new, considering a retro. help?

[sleepyalero]

hey guys, just joined. im at work and have been reading a little bit in my downtime this morning, and at 2am this morning as well.... yeah i only got 3 hours of sleep before work thanks to you guys.


anyway.... im wanting to do a retrofit in my alero. here is a picture of her.





anyway, im thinking of doing the d2s 3.0 morimoto projectors... X or O lense is undecided atm. ive been hearing some good things about the 3.0's. so i think i will just stick with those (and because of the simplicity compared to others out there) this is my first retro.

i am curious though, what HID kit would you guys suggest? right now im running 9006 pnp kit from DDM tuning 8000k. they are nice but have some heavy hot spots in each light. but aside from that i have had em 3-4 years now, no discoloration, no blown bulbs or ballasts. they have been pretty good to me.

i realize the 3.0 are biX projectors, my headlights have a low beam and high beam seperated. the biX part of the projector may or may not be used (i know dumb) wont really know what i want to do until i get the projectors in hand...

demon eyes on the 3.0.... (paint shield) anyone done it on the 3.0's? easy? hard? ive seen some projectors that you had to drill, dremel and what not for it, and i dont know if i want to do something that extensive for a color mod.. i have seen others use LED's as well, and in some cases the HID burns the LED bulb after a week or so... just a thought.


also i have seen some people lowering the cutoff for better lighting? if i did get the 3.0 are there any "mods" people suggest before i threw them in the headlight and sealed them up?

hope this is the right section, hope for a warm welcome and some insight to my hopefully soon to come project.

[sleepyalero]

doing some HID kit searching i have 3 choice in mind atm....


- d2s morimoto elite with 3five 6000k bulbs.
- d2s morimoto elite with osram xenarc 66240 bulbs.
- d2s morimoto elite with osram xenarc 66240 CBI bulbs.

thoughts?

[Fstrsn]

I don't know if you can fit MD2S 3.0's in your housings. If you can it will be tight. You may have to go with MH1's. the MD2S 3.0 has rivets between the bowl and lens holder that need to be drilled out if you want to paint the shield, the MH1 has screws. As far as the actual HID's are concerned. If you go with MD2S you can use OE bulbs and ballasts in either 4300K or 5000K. If you go MH1 you can use converted Hella's or Denso's for OE ballasts or just stick with aftermarket ballasts and regardless you have to use aftermarket bulbs.

[sportyaccordy]

MD2S 3.0 is pretty tiny. They should fit in there with a little cutting. He can mount it with L brackets.

[mdufficy]

I bet you'll have to do some cutting. And if you will I would try rx350. And always try to use OEM bulbs. Alignment is better

[sleepyalero]

well i have not taken measurements yet of the stock housing, but plan to do so when i get off work. and then i can verify if i really could or could not fit the md2s 3.0's.

so as far as HID kit goes then since you say OEM bulbs suggested.... should i get a full D2S OEM kit, or md2s kit and say... phillips d2s bulbs?

i saw some good stuff on the osram CBI bulbs... was really liking those. but you guys probably know better then i do.


but from what i see by fstrsn and mdufficy you guys dont like aftermarket bulbs period? not even the osram CBI's?

[Fstrsn]

Osram CBI's are OE bulbs.

I just think that if you're gonna use projectors that use a D2S bulb then it's worth the extra money for OE bulbs. Alignment and quality is always better.

[sleepyalero]

ohh okay, sorry haha. work has been crazy lot of things going on.

so morimoto elite kit with osram bulbs or osram CBI's is pretty much your reccommendation. got it!

i wish i was off work so i could see if i can use the 3.0 or not, the work for the demon eyes drilling out sounds a little to much for me to do and i dont want to destroy a projector, granted its probably not that hard, but it sounds like a for sure i dont want to deal with that, if it was simple screws like the previous version id go for that instead.

i know i have plenty more questions just cant think!

[mdufficy]

Osram CBI's are OE bulbs.

I just think that if you're gonna use projectors that use a D2S bulb then it's worth the extra money for OE bulbs. Alignment and quality is always better.

yup he is correct. OEM bulbs are bulbs made by Phillips or Osram, Sylvania, Koito, GE. Those companies make OEM bulbs which are 100% aligned. Aftermarket bulbs arent aligned so well an can cause issues and make output seem weird. With projectors the tolerances have to be small because any tiny mistake is really magnified. But I would look into rx350. I really favor the OEM world, but I have had good luck with the morimoto ballasts

[mdufficy]

i think if it is your first retro i would just go easy like an all chrome setup with a nice projector and nice bulbs. Then if you want to paint stuff or do demon eyes i would do that down the road. Obviously you can learn on here and plenty of guys have done it though

[sleepyalero]

why do you consider the rx350 ones? and i see a lense choice of sti-R, what is the benefit of that?

[mdufficy]

why do you consider the rx350 ones? and i see a lense choice of sti-R, what is the benefit of that?

Im really bias towards OEM projectors hahah. The rx350 is a pretty small projector and is actually considered one of the best on here. That lens is a clear lens. OEM projectors typically come with a fresnel or frosted lens. It softens the cutoff

[sleepyalero]

Ahh okay. Well I know I want clear lenses. And back about oh... 2 years ago. I thought s2k ones were the best? Yet they are pretty big...

[Fstrsn]

Ahh okay. Well I know I want clear lenses. And back about oh... 2 years ago. I thought s2k ones were the best? Yet they are pretty big...

Yea, S2K used to be the cream of the crop. It's downfall is it's only single xenon. Nowadays there are better bi-xenon performers. Although if you wanted to stay single xenon you could go for some RX330's and mod them for less than the cost of S2K. The RX330 non-AFS can also be converted to bi-xenon. For tuning and/or converting the RX330's greenkouki has a write-up.

[mdufficy]

yeah s2ks are pretty much over, they're expensive, can have issues and there are better projectors out there for less money