Projector Retrofit Thread

Arola · Mar 31, 2021

Hey, wanted to do a general projector retrofitting thread as there aren't that many.

Here's my MY2002 S60 with Sinolyn 2.5'' bi-LED projectors from last year (with a few auxilliary high beam lights too, but they're not the point).

Also I painted the bezels to aluminum color to imitate the R headlights. Although what can be seen here is that the way I tried to dremel the bezels to make the projector shrouds fit didn't go as I originally intended, this was more of a hack job and to get a general touch to projector retrofitting in general.

I have disassembled and removed the projectors now and waiting for a 3'' Morimoto Mini D2S 5.0 set. I was unable to find any info whether projectors with 3'' lenses fit into the OEM prefacelift halogen housings, although according to the measurements I have done, they should fit. Only way to find out is to try and fit them once they arrive.

Exocet · Mar 31, 2021

I can't speak to the Mini D2Ss, but Mini H1s fit. I did have to trim 1/8" off the top and bottom of the shroud to fit in the reflector. The reflector isn't very tall.

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Arola · Mar 31, 2021

Exocet said:
I can't speak to the Mini D2Ss, but Mini H1s fit. I did have to trim 1/8" off the top and bottom of the shroud to fit in the reflector. The reflector isn't very tall.

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Neat! Although yours are the facelift headlights, the reflector bowls on those actually seem to be smaller than on prefacelift housings...

Here's a few photos with a typical 0.33L beer can for reference.

Here's with the Sinolyn 2.5'' bi-LED.

Exocet · Mar 31, 2021

Here are some comparable pictures with a post-facelift headlight assembly. The height of the reflector looks to be about the same. The lower front edge of the pre-facelift reflector extends farther. But, I don't think the overall distance from the back of the reflector to the lens is significantly different.

Arola · Mar 31, 2021

Exocet said:
Here are some comparable pictures with a post-facelift headlight assembly. The height of the reflector looks to be about the same. The lower front edge of the pre-facelift reflector extends farther. But, I don't think the overall distance from the back of the reflector to the lens is significantly different.

A can of beer, the most universal method of measurement!

Hopefully tomorrow the Finnish postal services will get the TRS package to me and we'll get an answer to this.

ed-oorklep · Mar 31, 2021

Here's what my S60 looked like in the end (right before it crashed)

cleaned by ed-oorklep, on Flickr

It had ebay projcetors in the low and high beams, black bezel and all reflectors etc painted in the color of the rims.
Glass is of the Euro R-headlight (because the stock one was ribbed).

Phixion · Apr 1, 2021

How easy or difficult is it to get Euro lenses? Also is imagine pre face lift housings are much easier to work with since the glass is removable? I have an '04 and would love to put Morimoto projectors in mine.

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ed-oorklep · Apr 1, 2021

Phixion said:
How easy or difficult is it to get Euro lenses? Also is imagine pre face lift housings are much easier to work with since the glass is removable? I have an '04 and would love to put Morimoto projectors in mine.

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Easy for me since I live in the Netherlands ;-).
Not sure on US availability of these.

The pre-facelift are indeed a lot easier. I have a 2007 V70 now and replaced the plastic lenses but it was impossible for me to get the old ones off without cutting them up.
And from what I can tell from the forums here the plastic lenses are impossible to get in the US as well (there's only 1 supplier I know of and they don't ship to the US).

satrya · Apr 1, 2021

Arola said:
...
I have disassembled and removed the projectors now and waiting for a 3'' Morimoto Mini D2S 5.0 set. I was unable to find any info whether projectors with 3'' lenses fit into the OEM prefacelift halogen housings, although according to the measurements I have done, they should fit. Only way to find out is to try and fit them once they arrive.

Curious to hear your thoughts as to why you're replacing the biLED Sinolyn projectors with the biXenon Mini D2S 5.0. While all else being equal, a good biLED at the moment is not as good as the better biXenons, having to have a dedicated wiring harness and the much higher startup voltage of an HID ballast (which can be more finicky when it comes getting a proper ground) might wash out the beam output advantage.

I have a non-Volvo that has a biXenon retrofit (EvoX-R, a relative of the "Hella e55" family), and the low & high beam outputs are great. But now that biLEDs have improved quite a bit (including that Sinolyn one I believe), I may go for biLED instead of biXenon if I were to do another retrofit. At temperature extremes, it feels like a biLED would be less fussy than a biXenon.

Arola · Apr 1, 2021

satrya said:
Curious to hear your thoughts as to why you're replacing the biLED Sinolyn projectors with the biXenon Mini D2S 5.0. While all else being equal, a good biLED at the moment is not as good as the better biXenons, having to have a dedicated wiring harness and the much higher startup voltage of an HID ballast (which can be more finicky when it comes getting a proper ground) might wash out the beam output advantage.

I have a non-Volvo that has a biXenon retrofit (EvoX-R, a relative of the "Hella e55" family), and the low & high beam outputs are great. But now that biLEDs have improved quite a bit (including that Sinolyn one I believe), I may go for biLED instead of biXenon if I were to do another retrofit. At temperature extremes, it feels like a biLED would be less fussy than a biXenon.

Wasn't comfortable with the fact that if something breaks down, the whole projector has to be swapped.

Also, it's official -- the MD2S 5.0 can be fitted easily into the prefacelift halogen housings.

satrya · Apr 1, 2021

I see. That's a valid concern. But the LED emitter and controller, if properly designed, will likely exceed the expected lifespan of even an HID ballast. That is not to say that aftermarket biLEDs have the same lifespan as OE low beam LEDs of course.

Phixion · Apr 1, 2021

I'm curious which Sinolyn projectors you replaced, as in looking I kinda like them. Also any idea if they offer a halo ring shroud cover for them, bi see that's an option for their biXenon lamps... Also would that even look right on our cars?

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Arola · Apr 2, 2021

Phixion said:
I'm curious which Sinolyn projectors you replaced, as in looking I kinda like them. Also any idea if they offer a halo ring shroud cover for them, bi see that's an option for their biXenon lamps... Also would that even look right on our cars?

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Pardon Our Interruption...

www.ebay.com

My personal preference is that no other car than a BMW should have halos/angel eyes.

Phixion · Apr 2, 2021

Arola said:
Pardon Our Interruption...

www.ebay.com

My personal preference is that no other car than a BMW should have halos/angel eyes.

Thanks! I think those are the same that I found.

Challengers have them as well now and Camaros sort of and Jeep Wranglers and Gladiators. I agree they look best on cars that originally come with them.

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Arola · Apr 14, 2021

Arola said:
Wasn't comfortable with the fact that if something breaks down, the whole projector has to be swapped.

Also, it's official -- the MD2S 5.0 can be fitted easily into the prefacelift halogen housings.

Update, I decided to get the OEM bixenon housings to fit these into. As for the OEM halogen, these projectors fit in, but the 6mm manual height adjustment won't let them go high enough, as the projectors designed beam shoots a bit downwards instead of directly forward. Didn't bother trying to shim or do any mods further when I discovered this issue, so I just decided to get a pair of proper bixenon housings to mount the projectors in as they can be provingly installed in those with ease.

Note to everyone who's reading this thread and is planning to retrofit projectors into the prefacelift P2 halogen housings: go for a more compact 2.5'' projector (the Lightwerkz Micro D2S for ex.) and therefore save time and money.

satrya · Apr 14, 2021

Arola said:
Note to everyone who's reading this thread and is planning to retrofit projectors into the prefacelift P2 halogen housings: go for a more compact 2.5'' projector (the Lightwerkz Micro D2S for ex.) and therefore save time and money.

A smaller projector is indeed easier to fit. Having said that, not that I'm saying bigger is better in this case, but there is a real limit to a smaller projector's low beam output. The cartoon below is a simplified representation of a projector unit, with the reflector bowl's surface represented by the thick red curved line on the left side, the light source represented by the yellow circle (in reality, and HID arc is a bit of a curved arc instead of a point light source), and the lens represented by the cyan object to the right side. Rays emanate from the light source, and some of it gets reflected by the bowl, and then onwards to the lens. Along the way, some also get blocked by the low beam shield to make sure no glare onto oncoming traffic. The gap on the reflector bowl is where the HID bulb enters. Notice that as the rays are drawn at equally spaced angles (representing equal intensity), the part of the reflector bowl closest to the bulb opening has the most dense rays hitting it. The bigger the hole, the less of the most intense light gets delivered into the lens. Given the bulb capsule thickness, there will be an area where the reflector will not be useful anyway. However, if the overall projector is made smaller (with the bulb size remaining the same), then the relative size of this dead zone area that has the highest intensity potential is increased.

For that reason, for two projectors with exactly the same proportions but different overall size, the smaller one will be less effective than the bigger one. Of course, it is possible to design a larger projector with an inferior beam pattern than a smaller one if the proportions can be changed.

Side note: a minority of projectors have the bulb enter not from this centerline axis (left most of picture), but from the bottom of the picture pointing up. It creates a different set of pros and cons relative to the bulb casting a shadow over the beam vs taking most advantage of the reflector surface area with the most intense potential.

I haven't seen the beam pattern of that particular Micro D2S, but given the comparison between generic Mini H1 vs Mini D2S, where the Mini H1 tends to be slightly smaller, I would consider a projector with a larger reflector bowl than that if I expect an improvement over OE freeform reflector-based halogen output.

Arola · Jun 7, 2022

After a year of HID usage, I have decided to ”go back” to bi-led projectors. Using HIDs has been a pain in the ass from many aspects on a car which doesn’t have HIDs from the factory.

Therefore, my next move will be to acquire a fresh untouched pair of pre-facelift H7 halogen housings, and to retrofit them with proper bi-led projectors. I am intending to use the NHK IV Plus projectors as they seem to be the best in line at the moment (and a really budget-friendly option), however I am a bit worried on how am I going to install them to the housings as they need to be installed with nuts and bolts, instead of the previously used threaded shaft methods.

Has anyone installed nut-and-bolt projectors to the pre-facelift fluted lens housings before? If so, how did you make sure the projector was sitting rotationally straight as there are no grooves on the reflector of which to take reference from?

broinkrist · Jun 8, 2022

What issues are you having with your HIDs? I've had bi-xenon retrofitted projectors with R OEM HID ballasts in my car for the better part of 8 years and going strong.

Arola · Jun 8, 2022

broinkrist said:
What issues are you having with your HIDs? I've had bi-xenon retrofitted projectors with R OEM HID ballasts in my car for the better part of 8 years and going strong.

The HID bulbs didn’t always like to turn on on either or both sides (even with a relay harness), flickering occured and using the CFE Ultra for DRL caused the low beams to turn on and off really quickly when using the light switch to change the lighting mode.

Did your car come with halogen or HID from the factory? If it’s a halogen car that’s very weird it works so well for you, especially the OEM Valeo ballasts had trouble igniting so I had to try so many different ballasts, of which all didn’t work 100% of the time.

Arola · Jun 8, 2022

ed-oorklep said:
Here's what my S60 looked like in the end (right before it crashed)

cleaned by ed-oorklep, on Flickr

It had ebay projcetors in the low and high beams, black bezel and all reflectors etc painted in the color of the rims.
Glass is of the Euro R-headlight (because the stock one was ribbed).

What shrouds did you use for the high beam unit?

Projector Retrofit Thread

Arola

Exocet

Arola

Exocet

Arola

ed-oorklep

Phixion

ed-oorklep

satrya

Arola

satrya

Phixion

Arola

Pardon Our Interruption...

Phixion

Pardon Our Interruption...

Arola

satrya

Arola

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