today i took the bumper off took the headlights out and baked them and removed the squirell finders and heated them back up and put everything back together. No problems as of yet :-) it was time consuming but not really hard you definetly need someone to help get the lights apart and together though. It took me around 4 hours for everything and it was the first time. i was thinking about painting the inside black but dediced not to. So for all of you wanting to do this it isnt that hard. just bake them for 15 min at 225 and they come apart pretty easy. BTW i am a member of mazda3forums and picked up my apexcone HIDs for 123.88 shipped and most of the people use this kit on that forum and are very happy. you can get pretty much any bulb. if you want a lifetime waranty on the whole kit its an extra 25 bucks and you can get the 55w watt kit for 20 more.

Chris

 

Props to you for removing the squirrel finders. I think that's a must do for those running a drop-in kit. Still not perfect but it'll get rid of a lot of the light up high.

You're right about getting the lights apart. Although I did all my stuff by myself. Ours use the black glue stuff which is a lot stronger than the gray glue that a lot of headlights have. I took apart two Lexus RX330 headlights for the projectors, they use the gray stuff. It's a lot easier to pull apart, but way way more stringy and three times a sticky. I'd take the black glue over the gray any day. I did mine at 250 degrees for 10 minutes.

 

pics?

 

Do you have to do all that crap for the MobileHIDs?

 

No you don't have do any of that. To hook up a plug and play kit all you have to do is take your bulbs out and plug the harness and ballasts up. Doing this will just help reduce glare.

 

Oh ok good. That sounds like a pain in the ___.

 

whats a squirrel finder if you don't mind me asking?

 

On the cut-off shield there is a plate that sticks off perpendicular to the shield. It throws light up above the cut-off to light up signs and stuff. Also to find squirrels in trees I guess lol. At least that's the only reason I know they call it that.

It causes the huge bright spots above the cut-off when you use a drop-in kit. PM posted pics of before and after removing the squirrel finder.

 

w00t! glad to here your doin the mod to the stock projectors :-); i like to see things done right. im using mobileHID right now as well, only thing i don't like about it is the interference with my FM radio... it may be the ballasts which aren't manufactured like OEs.

this is the squirrel finder (already grounded off)

 

sorry i didnt take pics i was too worried at the time where all the screws went! yeah with this apexcone kit i didnt get any interference with the radio. the ballasts do make a sound when on but you cant hear it with the hood closed.

good buy for 123 and some change

chris

 

very cool guys, just a thought tho...

On my tacoma, the way to do the Black headlight mod (BHLM) was you preheat the oven to 305degrees, turn the oven OFF, then put the headlight in for 8minutes. Pull it out and you can pull the light apart to do all your painting.

I will be doing the BHLM on my new car as well as removing the "squirrel finder". My buddy always complains about how drop in HID kits look like crap with factory projectors.. guess we just found the fix huh?

-Mike

 

yea the 2g xB stock projectors have a decent cutoff for halogens...

the real retro-fits shine in terms of width, intensity, color band, and cleaner cutoff... the squirrel finder mod just removes extra lighting at certain areas, which will eventually be interpreted as glare when you get to a certain distance as an onlooker/passerby (it is a projector).

here's the difference when u do the squirrel finder removal... this is with mobileHID 5000K:

before


after squirrel finder removal


i've showed this a few times, but just to help out those not finding the right threads.

 

very nice, thanks for the comparison!

 

holy ____ i want that done to my box! nice work!!

 

And if anyone wants to get really crazy you can do a retro-fit.




But removing the squirrel finder is a great improvement for the stock projectors.

PM, have you made any progress on your retro?

 

you should show what it looked like before you cut it so it would have gave people more of a look at what it looked like before you cut it but good pics and looks like it worked good.

 

PM's pics do show the before and after. If you're refering to my pics, those aren't the stock projectors. They're the Lexus RX330 projectors I retro-fitted into the headlights.

 

Oh ok but i was talking about the squirll finder lol.

 

Ah I see. I can snap a pic tonight of the stock shield with the squirrel still in tact, unless PM has one. My stock ones are just sitting around collecting dust lol.

 

lol i was just wondering because i was going to help my bro do that to his 2nd gen