Okay I just finished, been driving around the past hour. Its a mixed bag. Idk, but for some reason i was expecting more light. And they are shaking slightly when i go over hard bumps, but thats prolly my fault.
Now for the cutoff, can someone explain this to me. now the way i have it now, it looks perfectly even when i squat down in front slowly from 25ft away, but on the wall they are obviously not even. however if i move the headlamp and make them level, then they do not look the same when i actually look at them head on. help.
Next, it seems like they are not even that bright. Idk, from all the stuff i've been through, it would seem Catz H4 hid>audi a4 hid>halogen tyc/halogen oem but it seems to me like the retrofit is just like stock halogen except white light, which is even harder for me to see at night. It seems like halogen is better, and i know tinman will say im getting old but meh. They are still bright, just not what i expected for an expensive $500+ oem retrofit. Anyway, onto the pics. I am actually happier with the way the projector housings and colors look than with the actual light output but oh well. oh and the stupid cutoff is purple! boo i wanted white or blue.
Setup:
2005 Audi A4 HID (valeo projectors and ballast, osram bulb)
Sonar Halo projectors (fixed halo for 15 VDC)
Cycolite 7443 amber glass turn bulbs
Suvlights.com heavy duty wire harness
The halo LEDs are wired to stay on only with parking light and go off when low beam comes on. They are very dim and can be seen at night but thats about it. I think its more of a novelty. I also put protective film from headlightarmor.com but it doesnt look that great, there are still alot of bubble and streaks. so idk, maybe i'll leave it on cause these are too expensive to have them break.
no these are the sonar angel eye projector (the new version with amber reflector and clear halo ring). i had tyc and imo these look and are built much better. here are a few pics of the fog lights
the fog housing and all wires are stock, but i fit the projector part in myself with some small custom work. Also it is painted yellow inside and using nokya H3 yellow bulb. Everything from ebay. Oh and with those headlights, you will need to rewire the halo leds. from the factory they are only good for 12.5v meaning if you use it while the car is on, the 14v from alternator will slowly burn them out. they also have these projector with a clear reflector but i wanted orange to match my sidemarker.
thanks man. yea they are not perfectly level, but its good enough for me. nowhere near as much work as you mustve done for the oem tsx retro. mine i just swapped the projector lens.
just a thought on ur dim light problem, take the protective film off, see if it does anything? i no theyre not saposed to make much a difference. butsome do..otherwise good job...did the projectors fit in pretty well? or did u do much modification to the housing?
well they fit onto the two screws but then i had to tie them from the back to keep from moving up and down. only thing i could think of and it felt tight but i guess its still moving. is there some kind of glue maybe that i can just put all over to hold it in place i wonder. but i really dont wanna take em apart again.
i have a small diy i guess i will post it but where? how about this thread? lemme know and i can move it.
THE PLAN:
The front 7443 bulb will be amber and used for DRL and turn signal only.
I have my sidemarkers wired as turn signal only, no park or DRL.
For parking lights, I plan on refitting the halo with white leds and also adding amber leds behind the orange reflector. When the projector headlight turns on, the halo will turn off to conserve led life and also since it will not be visible anyway.
Far lights will be on a completely separate wire harness connected to a switch inside the car. I will be using osram +50 silverstar clear bulbs.
Projector retrofit will be a complete setup of valeo projector/ballast and bulb from a new 2005 Audi A4. The ballast will be wired to an H4 plug that will mate with a factory upgrade harness from www.suvlights.com
Fog lights are already retrofitted with bmw style projectors and painted (on the inside) with yellow glass paint.
I need to find some sort of bright led light for the license plate. Might need to work something custom.
The part I am not very happy with is the turn signal reflector. It is just painted a dull silver color. I am experimenting with painting it using krylon glitter spray.
I am not cutting any corner here as I want everything to be perfect. This will be going on for some time, as many parts will not even arrive for a few weeks.
PROGRESS:
So far, I have taken the lights apart by using an oven at 200F to warm the goo. the inserts are held in by a single star screw and come right out. The actual halo ring is also held on by two star screws. Here's a pic of the insert with halo removed.
At the bottom the led assembly can be easily pried off. it is a small board with 2 3mm white leds attached with resistor. It looked good, but I just did not want to trust their wiring job. and i wanted bigger leds I replaced the setup with 2 5mm white leds with 50,000mcd brightness.
As you can see, the two leds can be soldered together in series and then connected to wiring. they fit right in! Later when i put it all together i will put a drop of epoxy to seal the middle hole and fix them in place. I soldered all connections. a power wire and ground wire was attached, with resistors on the power lead. it is VERY important to use the proper resistance. I set mine up to handle 15V to be on the safe side. All test pics will be using 12V lantern battery so they will not be as bright as when the car is running. Use this to figure out the resistance needed. You need to know how many leds you connect in series, what their forward voltage is (my white was 3.2v), current (mine was 20mA), and total voltage (alternator ~14.4V). Now there is a lil trick. you can only have as many leds as when their forward voltage is around ~14.4V. Say that you connect 5 white leds together (5 x 3.2 = 16V). That means they will handle 16v when hooked together and you wont even need a resistor!
Here are the leds fitted into the back of the ring. there is only room for 2 leds.
Now i tested them to make sure everything was working.
My next task will be to fit amber leds behind the reflector as parking lights to go along with the halo. I plan to use 8 leds arranged in a straight line from top to bottom. There is limited room, so we'll see what happens. The reflector pops out easily, and then you can drill holes from the front. Just go slow and don't slip
I just got all the hid hardware. Gonna work on putting plugs on the ballast and trying to fit the projectors. I might even have some night shot testing the bulbs. the amber leds wont be here for a while so i have time. might try the glitter spray too. Pics coming tonight...
Here are switches for the hi beam and red floor neons (inside pocket), and DRL (outside).
I need to find which wires on the stock harness match the ones on the upgrade harness. otherwise my wiring will look something like this for lo beam
Change of plans. I've decided to use 7443 stock bulb instead to make things simple. details later. i unscrewed and removed both stock projectors. then got some #5 hex nuts to fit the threads. put one nut on each side, then a washer.
Now the audi projectors i used had two mount holes, but they were too big. you must drill them bigger so they fit over the two mounts.
You want to try and get them as far back as possible so they are in the same general area as the previous projector (otherwise the cover wont go on later). now tighten the nuts finger tight. you want them a tad loose so you can adjust them later. now the problem is the projector is barely big enough to fit. you want the projector to sit straight and level, not pointing up or down. even with the two nuts installed, the projector will still move freely up and down a bit. this will be fixed later. to line up the projector, i held them vertical and put a level meter across the hi beam housing. then a made sure the projector top was also at the same level.
now you need to tie the projector from the back on top and bottom with metal 22 gauge cable. this is all i could think of but it works. again when you're done doing the tie job, make sure the projectors are both level with the hi beam reflector.
for the turn signals, i got some amber glass bulbs from ebay which wont fade. the problem is the socket is loose in the projector. so i had to silicone it in place. dont worry, you can remove it later to change the bulb. now i also put a plastic piece in the parking light hole and sealed that up too since i wont be using it.
now you are almost done! put the halo back on and put the headlight together. bake it and make sure it seals. now before you put it together, take the back plastic cover and inspect. there should be three small holes where on the back there is a rubber drain pipe looking thing. rip all those off and plug them with silicone or epoxy. otherwise your headlights wont be sealed!
once the light is together, get the rubber seals and cut them so that you can fit the pigtail in. dont cut too much, just enough to stretch it and put the plug into the bulb.
now you can take it to your car. i wired the halo + to the parking light red wire and then the - to the headlight switch 12v power (pass side red wire, driver side red/yel). this is so that they work only when parking lights are on and turn off once the headlights come on. Again, the stock halo leds are setup to only be used with 12.5v as it says on the light housing. this wont work when you start the car and goto 14.4v this is why you need to redo the leds. anyway, once the halo is hooked up, i did the ballasts. for this i purchased a universal wire harness from www.suvlights.com that comes with 40amp relay and fused power (required for hid because stock wires will melt). now the harness has red wire (connect to battery) and black (connect to ground). then there is a thin white wire, this is the turn-on and should be connected to the red wire on the pass side headlight socket. this wire gets 12v whenever the lo AND hi beam is on. this means the lo beam will not turn off when the hi beam is switched on. now there are two wires left on the harness. a thick white wire on the pass side, connect this to the ballast power. on the other side (longer wire) will be a thick blue wire, connect this to the other ballast. now you need to connect each ballast ground. i just ran wires to the support here.
put the lights back and loosely tighten the screws. the aim was pretty close, so that to get them level i just adjusted the headlight positions and tightened. i think they may be too high, but i need to recheck that. if the aim is off, you need to tear it apart and start all over with the wire part. no way am i doing that so hopefully they are level enough.
and take pics of the new lights. looks pimp. i also installed some protective film from www.headlightarmor.com (better than lamin-x). i got one side perfect but the other side got messed up. its not too noticable from far away.
Great job on the pics.