a decent 12v source to do some test runs. Honestly though, I should not have to do much adjusting because I had TRS tune the projectors prior to shipment. Hopefully they'll be as plug and play as possible.

Seriously though...that looks like an awesome cutoff! Night and day from our factory cutoff!

Nice work!

Looking good! Clear lens makes a big difference in output intensity and focus. Did you crate a curved shield or just flat? Also you should drop the shield down lower by 1-2mm to expose more intensity or more of the HID bulb. Also make sure when you tweak things like this to always adjust with the same bulb in each projector, if you swap bulbs after you adjust it might look bad. All bulbs aren't exactly alike, alignment is so critical with projectors and bulbs. One more thing when you install the projectors back in the headlight make to test them back on the car before sealing them up. If you leave the screws a little loose you will a very little rotation at the projector so I suggest you align both projectors using the slight wiggle room so the perfect. Then tighten them down and check again.

This is true about all bulbs not being alike. I used cheap ebay bulbs to test the cutoff and it was horrible. Then I used morimotos and the cutoff became sharp and straight. Its been raining a lot here so I haven't had a chance to get night pictures. Hoping on doing so tonight if it clears up

Do you have them sealed back up and on your car yet?

Yes its clearing up so pics will bd taken tonight.

Waaaaiiiittttinnnngggg lol.

I'm all juiced for my project tomorrow. Doesn't the mounting pattern look like deja vu? :D

Attachment 26159

Looks like those wil fit easly. They do look wider tho, and you will need to come up with a way to seal the back of the projector where the bulb goes because you currently have a small rubber ring.
I know you will get great results out of these. I wish you lived in my city so I can help you on this project.

Yeah, they are slightly wider from looking at Will's Camry to RX350 comparison shots. Shouldn't be an issue though. And I did grab some 100mm rear rubber plugs from TRS along with my shipment. I didn't want to hijack your thread though...I'm just anxious for your pics.

Alright so here are the pics. I have to say, I got the most juice out of these halogen projectos. I learned 2 things doing this project.
1. The projector reflector bowl plays a big role in light output in both distance and width. True HID projectors are wider and focus the light better at a distance.
2. Getting a clean cutoff is quite difficult to accomplish. The shield must be centered correctly and it needs to be made out of solid material that wont bend easily, Aluminum flashing did not work very well for me since I did not use a curved shield.
Thanks DigitalPro for all the information you provided me with. I will start looking into retrofiting a second set of headlights with True HID projectors.

here is the old cutoff with no blue and the oem shield
http://imageshack.us/a/img199/4564/wyh1.jpg

Frosted lens with aluminum flashing added over the OEM shield
https://imageshack.us/a/img833/5755/wxbg.jpg

here is the new cutoff with the straight shield
http://imageshack.us/a/img853/4011/uu0p.jpg

Light output form far
http://imageshack.us/a/img841/6817/ck14.jpg

beam pattern on the pavement
http://imageshack.us/a/img823/1246/mx25.jpg

close to the wall about 5 feet away
http://imageshack.us/a/img713/3430/7vt6.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img809/7084/3ccg.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img62/2610/ljc6.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img826/2407/31ga.jpg

I'm not a fan of the steps you put in the cutoff. I see no beneficial lighting reasons to do that. It isn't a big enough step down to help with lighting and because its so small it more looks like a mistake with rotation or alignment. It doesn't look intentional. Sorry for hate but just my opinion.


Good job though on opening them and getting them aligned and mounted and all that. Most people can't even do the basics. If you havent done it before or have practice is can be very hard and frustrating.

I also will say that i have retrofitted headlights made by Digitalpro and they are the best lights with the most clean, pure and immense lighting i have ever seen. I would take all of his advice. I've run 4 different sets of projectors with a bunch of bulbs and ballasts and nothing compares to a modified HID projector. Good choice.

Wow, I missed all of these posts over the weekend!!

Killer, looking good!! You need to raise the height of the drivers side headlight just a little bit, just enough so you don't see the passenger step, the two should blend together. About the flat shields, Step height and center positioning is critical so when the headlights are back on the car it shine correctly in the road lane. I think the step with the contrast of intense light to total darkness above the cutoff is pretty distracting, but that's the DOT standard to provide more light to the right hand side of the road. I really like the Camry/RX350 projectors when I modded some 2 years ago, the beam pattern is pretty nice!! When you ready to retrofit your second set of headlights send me those projectors to have a custom curved shield installed!! Curved shields will give a sharp cutoff all the way across the cutoff line not just the center.
http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6b6ebd8c.jpg