Projector Conversion Retrofit B7 A4

[thehofhammer]

Hey everybody!

I recently decided to retrofit projector headlights into my stock halogen housings. I'm starting this thread just for the sake of showing some pictures of the outcome/process and offering advice to anybody who is currently working on a similar/same retrofit on their B7!

I bought all parts through theretrofitsource.com, called them probably 5 times within 20 minutes as I continued to think up more questions.... They were awesome, patient, and answered everything promptly and accurately.

I decided to buy the Morimoto Mini H1 Projectors. I also bought a few sealing/gluing supplies and "iris" shrouds: http://www.theretrofitsource.com/pro...oducts_id=4548

SO FAR I HAVE:

Painted the shrouds white
Mounted them on the Projectors
Opened up donor headlights that I found locally on CL, disassembled and painted the housings black.
Mounted the projector/shroud in the housing and reassembled the housing.

Now I just need to work on the alignment of the light and get everything sealed up then swap my original headlights with the new ones!!!

Pictures (I will add several more):

[mec]

That looks awesome!, are you keeping them white?

[sa_seahawker]

creative I would be curious to see the cutoff

I'm thinking you should go black though.

[eyesolution]

post pics of your car once installed!

[shiro1745]

looks nice!

how much did this project cost ?

[Charles.waite]

Now this is the proper way to put HIDs in a halogen car. Take note all you noobs who think throwing an ebay HID kit in stock halogens is totally fine: this is the way you do it.

Just curious, why white? Are you planning on painting the shrouds?

[Godfather 2.0T]

Won't the reflector high beams still work? Or are you wiring them as bi-xenons

[Charles.waite]

Won't the reflector high beams still work? Or are you wiring them as bi-xenons

The Mini H1s are bixenon. If I were the OP I would use them as both highs and lows and then wire the halogen lows as DRLs or something.

[thehofhammer]

Hi all, sorry for the delay in reply! I will attempt to answer most of your questions here:

WHY WHITE?

---- I have painted my interior trim white and I am going to paint both my front and rear rings white, so I also have painted the shrouds white to match the theme of the car. I personally have always had a thing for white accents so that's why I painted them that color.

HOW EXPENSIVE WAS THIS?

I bought a $40 H1 HID kit of amazon.com, if you go that route make sure to read all the reviews so you don't buy a crap brand. All the parts from theretrofitsource including shrouds, projectors, butyl headlight sealer, and quick dry steel bonding products came out to $180 after tax and shipping. The donor headlights were $60 and I HIGHLY HIGHLY encourage you to buy an extra set of headlights if you do this because it WILL take longer than you think. Total for everything was $280. Not bad considering bi-xenons are upwards of $800-$1000....

HIGH BEAMS?

I will put the car back together with the high beam bulb in place but not wired up, as Charles noted the H1s are bixenon so I will be wiring them up as such.

PICTURES!?!?!?

They are coming! I promise! I'm quite busy lately between work and college finals (the work of the devil), but I am working on swapping the lights out as we speak. Bumper just came off and I thought it would be a good time to give an update!

Thanks everyone for the interest, if I can finish by tonight I will take some photos and you can all enjoy ;)

Here's my interior trim by the way:

[yagie]

Interesting. Id be down for more pics of your trim and an explanation of what exactly you did to it. Looks like a nice contrast though. I have the all black interior as well, minus the headliner if course, and I have the aluminum cross thatch looking trim. It's looking a little old and worn and I've been debating on what to do about it.

As for the bixenons being almost $1000 I thought they were cheaper but I guess I'm mistaken. That's quite a bit of savings though overall if they work out. Plus you can go ahead and black house them. Then maybe throw in some leds like Phil does ! :-)

[rongeur]

TRS (www.theretrofitsource.com) is a great company and great to work with. I am running a previous offering of their (blazer fog retrofit kit) for my fogs and their ZKW-R lens swap for our e46 projectors. I would recommend them to anyone looking for projector modifications.

@OP nice work so far, be sure to post up some nice cut off shots. I am guessing you will have better output than OEM xenons as the e46 projectors are not the greatest... (hotspots, weird cutoff shields etc)

[thehofhammer]

Interesting. Id be down for more pics of your trim and an explanation of what exactly you did to it. Looks like a nice contrast though. I have the all black interior as well, minus the headliner if course, and I have the aluminum cross thatch looking trim. It's looking a little old and worn and I've been debating on what to do about it.

As for the bixenons being almost $1000 I thought they were cheaper but I guess I'm mistaken. That's quite a bit of savings though overall if they work out. Plus you can go ahead and black house them. Then maybe throw in some leds like Phil does ! :-)

In regards to the interior trim, I went to Lowe's, bought 1 can of white plasti-dip for $5.98, read SEVERAL reviews explaining how to properly use plasti-dip, and removed my interior trim pieces/painted them all white! Brand new finish, customized to my liking, and completely removable by just rolling it off After wiping the aluminum trim down with alcohol, the plasti-dip sticks like a charm and looks/feels great.

And as for the bixenons, I know you can find them in the classifieds for $600-700 sometimes but they usually have broken clips, don't come with ballasts (very expensive), or don't come with bulbs (ALSO very expensive). You can rack up a $1000 deficit really quick. I like things that make my car personal to me So I went the cheaper and more personal route. Makes sense, right?

[thehofhammer]

TRS (www.theretrofitsource.com) is a great company and great to work with. I am running a previous offering of their (blazer fog retrofit kit) for my fogs and their ZKW-R lens swap for our e46 projectors. I would recommend them to anyone looking for projector modifications.

@OP nice work so far, be sure to post up some nice cut off shots. I am guessing you will have better output than OEM xenons as the e46 projectors are not the greatest... (hotspots, weird cutoff shields etc)

TRS is fantastic. Their customer service is spot-on and immediate. They supplied me with more parts than I needed as well as some extras for those oh s**t moments when something goes horribly wrong (thankfully none of that). They are THE only place I would recommend going through to order retrofit/lighting supplies.

Here are some process pics as well as some cutoff shots, I will continue working on the adjustment over the next couple of days but this is already pretty close to how I want the end result:









Driver's side needs a little rotation





Enjoy!

[Charles.waite]

Hmm the white reminds me of teh game Portal for some reason, haha.

Those have a great cutoff though! very nice.

[khaos443]

That's awesome! At first glance I didn't think I liked it but after looking at it a little more I like it a lot!

[thehofhammer]

Hmm the white reminds me of teh game Portal for some reason, haha.

Those have a great cutoff though! very nice.

My buddy said the same thing!! Funny that you mentioned that! They look like eyeballs to me, I'm hoping to make people look twice as I drive by

That's awesome! At first glance I didn't think I liked it but after looking at it a little more I like it a lot!

Thank you! I appreciate the encouragement! This was a huge job all things said and done and I'm glad at least some people are enjoying it/appreciate the effort I put into it.

[jsandor91]

TRS (www.theretrofitsource.com) is a great company and great to work with. I am running a previous offering of their (blazer fog retrofit kit) for my fogs and their ZKW-R lens swap for our e46 projectors. I would recommend them to anyone looking for projector modifications.

@OP nice work so far, be sure to post up some nice cut off shots. I am guessing you will have better output than OEM xenons as the e46 projectors are not the greatest... (hotspots, weird cutoff shields etc)

did you do a diy for your fogs? never saw anyone do projector fogs on our cars.

to the op this looks great! i would love to see what they would look like with red instead of white. it would look evil on a black car


this makes me really want to do this to my original halogens but i already have bi xenon's blacked out clear cornered with fly's leds. first world problems lol.

[yagie]

This looks man as hell lol. I wonder if you could do it to both of the inner bulb areas. Pop some leds at the bottom and it'd be the coolest thing since sliced bread lol. I may have to do this. I just have standard black housed halogen and they not nearly bright enough

[Adub-Drew]

not diggin' the bezels around the projector, but I give you credit for doing the retrofit!

[thehofhammer]

Thanks for the feedback everyone! Sounds like some are fans and some aren't but that's how it is with everything ;) I'm keeping it exactly the way it is at least for a while! Maybe LEDs sometime in the near future. Thanks again!

[yagie]

yeah I'm not a huge fan of how much the white stands out, but I am a big fan of the idea. Wonder how hard it would be to get the bezels hydro dipped with a graphic of some sort. could be really wicked depending on the car :)

[AKO]

Woah youre a local! Would you mind maybe helping me out sometime when i go ahead and do my retrofit? They came out great

[thehofhammer]

Woah youre a local! Would you mind maybe helping me out sometime when i go ahead and do my retrofit? They came out great

Send me a pm sometime! Let me know what your plans are and we can always go from there! I'm usually pretty busy but I can always make time somewhere in my schedule. Just let me know!

[Mister W]

TRS is fantastic. Their customer service is spot-on and immediate. They supplied me with more parts than I needed as well as some extras for those oh s**t moments when something goes horribly wrong (thankfully none of that). They are THE only place I would recommend going through to order retrofit/lighting supplies.

Here are some process pics as well as some cutoff shots, I will continue working on the adjustment over the next couple of days but this is already pretty close to how I want the end result:

Just kidding, i like your work. What is the OEM size of the projectors? (i think they are Valeo). I'm trying to look at the shroud options, cant find oem on ebay or else, the Iris look good.

[Charles.waite]

Just kidding, i like your work. What is the OEM size of the projectors? (i think they are Valeo). I'm trying to look at the shroud options, cant find oem on ebay or else, the Iris look good.

I think the lenses are 3" but I'm not certain. I know the b6 Bixenons were 3" so thats likely what they are.

[rongeur]

Just kidding, i like your work. What is the OEM size of the projectors? (i think they are Valeo). I'm trying to look at the shroud options, cant find oem on ebay or else, the Iris look good.

OEM projectors are the Bosch E46 projectors. The lens is 3" diameter.

[steelblade]

Does the "AUTO" function still work on the lights? When i replaced my halogens with xenon the lights are allways on....

[thehofhammer]

Does the "AUTO" function still work on the lights? When i replaced my halogens with xenon the lights are allways on....

My car is a base model, no AUTO function so no worries! Hahah I couldn't tell you whether or not the auto function will work. If, when you say you installed xenons, you mean an HID kit, and the lights are always on.... Then it will be the same with the projectors because you still use an HID kit but just insert the bulb into the projector housing rather than the stock bulb holder.

[steelblade]

Yes i have a HID kit :) Thx anyway! Great job with your car!

[seal66]

that looks good hammer. I was wondering did you have to shave the iris shroud down just a tad bit as well?

[phrequenc]

so your projector acts as a high and low beam?

[audi-goodness]

Did you get a bulb out warning when you converted to the TRS MH1? If you did, how did you get rid of it? I'm considering this kind of retrofit. Thansk.

[Contained]

Loving the white! I may have to do this to my halogens.

[JerseyShoreA4]

TRS is fantastic. Their customer service is spot-on and immediate. They supplied me with more parts than I needed as well as some extras for those oh s**t moments when something goes horribly wrong (thankfully none of that). They are THE only place I would recommend going through to order retrofit/lighting supplies.

Here are some process pics as well as some cutoff shots, I will continue working on the adjustment over the next couple of days but this is already pretty close to how I want the end result:









Driver's side needs a little rotation





Enjoy!

I have done the retrofit and need to adjust the levels of the projectors now. But like shown in the pics above, the driverside needed rotation. Did you have to rotate the whole projector or can just the bulb be rotated a bit to level the cutoff out. Trying to make the adjustments asap. The car looks so much better with hid now but the car looks like it has walleye at the moment because the beams are so out of whack. Thanks for any help!

[Okedokey]

Holy necro-thread batman. Either way, glad you did, hadn't seen this.

[SykoraA4]

I have done the retrofit and need to adjust the levels of the projectors now. But like shown in the pics above, the driverside needed rotation. Did you have to rotate the whole projector or can just the bulb be rotated a bit to level the cutoff out. Trying to make the adjustments asap. The car looks so much better with hid now but the car looks like it has walleye at the moment because the beams are so out of whack. Thanks for any help!

You have to rotate the projector. the bulb doesn't determine the cutoff.

[golferjohnm]

curious how they've performed 3 years later. I have retro-fitted OEM HID's into my B7 Avant and they seem a tad 'fiddly' at start-up...once fully warmed-up, they seem to work great tho. I was thinking about taking my original halogens apart and going the H1 route, with a higher discharge high-beam, cleared corners and (don't flame me) full corona rings for the main lights and partials for the highs...then black it out (my Avant is Blk/Blk)

[JerseyShoreA4]

You have to rotate the projector. the bulb doesn't determine the cutoff.

Thats a pain in the ass... was hoping a little easier fix.