re: Do Your Headlights Suck? Do a Retrofit (picture heavy)

^ this made me

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Wow, bapple, for me, this is more impressive than your gun vid's. I would love to do this's but would be afraid to eff it up. You should YouTube this and put on your channel.

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Well I'm already finished now but I think a write up is easier to follow for a project like this. It's quite a few hours of work but each step can be tedious.

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100% chance he gets his underwear dry cleaned and pressed

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My closet is like Superman's - the same outfit all the way through and they're all spotless.

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What is the deal with something like this...
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Seems like it comes with the housing and everything. Is the quality not very good?

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YOURAD is right. There isn't really any technology put into the output of the projector whereas the retrofit kits have a good bit of R&D behind them. The projectors I used (Mini H1 7.0s) are the seventh iteration of the same projector (hence, the 7.0). The aftermarket headlight makers are more concerned with getting an aftermarket look rather than the true performance of the headlight. It does make for a decent foundation for a retrofit though. I just prefer not to buy the super aftermarket-looking projectors because I prefer to stay as factory-looking as possible.

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Y'all should see him creep

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The 3inch projectors on Amazon are rebadged morimotos.

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Do you know which generation they are? I know Morimoto just released the 3.0 version of their D2S projectors recently so those may be the 2nd gen ones.

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The close hot spots is because two of the four are angled out rather than forward. I hate deer.

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That's quite an interesting deer-finding setup.

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The only thing I sprung for was Phillips bulbs.

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That's the only downside for me having to use the Mini H1. If the Mini D2S had been the same lens size as the H1 I would've gone that route so I could've used OEM bulbs. But I'm quite surprised at how well the H1s perform - they outperform almost every factory projector setup I've seen.

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Do you know which generation they are? I know Morimoto just released the 3.0 version of their D2S projectors recently so those may be the 2nd gen ones.

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No idea. They replace a set of morimotos from twoish years ago and were identical down to the white lettering on the relay plug.

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That's quite an interesting deer-finding setup.

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The crack in the windshield is from a doe whose arse was caught by the stinger.

She dented the fender and her head spun into the windshield.

We have A LOT down here.

A good set of projector headlights will outperform a 50inch LED bar in every possible way.

I'm working on a mount at the moment to hide four 3.0s in my roof rack. If it works, lord help the kids who sit with their led bars on at stop lights at night

Retrofit is something I've always wanted to do, but my headlights don't suck enough to justify the cost and extra work involved. I know it's frowned upon, but I may just upgrade my bulbs in my OEM halogen projectors...though I don't do enough night driving to justify that either.

ETA: for anyone interested in this but lacking the know how or confidence to do it, go to an online forum specific to your vehicle and look in the vendors/sponsors section. 99% of the time there is some sort of retrofit/HID shop that sells OEM housings custom done with bi-xenon projectors. Not cheap though, usually $600-$1000 per set. Can also sometimes find them used in the classifieds from people parting out their trucks.

Yeah it's certainly not the worst thing you could do. I've just read conflicting reports online. Some say go for it and others say it's actually worst because it tends to create hot spots and technically diminishes forward visibility vs. OEM halogens. Once I have some extra play money I'll probably do it, just not a priority right now.

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Some say go for it and others say it's actually worst because it tends to create hot spots and technically diminishes forward visibility vs. OEM halogens

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I think it largely depends on the quality of the halogen projectors. My ladyfriend has a 2016 Jeep Cherokee Latitude and I think they have one of the best sets of factory halogen projectors I've seen. On the other hand, another friend of mine has an older Sonata from like 2006 and the factory halogen projectors are garbage. Besides the fact that the arc of the HID bulb will be slightly different, I've seen HIDs significantly improve visibility from factory halogen projectors. My dad (2015 Ram) and my lady's dad (2014 Sierra) are both running 35W HID kits in their truck's factory lights and both are quite good.

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That's actually great to know because I have a 2015 Ram and was looking at 35w kits.

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Nice coincidence!

Make sure you get the kit from The Retrofit Source. Since your truck has the canbus system, it can be very picky with aftermarket kits. The one from TRS comes with some resistors for the headlights and all the other hardware. My dad has used his for 3 months now with no issues and it improved his headlights quite a bit.

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9mm or .40??

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9mm Kurz

In the 2011+ F250/350s people seem to be having success with the LED replacement bulbs in the headlights, I haven't tried them though.

Here's mine, I sent off a stock set of lights, had them retrofitted and painted and it ran me $900. Knowing what I know now I just would have done the conversion myself, doesn't seem too hard.


*Sidenote: First road trip since doing a delete. Had a kayak on my roof and got 16mpg, took the kayak down and did 17.5mpg. Before the delete it was around 14.

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i hate you for this thread. YOu took such a simple desire of wanting better headlights for all real truck owners and ruined it. go buy a whole head light replacement, oh those are crap... oh plug in a new HID bulb... oh you can't do this and that... frick, i don't know what the frick to do now cause you have a thesis on head lights which took something so simple is now truly overly complicated. I won't forgive you, unless you come do my truck for me....

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I actually agree with this. Waaaay more confused now than i was before this thread. But my questions are too plentiful for this board, so i'll just keep my halogens.