HID Retrofit Completed Pics

[live4swell]

I figured I would just start a new thread for the final pics of my HID Retro...here they are...I presently do not have any shots at night because it started to rain..I will try to get some...from past experience I could never capture a good picture at night with my camera though so we shall see. If anyone wants any more specific pics let me know...

 

[TranceKrayz]

nice job brian! they look straight enough. what did you make the shrouds out of?

 

[krosno3]

This looks great !!!... I wish I could do something like that.. It looks so clean and stock...... I would love to have these in my 4R. I wonder why did You paint inside of the headlight with black.....Was it to match that place where You mounted projectors?

 

[live4swell]

nice job brian! they look straight enough. what did you make the shrouds out of?

Thanks for the compliment...The shrouds are actually stainless steel dog bowls...i went to petco and picked them up...they turned out looking nice.

 

[live4swell]

This looks great !!!... I wish I could do something like that.. It looks so clean and stock...... I would love to have these in my 4R. I wonder why did You paint inside of the headlight with black.....Was it to much that place where You mounted projectors?

Thanks....I painted some of the inside of the headlight black to reduce any stray light...the first time i did it i saw light bouncing off all the chrome plastic so I wanted to prevent that as best as I could and that pretty much did it. I guess with the black in there it looks more like the JDM headlights...but there was a reason why I did it.

 

[Mark86]

Great job on the HID's there Brian!! I couldn't wait to see some pictures of the finished project. Just a quick question, are those Xenon bulbs you put in or are they like the lights on the GX470? Also, do you see a big difference with the new lights when driving at night? I wish they shipped the 4Runner with those kind of lights.

 

[scslite]

Impressive! Is there a DIY for this project posted?

 

[live4swell]

Great job on the HID's there Brian!! I couldn't wait to see some pictures of the finished project. Just a quick question, are those Xenon bulbs you put in or are they like the lights on the GX470? Also, do you see a big difference with the new lights when driving at night? I wish they shipped the 4Runner with those kind of lights.

Thank you....they are Xenon ( Philips D2S Bulbs, 4300K) There is a big difference at night in my opinion, these light up the whole road and its definitely a brighter light. Distance is about the same because I was really careful about how high these were aiming, I didnt want to blind anybody so they may be lower than they should be but the distance is pretty much the same but between your truck and that endpoint is night and day, they are definitely a nice stock feature if available.

 

[tkr128]

Those look awesome! Makes your 4Runner look mean.

I'm sure you mentioned this somewhere else, but what projectors did you use? I'm been eyeing the Valeo ones for when I do my retrofit (if I ever get around to doing it).

 

[live4swell]

Impressive! Is there a DIY for this project posted?

I havent posted anything...The writeups that helped me at the beginning and gave me guidelines I got from Vortec4800 since he was the first to do this on the 4th Generation. If anyone needs any more info let me know. The only part I do not have a writeup on or anything on is aligning the projector in the housing correctly...this was tedious and basically was trial and error until the end where i mounted it with the lights on so I could see how they were projecting but that was not the easiest phase. But I can help as much as I can

 

[live4swell]

Those look awesome! Makes your 4Runner look mean.

I'm sure you mentioned this somewhere else, but what projectors did you use? I'm been eyeing the Valeo ones for when I do my retrofit (if I ever get around to doing it).

Thanks for the compliment, yeah they look like beady eyes...lol. The projectors I am using are from a Acura TSX which I would recommend because they are real compact and easy to manipulate and the output is really close to that of a Honda S2000 which is the best I have ever seen as far as HID goes.

 

[crossfire]

great job on the install. very clean. in the ball park, what did you spend start to finish on the conversion?

 

[live4swell]

Here is a ballpark:

2 Acura TSX Projectors - $200
2 T4R Headlights - $170
2 Philips D2S Bulbs - $60
2 Denso Ballasts - $200

That is basically it give or take some for other supplies...

So I would say around $650...A little expensive in comparison to plug and play systems but I was not content with those HID setups so I did the full conversion. Plus this is very unique and I love the look of the projectors.

 

[crossfire]

i don't think that's too bad considering what you get. and how much time do you think it took you to finish?

 

[live4swell]

Thats hard to say because I worked on it at my leisure then the winter came so I had to stop since I couldnt really go outside to mock things up and see how they would align...If I were to just work on it each day after work and weekends, it could have been done in 2 weeks. I just took things slow.