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2011 Chrysler 300C FX-R Retrofit Project BACKGROUND
We purchased our 300C new and liked everything about it except the poorly designed, inadequate and downright dangerous headlights. These lights have several issues: low intensity on low beam, very poor coverage past the edge of the road, totally useless high beams which project almost straight up and produce no real distance improvement over the low beams. Many owners had the same complaint about the pitiful headlights on this car but no obvious solution was apparent. I did not realize that the standard projectors were halogen and not xenon when we bought the car. A single halogen bulb in one projector will never provide enough light by itself. I researched alternatives for quite a while before coming to the conclusion that retrofitting the stock headlights with a high quality complete HID projector system was the best performing, cost-effective solution.
Alternatives investigated were:
1.Direct driving the original lights by providing 12vdc directly from the battery through a high quality relay activated by the low beam signal. This significantly reduced the voltage drop at the headlight bulbs produced by the marginal stock wiring. This inexpensive mod somewhat improved the light output but not enough and did nothing to resolve the other problems.
2.Replacing the halogen bulbs with HIDs in the stock projectors. I rejected this solution because HID bulbs are 2 to 3 times as bright as halogen and the filament / projector bowl combination would scatter light all over the road blinding drivers approaching or in front of you in your lane. The projector must be designed around the bulb used. HID projectors have a much wider reflector bowl than the halogen projector and will focus the light where it belongs.
3.Purchasing Chrysler 300 OEM (Mobis) headlight housings on ebay. These are relatively expensive even used and may require software changes to make them work in a car without the light package with HIDs. People who have tried this could not get any useful dealer support and gave up. I probably could have made this work but was not convinced that the oem HIDs were as good as the best retrofit.
4.Install the best quality retrofit system (Projector housings, digital ballasts, HID bulbs and wiring harnesses) available. This led me to the Morimoto FX-R stage 3 with Morimoto ballasts and HID bulbs sold and supported by TRS in the Atlanta area. I called them a couple of times with questions and they provided excellent support before the sale.
I have several years of electrical and mechanical design /implementation experience, but I was concerned about how to precision mount and aim each projector. I did not really want to kleuge up some brackets and was hoping to find a way to modify the stock halogen projector mounting yoke so that the mounting and aiming mechanism was essentially the same as stock. Fortunately, after some work, I was able to selectively trim metal away to allow the medium sized FX-R projectors to fit into the modified oem yoke system. This is straightforward using the detail and photos that follow. The key is to take your time and trim away only as much as needed; while testing the fit as you go.
DETAILS and photos TO FOLLOW .........
I purchased the entire retrofit projector system from The Retrofit Source (TRS) in the Atlanta area. A few hardware items were bought at Lowes or Home Depot and are called out in the detail.
We purchased our 300C new and liked everything about it except the poorly designed, inadequate and downright dangerous headlights. These lights have several issues: low intensity on low beam, very poor coverage past the edge of the road, totally useless high beams which project almost straight up and produce no real distance improvement over the low beams. Many owners had the same complaint about the pitiful headlights on this car but no obvious solution was apparent. I did not realize that the standard projectors were halogen and not xenon when we bought the car. A single halogen bulb in one projector will never provide enough light by itself. I researched alternatives for quite a while before coming to the conclusion that retrofitting the stock headlights with a high quality complete HID projector system was the best performing, cost-effective solution.
Alternatives investigated were:
1.Direct driving the original lights by providing 12vdc directly from the battery through a high quality relay activated by the low beam signal. This significantly reduced the voltage drop at the headlight bulbs produced by the marginal stock wiring. This inexpensive mod somewhat improved the light output but not enough and did nothing to resolve the other problems.
2.Replacing the halogen bulbs with HIDs in the stock projectors. I rejected this solution because HID bulbs are 2 to 3 times as bright as halogen and the filament / projector bowl combination would scatter light all over the road blinding drivers approaching or in front of you in your lane. The projector must be designed around the bulb used. HID projectors have a much wider reflector bowl than the halogen projector and will focus the light where it belongs.
3.Purchasing Chrysler 300 OEM (Mobis) headlight housings on ebay. These are relatively expensive even used and may require software changes to make them work in a car without the light package with HIDs. People who have tried this could not get any useful dealer support and gave up. I probably could have made this work but was not convinced that the oem HIDs were as good as the best retrofit.
4.Install the best quality retrofit system (Projector housings, digital ballasts, HID bulbs and wiring harnesses) available. This led me to the Morimoto FX-R stage 3 with Morimoto ballasts and HID bulbs sold and supported by TRS in the Atlanta area. I called them a couple of times with questions and they provided excellent support before the sale.
I have several years of electrical and mechanical design /implementation experience, but I was concerned about how to precision mount and aim each projector. I did not really want to kleuge up some brackets and was hoping to find a way to modify the stock halogen projector mounting yoke so that the mounting and aiming mechanism was essentially the same as stock. Fortunately, after some work, I was able to selectively trim metal away to allow the medium sized FX-R projectors to fit into the modified oem yoke system. This is straightforward using the detail and photos that follow. The key is to take your time and trim away only as much as needed; while testing the fit as you go.
DETAILS and photos TO FOLLOW .........
I purchased the entire retrofit projector system from The Retrofit Source (TRS) in the Atlanta area. A few hardware items were bought at Lowes or Home Depot and are called out in the detail.
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