J-Jeezy

stock chrome looks nice. have any night shots? i know when i did mine i got scared the chrome would reflect any leaked light too much and just cause glare, plus i dont think it wouldve matched my car. but then again, i did paint my retros with gloss black and clear so........o well!

BoostedBeaner

agreed

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iTrader: (9)

x2


I will be building a set virtually identical except using the e46-r extended shroud to cover things up more. OEM-ish appearance FTW! parts are just ordered yesterday and when installed I'll be sure to get night shots, closeups, etc

tpete763

iTrader: (2)

Yes I do, here ya go:

close up pic of the housing/reflector bowl (you can see here that there isn't too much light bouncing around at all from the mini H1's)




A little bit of the blue flicker that retrofitters love so much (I took this picture about 15-20 feet in front of my car and about 2-2.5 feet off the ground)


This picture makes it look like the light output is HORRIBLE and the light bounces around everywhere


But this is the nice cutoff I see from the driver's seat


And the high beams from the driver's seat


Low beams from outside of the car (standing on the driver's side)


And the High beams from the outside (standing on the driver's side)


Please note that my headlight cutoff is level, the ground I was parked on to take the pics was not and that's why the cutoff is crooked on the garage door. Also the garage door is about 35-40 feet away and all the pictures were taken on my iPhone 3G, so they are a bit grainy because my phone/camera is old.

Hope this helps anyone whose lookin!

tpete763

iTrader: (2)

I would highly suggest getting the 9007 adapter rings if you are ordering from TRS, They pretty much line everything up for. You still have to do some fine tuning, they leave a little wiggle room for you to get the rotation perfect. But they make install a breeze, I used them and used some epoxy on the back when everything was lined up perfectly, nothing has moved since (about 4 months now)

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iTrader: (9)

cant wait to get my second set of retros made up now! those look nice! Going back to halogens after having retros for 2 years is very depressing

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iTrader: (9)

this isn't my first rodeo with headlights.. i've gone through more headlights than I care to mention.. plus this will be my second set of MH1's retrofitting into cobalt housings so I'm not too worried. I ordered all the proper parts needed last night. Thanks for the advice though, i'm sure others find it helpful as well!

do you have the V5.0's? I'm interested to see how nice it is to tighten the projectors in with the new hex nut instead of the older hand tightened nut "thing" that previous versions had. I'm also interested to see how well the foreground limiter works on the 5.0's

tpete763

iTrader: (2)

Thanks! Great to hear! they are sooooo much brighter and better than halogen lights. Also, before you install the locking rings on the mini H1s when installing them on the reflector bowl you have to pretty much cut the bulb holder off in order to tighten them down all the way. I should make a how to for the minis... I don't think there is one and I took TONS of pics when I made mine.

tpete763

iTrader: (2)

Hmmm, maybe I didn't get the 5.0s I assumed I did because they had them on the website when I ordered, but I got the regular locking ring, not a hex style one. It was super easy to use the locking ring though, all i did was use a pair of needle nose pliers to tighten them good before I epoxied.

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iTrader: (9)

I planned on making a how-to when I get my parts in actually. There is a certain way of trimming that I did on my last set that allowed me to keep the bulb holder in place. Pictures describe it better than words. I'll make sure to post up within a week or so what I mean. Between you and I, I'm sure we can get plenty of pictures for a how-to collectively lol

here was my last set of retros I built

halos off



halos on


side shot












I had them in the SS for a few months but I decided against the black theme so I'm keeping the next set chrome..
this didnt look too bad though... I'm just picky n sick of black after owning a murdered out car lol

tpete763

iTrader: (2)

That's the locking nut they sent me with mine

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iTrader: (9)

yea i think those are still the V4.1's

I was looking for the foreground cutoff in the pictures you posted and didnt see anything that stood out either. So judging from you still having the older styled nuts I'm assuming you dont have the V5.0's

n also from looking at that picture. I do my trimming much more differently. I can still utilize the black collar and rubber boot just like stock with the way I trim. but hey, whatever works!!

tpete763

iTrader: (2)

Those are sick, I knew you s/n was familiar, I always liked your retros, I decided to keep halos out of mine when I made them though. My old retros I made from murano projectors got destroyed in an accident and after doing the research I like the minis because of the ease of retroing them and the output was great. The murano output was better then the minis, but they minis do a great job.

tpete763

iTrader: (2)

Ooooo, I see. No big deal though. I love em lol

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iTrader: (9)

yea those muranos must have been nice.. I was debating going to 50w 5000K FX-R's this time around, but I didnt feel like messing with all that mounting non-sense when you can get close to as good output with minis (with stupid simple labor as well).

So my checkout yesterday consisted of:
MH1 V5.0's
35w 5000K Morimoto bulbs w/ 3Five ballasts obviously
9007 adapter rings and relay harness
e46-r extended shroud to fill out the reflector bowl a bit more


I wont be running a halo on this set either actually.. I couldnt find a decent way to mount it to my shroud so I just saved the money and will use it towards switchbacks instead on this set

tpete763

iTrader: (2)

This is my old retro, the murano projectors (I still have them and want to make another retro project with them too)









and the death of the driver's side



and this is the output from just one of the muranos when I was in the process of making them (which was much more difficult to get everything to line up than the minis were.

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iTrader: (9)

ouch.. yea I'd hate putting all that work into them only to wreck them in an accident! they looked nice though!

tpete763

iTrader: (2)

I know! I was more upset that I ruined them than what my car looked like at first! The output with them was great I always used to get flashed because people would think I had my high beams on, and then I'd let em have it with the actual high beams

J-Jeezy

i got the 5.0s from TRS and they are beautiful. Nice colorful cutoff and foreground limiters. The cutoff shield actuator has a heavy duty plug, i wanna say 14 gauge wire i believe. Only thing i didn't like was that in order for me to tighten the 27mm locking nut with a deep socket, i had to completely shave off the bulb jacket thing in order to even fit the socket. But it was worth it. Still need to get some decent cutoff pics.

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iTrader: (9)

I was hoping I wouldnt hear that. that was my main concern with the new locking nut... I wonder if using a pliers like on the old locking nut will still work. I guess I'll find out the fun way. nice to hear about the heavy duty plug tho!

tpete763

iTrader: (2)

Cutting that off is simple to do though lol I just used a hacksaw to cut mine, literally took 2 mins maybe. you can kind of see on the picture I posted above that its basically gone, maybe 1/8 of an inch of it left?

J-Jeezy

I recommendvwhen installing the projectors that you use the h4rubber washer. It's thinner allowing you to tighten the projector more. The h7 one is too thick and causes some bad bulb spacing.

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iTrader: (9)

I’m sure I’ll figure out a simple solution to getting that nut on while retaining the black bulb retainer. Not really too concerned over it, but just another little step to get over in the retrofitting process. Nbd

N yeah, no way will that thick rubber washer work well from my past experiences. I thought it was a given to have to use the thinner one? lol

tpete763

iTrader: (2)

Hmmm, I'm pretty sure I used the thick one on mine and everything worked out great. I wanted to make sure that I could tighten the lock nut down good and the projector still wiggled too much for my liking when I used the thinner one on the first test fit after I cut the bulb holder off. Whatever works for you guys works though

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iTrader: (9)

yeah, I'm pretty sure there are like 500 ways to successfully do a retrofit...