Retrofit Headlights

[b00b]

look what just came in the mail =D. I got everything for $300. Bulbs, ballast, headlamps. I'll light these babies up tonight and post more pics. The ballast are from a 2k3 Maxima. The projector are from the BMW X5. No more 96 Headlamps. Those things were the weakest things I have ever seen.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a309/surfhawaii99/DSC01592.jpg
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a309/surfhawaii99/DSC01591.jpg
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a309/surfhawaii99/DSC01590.jpg

I am thinking about AE-ing these.

[Biggs]

ohhh you got it installed already??? i thought you just bought the projectors

[Biggs]

power them up in the house!!! i want to see

[b00b]

The 96 headlamps are really shitty and not projector worthy. So if i wanted to do it myself i had to buy 97-99 headlamps. These are 97-99 headlamps, projectors, shrouds and everything. So all in all, $300 is cheap as a mother.

[Biggs]

power them up in the house now!!!!!! go run to your car or the accord and pull out the battery

[Mr.Duck]

damn boob, you did that ****in fast! lets see them lit up!

[Biggs]

bastard.....now i want to switch out my headlights and get some projectors too

[Mr.Duck]

........ you already have hids...

[Biggs]

i don't like my hid's since they're reflectors i want some projectors

[b00b]

i'm going to go and install these suckers in a little bit and post pics. When i do, someone put in a poll if i should AE it or not.

[Biggs]

remember to mount the ballist in a good place where no water can reach it and have it secured in not just lying there.

[b00b]

i justinstalled them. i am gonna go give the car a wash and by the time i'm done it should be pretty dark. I'll take pics then.

[Ovaltine Jenkins]

AE, no. Balck out the entire headlights, yes. With projectors you deon't need the reflective surface of th headlights. Maybe if the headlights were design to work with projectors, but as we all know, they weren't.

[b00b]

ok here are the pictures. This is with 1 HID bulb and 1 9004 because i am still awaiting another ballast bulb in the mail. Right now these are 2k3 bulbs so there is a shield. Once I remove the shield, there will be more light. So here is how my car looks like with 1 bulb lighting the road. I have the 1 9004 so I do not get pulled over by the cops.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a309/surfhawaii99/DSC01627.jpg
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a309/surfhawaii99/DSC01629.jpg
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a309/surfhawaii99/DSC01625.jpg
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a309/surfhawaii99/DSC01622.jpg

[b00b]

Someone add a poll with "all black"

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a309/surfhawaii99/DSC01620.jpg
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a309/surfhawaii99/DSC01601.jpg
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a309/surfhawaii99/DSC01604.jpg
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a309/surfhawaii99/DSC01614.jpg

[Biggs]

very very uberly nice

[tranz]

those look nice, i wanttt

[98se5speed]

Nice indeed. $300 is a steal. I still have my 9004 retrofit HID kit sitting around in the garage, I keep wondering if I wanna do something cool with it (some kinda projector project) or just ebay the damn thing.

I always wonder (and keep an eye out) for other cars that have factory projectors in which the entire headlight assembly would fit into our cars with minimal modification. You know, how the BMW E36 lights fit well into 3rd gen Maximas... where is our version of the E36?? It's not like the 4th gen Maxima lights have any sort of crazy contour to them. Frustrating :(

_

[Brian]

You know, how the BMW E36 lights fit well into 3rd gen Maximas... where is our version of the E36?? It's not like the 4th gen Maxima lights have any sort of crazy contour to them. Frustrating :(

_
3rd gen > * :p

[98se5speed]

3rd gen is greater than star happy? Interesting.

[b00b]

woot woot. My other ballast and bulb just came in the mail. Will post pics of how they look tonight.

[Brian]

> *= greater than all others

[98se5speed]

ah, right... I had a feeling something obvious was there.

If it wasn't for the auto seatbelts in 3rd gens, I probably woulda bought one when I bought the 98. Nice cars indeed.

[98SterlingMax]

Nice indeed. $300 is a steal. I still have my 9004 retrofit HID kit sitting around in the garage, I keep wondering if I wanna do something cool with it (some kinda projector project) or just ebay the damn thing.

I always wonder (and keep an eye out) for other cars that have factory projectors in which the entire headlight assembly would fit into our cars with minimal modification. You know, how the BMW E36 lights fit well into 3rd gen Maximas... where is our version of the E36?? It's not like the 4th gen Maxima lights have any sort of crazy contour to them. Frustrating :(

_

I don't know if this will answer your question, but here's a mod I found.

05/04: BMW X5 Projectors with Phillips D2S 4300k Bulbs and Hella 4th Gen Ballasts.
http://www.t-mobilepictures.com/photos/photo08/d2/74/564d722f8cb1.jpg

[98se5speed]

interesting, but not quite what I was talking about. I just wish there was another car out there with an OEM projector headlight that was close to the size of ours for a direct swap (with mild modification). Ah well.

[Ninos_Maxima]

for some reason I never liked the single projector retrofit

[98se5speed]

while I'm sure the light output is awesome, it does look a tad goofy with one projector in the middle of such a huge lens, doesn't it?

[98SterlingMax]

I agree, 1 projector does look a little off. I think there should be at least 2, and wouldn't it be cool to have 1 projector in your corner lights as well.

[Ovaltine Jenkins]

No, not really.

[98se5speed]

eh, I'm not so sure about that corner projector idea. 2 same-size projectors in one lens looks a bit strange (like the J30)
http://i16.ebayimg.com/01/i/06/1e/ee/25_1.JPG
so I think I like the projector / reflector combo look like this A4 aftermarket I found. (a lot of factory Audi setups are similar)
http://www.helixautomotive.com/images/audi-a4-blackpro-hd-pair2-500.jpg

[Ninos_Maxima]

^lets go audi hunting guys...

[98se5speed]

I've been hunting around for an older A4 on a dealer lot so I can stop and get some rough measurements on the headlights. I'm not exactly super dedicated to this project, so I limit my hunting to the dealerships on my way home. There's a couple older A4's if I head about 8 miles north, but since I live 18 miles SE of where I work, I think I'm just gonna keep an eye out in some parking lots and measure up someone's car when they're not looking. My gut feeling is that the A4 lens is a tad too tall.

[Mr Grey]

where the hell did you get all for $300. If I found that price, I would have doen this to my car by now.

[darklegend06]

best way I think would look is the audi fitment, one that is high and the projector for low. Sounds simple but a lot of cutting and time and anything else that I missed.

[98se5speed]

ah, if only I had the money to do this...

http://anton.scottpolak.com/max_small3.jpg

[Pablito]

came across an infiniti J30 ( i think) at the junkyard the other day , and noticed it had some nice lookin projectors that were mint..

anyone know if these can fit into the maxima headlight?

[Biggs]

woahhhhh take them!!! bulbs hope they're hids....

[b00b]

ahahha speaking of j30... some guy in a j30 was staring at my headlights last night and was like "Wtf."

[Biggs]

those j30 are ugly as ****...that rear end looks like it needs a good pounding

[Goldtooth]

Seriously, where in the blue hell did you get ur setup for $300??? Hook a brotha up dawg.

[98se5speed]

J30's definitely never had HID, but they do have pretty nice quality projectors with a nice cutoff. Probably H7's. Grab an H7 retrofit HID kit, toss em in those J30 projectors, you should be money.

What high-dollar junkyard were you at? The one I go to near me has mostly old junkers in the self-pull area. At best I've seen one 4th gen Maxima, ever, and it was picked pretty clean. They do their own pulling and selling in the front office, and they have their own closed off area of nicer/newer cars. Sux.

Indeed, J30's are butt-ugly. GF's parents had 2 of em before they recently upgraded to a Q45. That J30 was slow, noisy, small, ugly... the list goes on and on. RWD did feel good though, and the steering was accurate as hell. Back in ~96 when they got their 93 J30, GF's dad asks me "should I keep my 89 Maxima, or get this J30?" I told him to stick with the Max. He bought the J30. Then ~4 years later, he came across a 97 that was spotless with low miles and bought that one. Here's some pics of that one, if anyone is ultra-bored.
97 J30 (http://gallery.scottpolak.com/j30)

[Biggs]

it looks like an alitma just worse pretty damn ugly

[Pablito]

was at a very low end junkyard actually..pick n pull to be exact...but this car stuck out like a sore thumb.....the lights are prob gone by now for sure, but i was jw in case i came across another one..and yes they are pretty ugly

[Biggs]

are you guys gonna do this A4 shit or not?? or let's go hoping junkyards looking for car....

[Pablito]

yea i need some new headlights.....

[98se5speed]

Shoulda scooped em up. They're probably gone for sure. I should start hitting some different yards, never know what you're gonna find. Then again, I got lucky and found a 96 Max SE at my local yard last week and scored a variable delay wiper stalk (my base SE came with the one-position delay stalk). Car was otherwise stripped of every usable part, but still cool to finally see a 4th gen there.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, my Caravan is starting to get too old to find any in the junkyard. Also sux.

As for the A4 setup, I'm getting close to just dropping the cash and buying a set off ebay. The 2-piece setup meant for the 96-98 A4's is going for ~$170 shipped buy-it-now. I talked to a guy on an Audi board and he's pretty happy with the quality and beam cutoff.
http://anton.scottpolak.com/maxima/beam_pattern.jpg

http://www.procarparts.com/products/AD95A4-4246PCX.jpg

Tax return is looking pretty fat, so I think I'm gonna nab a set of these in the next couple weeks.

[98se5speed]

what do you think, spend the extra $10 for the blacked-out version? Kinda thinking if I have to hack em up to fit em, I can save the $10 and paint em myself.
http://www.procarparts.com/products/AD95A4-10327PCX.JPG

[Biggs]

wow not bad of a beam just not even and hot spot extremely noticable but cutoff is nice i see a bit of color too

[98se5speed]

I think you're gonna see a bit of color refraction when you're that close to a garage door, but to quote the guy I asked...

"One positive is that they are in fact an Ecode beam with fairly nice cutoffs. The only poor part of the beam pattern is directly in front of the car where the light is scattered a bit but you can't even see it while driving. The lights themselvs look good, with nice clear lenses and good looking projectors."

Idunno, for ~$170, it seems worth trying it out. I desperately want to get back to HID, but it's just not an option unless I have a projector with a cutoff. I'm tempted to try and install the lights without opening them up (using the entire light and lens as-is) but I know it won't be wide enough, plus the car's grille attaches to the light assemblies, so I'll have to figure something out. I'll definitely at least try to do something before I tear em apart.

Another cool feature is the "city light" which isn't even offered in the US version of the OEM A4 lights. Just a small bulb in the high-beam reflector (towards the bottom, you can see it in the above pic) that you can wire into your parking lights. Should look pretty cool. Actually, here it is lit up in an A4, wish he woulda shown it without the low beam on.

http://anton.scottpolak.com/maxima/headlight1.jpg

[98se5speed]

quick chop approximately to scale to sorta see how much extra width would need to be taken up. I wonder if there's anything creative that could be done to fill the gap between the A4 headlight and the grille. Maybe do a mesh inside the grille and have some on each side? Could be interesting.

http://anton.scottpolak.com/maxima/clean/for_sizing.jpg

[Biggs]

or you could go and spend like a bit more and get some read hid that will be extremely better....

[98se5speed]

read hid? What is that? If it has anything to do with putting HID in my stock 98 reflectors, no thanks.

[Biggs]

no get some real projectors...they're only like maybe 200 dollars...i'm looking on ebay now and projectors are like 200 bucks...for like a bmw x5 and such.

[98se5speed]

ah, gotcha. Yeah, some real projectors for a total hackup project would be cool. I suppose I should keep it in mind before I drop $170 on a set of A4 headlights. Who knows.

[darklegend06]

Seriously, where in the blue hell did you get ur setup for $300??? Hook a brotha up dawg.

"+1" for that. I would like to know too, if not I will want to do dual retrofit.