MikeInABox

Well after a few weeks of experimenting with a spare headlight and gathering everything I had time to get it done. Don't know if I'm the first, but PM is the only other person I know of working on doing a retro on a 2nd gen xB.

They're Lexus RX330 Projectors, 300zx Clear Lenses, Philips 85122+ Bulbs, Harness from MobileHID and Hella Gen 3 Replica Ballasts from The RetroFit Source.

Pics aren't great, but they get the job done.





Took these to show how wide the beam goes. The one is looking over the driver side mirror.




Close up of color on the cut-off



Above the cut-off.



Below the cut-off.



And one showing how there's absolutely nothing above the cut-off line. Notice you can't see anything above the line on the car.



It was a ton of work, but the results are worth it. I can post pics of everything I did to get it to work if anyone's interested. After how tight these fit in our headlights, I don't think you could get anything bigger than a Non-AFS RX330 Projector in there. Space is very minimum.

Big thanks to PM for getting the projectors and posting pics. That's what conviced me that they would fit. And huge thanks to my buddy John (JBGstC) for his help and advice.

DAILYXB-TYPE-R

wow that looks great, just wonder how much it cost you on parts. got a few questions

1. do i need the rx330 projector in order for the 300zx clear lens to fit?

2. can the 300zx clear lens fit the stock housing?

3. if i were to do this can i use the mobile hid kit ballast instead?

4. are theres alot of trimming to the factory xb housing in order for it to fit?

if you can, it'll be great if you can post pix of the headlight unit. thanx

lil_will

Great job! That is one of the best retro's I have seen

MikeInABox

1. No you can use many different projector and lense combos. PM is using E30 lenses in his. I just used 300zx lenses because they were for sale over on HIDPlanet. And by Clear I mean just that, they're clear. Our stock lense are fresnel lenses. If you look close at a stock one, you can see rings/ripples in it. Those make the cut-off line fuzzy. Clear lenses make the cut-off really sharp.

2. The hard part of our stock lense holder is the tabs that hold it in. It's really hard to pry them enough for the stock lense to come out, without breaking them. A 2.5" lense will fit, it's just not easy. On my rx330 lense holders, it's real easy to swap lenses.

3. You can use all the MobileHID stuff, you just have to get D2S bulbs and get the D2S adapters for your ballasts. I didn't even have a drop in kit, which is why I pieced my system together.

4. Yeah you have to cut off and grind a lot of the stock parts for it to fit. Then you have to find a way to mount the projector and allow for rotation adjustment. If you don't to that, you can't adjust them to get your cut-off lines right.

It's late, so I'll post pics of the insides and what I did tomorrow. I took pics of just about every step I did. Cost wise for parts was around $400. That doesn't include tools and adhesives. Keep in mind I didn't have a drop in kit, so I had to buy ballasts and a harness which bump up the cost more than someone using kit parts.

And for anyone considering this, I HIGHLY recommend signing up over on HIDPlanet and read read read. It's a huge knowledge base.

The only thing I would've done different is bought two new lights. It would've cut down the time by a lot if I could've had it done and just swapped lights out.

xseveredveganx

Nice!!! I'm really stoked about this! But equally bummed to know I won't be able to fit FX35's in there. Oh well. Better these than nothing!

Now if only I could find some non-afs units... AFS units are pretty abundant.

DAILYXB-TYPE-R

thanx for all the info provided MikeInABox i'll try this later.

DaBlackBox

looks sick.. props to u on the hard work

DAILYXB-TYPE-R

are these the ones PM is using and would it work

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/BMW-E...QQcmdZViewItem

xseveredveganx

Nope. I'm planning on just shelling out the $$$ for the ones at the bottom of this page:
http://www.theretrofitsource.com/Lens.html

You can also try to find some clear TSX lenses, S15 Silvia lenses, 300ZX lenses (like MikeInABox has), or even Celica lenses. There's a lot of HID options, that's for sure. I had countless nights of researching until 3am. But still no parts.

richyrich

NICE!

Boxer_Rebellion

Nice... lets see some daytime pix of the retrofit!

MikeInABox

Thanks

PM posted pics of the rx330 projector and his lenses in this post: https://www.scionlife.com/forums/vie...09854&start=40

Vegan you're right about finding the Non-AFS projectors. I actually bought two complete headlights and gutted them just for the projectors. Even finding Non-AFS headlights isn't easy. But yeah, even with how close these are in size to our stock projectors, I still had to grind a lot of the inside of the housing for it to clear.

I'll post more pics today after work. From the outside the only difference you can see is the lense on the projector is clear. Other than that you can't tell. And most people would never notice that anyways.

NoLimitzBuilt

That turned out great. I really like the way it all came together. Something not many people would do at all.

Jesse-BristolScion

looks awesome

DAILYXB-TYPE-R

thanx for the heads up. so the last one on the link will it fit our stock housing w/no problems? will maybe the only problem will be if i'm able to take the stock lens out w/o breaking anything right.

PM

holy moly no idea u posted this thread til u posted on the other thread!

congrats!

u did all the grunt work! haha. whenever you get a chance, post some pix on what u had to cut off and how u decided to mount the rx330s with a rotational adjustment... i figure i'd wait til i got the other headlight.. then that way i can do the DIY home depot halos + hid retrofit and not feel rushed... i just hated thinking i'd only have like 2 days to get stuff done without really have a true guide to doing this.

for those of u that haven't seen yet... pls check out page 4 at the top:

https://www.scionlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=209854

for those of you that do not wanna go through with the LEGIT hid retro-fit, which is rather difficult in modification... the LEAST u can do to be safer and not blind people on the road (dont u feel bad making people flip their rear view mirror???) is to cut off the squirrel finder on the stock cutoff shield. oh yea this will also draw less attention to urself should u pull behind the police.

pls check above link for pix showing these results. i have my lights aligned such that my cutoff does not even touch the rear window of a relatively low coupe/sedan (older models).

if ur painting the shroud housings (chrome part), cutoffshield mod would be best done then, and it's really easy.

*after prying glass off from oven baking (250° for 10 min)*
1. remove rubber seal from low beam
2. remove 3 screws from high beam and also that rubber seal
3. unscrew headlight adjuster bolt allll the wayyy (just keep doing it for a lil bit)
*if having problems with removing sockets... try unscrewing the headlight adjust bolt further (even if two socket joints are off the adjuster bolt is still constraining the hi-beam reflector component)
*do not lose the threaded component where the adjuster bolt threads to (it's a small black piece that sits in a compartment where the bolt goes through; it can easily get lost)
4. use a small monkey wrench to gently (dont' wanna snap anything) pry off two socket-jointed connections (they'll be white sleeves on the exposed side; u can't miss them) underneath the projector holder and hi beam housing.
5. voila, hi-beam reflector + projector holder should be out now
6. unscrew projector from this part and get to the shield
7. dremmel off the squirrel finder, and try not to scratch anything not squirrel finderish (this might result in extraneous lighting)
8. don't get dirt in places where it shouldn't
9. don't scratch ur lenses
10. put everything back and paint whatever u gotta paint or whatever u gotta do
11. rebake and put together, done.

PM

oh and btw, did u do a custom shield mod? that's another reason i held off lol... i wanted to do that one too that jvx did.

xseveredveganx

http://www.geocities.com/jvxdriver/beam_comparison.htm

Like he did in this comparison. It looks like the beam gets much wider.

user 7208230

iTrader: (1)

If anyone else is looking to do a retrofit like MikeInABox did, hit me up (PM), I have RX 330 OEM D2S bulbs/ballasts that I was going to put up on HidPlanet. Not trying to jack the thread. Nice work, would like to see a closeup of the headlight itself also. I like it...

MikeInABox

Yeah I'm just using the stock shield. From what I read it takes a whole lot of trial and error to get a custom curved shield right. And to use a custom shield I think you have to hack up the stock one a good bit. I didn't want to risk messing up the stock shield since finding Non-AFS rx330 projectors is pretty hard.

Even with the stock shield the beam is really wide. But it's nothing like my friend's TSX projectors (their stock shields are curved). His is crazy wide.

I'll post pics of all the stuff I did tomorrow. I didn't have time to upload the pics today. Makes my brain hurt to think about all the stuff I did over the weekend to get it finished.