[mrxbobert]

Hey Guys...

I couldnt quite find my answer through searching. I am interested in beginning and HID retrofit for my gen 5.5. I wanted to purchase another set of headlights to work on as this is my first project and I don't want to mess up rendering my car useless at night.

So I'm interesting in buying a pair of gen 5 headlights to work on the retro simply beacuse they are much cheaper than the gen 5.5's at the moment. Before i make the purchase, I wanted to find out if I would lose anything if I used the gen 5 headlight on my 5.5? I saw something along the lines of losing a parking light..but I was wondering if there was anythign else. Thanks ahead of time! :clap:

 

[white3ch0c0late]

Nope. Thats it. Just the parking light. Only other thing is you may have to extend the wires a bit for the turn signal, but I'm not so sure that you do.

And sir, I would like to shake your hand for going down the Retrofit Road.

 

[mrxbobert]

Haha..thanks for the quick reply. I wanted to get the plug and play kit...but a part of me always knew that another part of me would be bothered that there was something better out there. :whatwhat:

Nope. Thats it. Just the parking light. Only other thing is you may have to extend the wires a bit for the turn signal, but I'm not so sure that you do.

And sir, I would like to shake your hand for going down the Retrofit Road.

 

[LE05]

you're doing the right thing! though personally, i like the styling of the gen 5.5 headlights better. however, you may find retrofitting the gen 5's much easier.

 

[mrxbobert]

I'm curious...both of you guys have done retrofits to your car and they look great. How did you guys center everythign so well? LE05...i think you made a custom bracket of some sort? I think I want to go the route of mounting it directly onto the reflector...but yea...alignment will be a pain i suppose.

 

[white3ch0c0late]

It was actually pretty easy. When I cut out a hole in the reflector to fit the projector, I made sure that the hole was centered around where the original bulb "holder" is. That way, the projector ended up sitting dead center in the reflector, and in the housing.

 

[mrxbobert]

Hey guys,

Since I have two of the TN hid experts in my thread....

Is there a drastic difference in the size of the reflector bowl between gen5 and gen5.5? I'm having a hard time figuring out what shrouds to use (still debating if i should do the retro on a gen 5 or gen 5.5).



And...i've been scouring ebay and finding a lot of ballasts and bulbs. Would it be ok to use someone's lexus or acura ballasts? or would you guys recommend just getting a brand new one from hidplanet/etc?

Excitedly awaiting your knowledgeable responses,
rob

 

[white3ch0c0late]

As far as the reflector bowl, I BELIEVE that the Gen 5 bowl is just slightly larger, but it wouldn't make much difference. In terms of shrouds, for the Gen 5.5 headlights, I think the Audi A4 shroud fits perfectly.. Hawkeye-SE is using this shroud for his TSX retrofit on his Gen 5.5, and it looks awesome. For the Gen 5, the shape of the housing looks the best with BMW shrouds (IMO).

There's nothing wrong per se with using a set of ballasts that came out of a car, so long as the ballasts are fairly new and not used all that much. I'd say that I wouldn't buy a set of ballasts which have been used for more than 150 hours. Past that, and it can be a bit unpredictable. You can never go wrong with buying a new set of ballasts, but if you do get some that are slightly used, I would buy them from a reputable seller on HIDPlanet instead of ebay. You never know if those ebay sellers are being honest or not.

 

[poohbear]

Just joining on this thread,
where could I get a new set of 5 or 5.5 gen headlights to do/try my retro on...

and i belive my headlights are gen 5 (the signals are on the outer side)

 

[white3ch0c0late]

^I ended up with a set of headlamps for about $100 total from ebay. The dealership will rip you off. If you can find a good set of headlamps at a junkyard, thats good too.