Retrofit hid projector on 08 explorer

Hi there just wondering can you retrofit an 08 explorer with hid projectors. The guy who installed my hids said that ford is the only brand that you can't open the headlghts because ford uses some crazy silicon. and the headlight would crack or something. Any help is greatly apprecated.

 

[TowingExplorer]

Have you aimed the projectors yet? Looks like a lot of light to the left with the headlights.

Maybe get us a picture as though we were an oncoming vehicle from the other lane.

 

[Alienman8]

Yea, they are aimed correctly, after like 4 tries hahaha. The reason as to why it looks like that is because I'm so close to the snow on the right that most of it is going right into that, and the road is not really straight, it is a slow bend to the right. I do see what you are talking about, it looks like they are very much so pointed left, but really in real life they are as perfect as I can get them to be. If we get a good clear night I can get a better picture of them pointed at a wall, or my house or something from far away and show them better, for some reason whenever I take a picture of the headlights on the road, they look a lot worse then they actually are.

As for picture from oncoming car's perspective, I'll see what I can do, its another rainy night here in NY so, might be a day or two.

-Kevin

 

[BrianDye]

Alien, those are soem sick headlights! that looks badass!

 

[Alienman8]

Thank you! I really do love them. Once you drive with them you will never want to go back to halogens ever. If you spend th money and do the full retrofit, you really won't be dissapointed. Unfortunately it seems as though not everyone here does that, which no matter what you tell people, it does blind peole. Not saying I haven't either when I'm at the wrong angle, but it is generally better, plus you get a cool cut off, and a lot more usuable light.

If you guys want any more pictures/other pictures besides the ones I said I'll try to get, let me know.

-Kevin

 

[BrianDye]

I plan on getting the halo/projector housings for my 95, I had my old 92, with the stock bulbs, and they were decent I guess, but once I got my HIDs (10000k) I told myself I would never go back to halogen. Theres really no comparison at all...

Ive never actually dealt with the projectors/seen the output in real life, from the pics they look very "crisp" so to speak haha, as in like a very strong output, no scattering or anything

 

[Alienman8]

Any projectors are better than none. Not that you wouldn't get some benefit from just the plug and play stuff, my fogs are now much bighter, but the plug and play can be really hit or miss in terms of how much of the light are you using vs how much you are lighting up the tree tops. Even th 07 fogs, which are pretty directional has glare. Personally, I just think the look of the projectors are sick vs reflectors, but they are expensive so it's all a matter of how much you want to spend on not only something cool looking, but a serious safety upgrade as well.

 

[TowingExplorer]

Does anyone know if the 06+ can be retrofitted similar to the 95 in this thread? That's just awesome how you can slide a projector through the headlight hole from the front after taking the lense off.

 

[Sams01XplrSprt]

alien i wanna eventually put like an 8000k hid kit for my 01 sport and 3000k hid for my fogs u got pics of the 3000k hids just ur fogs

 

[TowingExplorer]

Edit: Just a FYI, the headlights are FX-r projectors (I think I said that) and the fogs are in stock housings

Can I just google FX-r projectors and buy any kind that claim to be them or should I be concerned with the manufacturer?

Also, (don't think you answered this yet but I apologize if I missed it,) did you just pop the lense off the front of your light and put the projector through the OE headlight bulb hole? If so, was the lense glued or plastic welded? If not, how did you get the projector in there?

Edit - Last question, what type of HID bulbs do you have? I'll have the H13's (IIRC) coming soon from the bulk buy on this site.

 

[Alienman8]

Sams01XplrSprt, yea the picture is up already, its the second one in my post on the second page all the way at the bottom. If you do get the plug and play kind (for both fogs and headlights) do everyone a favor and just get a 35 watt kit, since the 55 watts are even brighter, and would blind even more, which is no good =P haha.

TowingExplorer, I got them from http://store.theretrofitsource.com/ they are the only people that make them, to my knowledge. Thats what the -r stands for, since it is not technically an OEM projector, they took the FX projector, and reverse engineered it so that they can build their own and sell that cheaper, and pre-modded (clear lenses basically) They are a little expensive, but it is worth it in my opinion.
As for your other questions, they are not like the pop-off your lense, pop-in the projector type of projector... It was a lot of work to do unforunately. The first headlight I heated up in the oven then just worked at it with a big flat screw driver and repeated the process a lot... to get the lens off, the second time I used a heat gun (makes life so much easier since you aren't burning yourself when holding it) after that, I had to drill out a good amount of material by the bulb socket/drill holes for screws. I'd take pictures of the back of the headlight, but since they are aimed so well, I really don't to screw it up... Simple version of the above: what I did requires a good amount of more work then the, pop out the lens, pop-in the projector, type of projectors. But, with what I did, you get a slightly cooler looking cut off (or at least in my opinion) and a bit more width, since the projector I used is larger then the other ones, for what i mean by pop-in projectors, its these things: http://www.hidlighting.com.hk/product_en/product_view.asp?id=160&aid=1&nid=
and Lastly, I have D2S bulbs, but there really is no difference between bulbs besides company and socket type, other than that, a bulb is a bulb. excluding color.

Feel free to ask any more questions, and sorry if I missed anything, let me know.

-Kevin

 

[Oxygen]

wow that looks great!! nice work..

gotta love projectors+HIDs!

 

[TowingExplorer]

TowingExplorer, I got them from http://store.theretrofitsource.com/ they are the only people that make them, to my knowledge. Thats what the -r stands for, since it is not technically an OEM projector, they took the FX projector, and reverse engineered it so that they can build their own and sell that cheaper, and pre-modded (clear lenses basically) They are a little expensive, but it is worth it in my opinion.

Ebay has a lot of fx-r projectors so thats' why I asked where you got them from.

As for your other questions, they are not like the pop-off your lense, pop-in the projector type of projector... It was a lot of work to do unforunately. The first headlight I heated up in the oven then just worked at it with a big flat screw driver and repeated the process a lot... to get the lens off, the second time I used a heat gun (makes life so much easier since you aren't burning yourself when holding it) after that, I had to drill out a good amount of material by the bulb socket/drill holes for screws. I'd take pictures of the back of the headlight, but since they are aimed so well, I really don't to screw it up...

This is good info. Specifically the FX-R do not just drop in to the OE bulb hole like some others have done with projectors in I believe the 2g X. I'll have to buy a second set of headlights to do this mod so I can easily switch back for warranty work as I'm sure the dealer won't appreciate the modification.

I don't remember offhand what the inside of the headlights look like under the hood, but maybe you can get a picture without actually removing them? Even a poor angle shot is better than nothing.

 

[Alienman8]

Getting spare headlights I would seriously recommend, not only since ford would not take too kindly to tearing up their headlights, but since it took me a good amount of time to actually get the headlights perfect, so just having a spare set to work on, while I had my originals in the car, was a life saver or else you cant drive at night.

The Retrofit Source actually does have an eBay store, here is the link: http://myworld.ebay.com/ebaymotors/retrofit-source/ So anything bought from them, would be straight from the people that make them. Edit: or atleast the FX-r projectors.

also here are two pictures on one of my spares I now have... (3 2 from my originals, and this one which I needed for the lens, since the one I bought from ebay had cracks all over it unbeknown to me...)

Back:

Front:

Ignore the mess... hahaha, thats my work table for my car : Oil, solder, electrical tape, speaker wire and speakers to name a few things that I can see in the picture. hahahahaha

The text got a little shrunken... so basically everything inside the blue circles I had to remove, and then the red circles are where I drilled holes for screws to hold the projector in (roughly of course...) I'll see what I can do about getting some pictures of the headlights tomorrow.

Edit: As a note, if you plan on doing a retrofit through the retrofit source, (such as buying the FX-rs from them) Id suggest sending them an email, since you can buy everything you need(projectors/bulbs/ballasts/shrouds/harness), they will also try to make you the best deal that they can since you are buying a kit. I can't say enough about Matt, who I can only assume is the owner, since he helped me out a great deal with all of this.

 

[TowingExplorer]

Thanks for the pictures alienman. Knowing that you had to cut a chunk out of the OE headlight, I see no difference in getting FX-R (or FX-RS) projectors versus any others which are of similar quality as it is a custom fit. I believe our 2g X brethren have lucked out by finding projectors which would actually fit through their OE holes so there was no cutting required.

Edit: As a note, if you plan on doing a retrofit through the retrofit source, (such as buying the FX-rs from them) Id suggest sending them an email, since you can buy everything you need(projectors/bulbs/ballasts/shrouds/harness), they will also try to make you the best deal that they can since you are buying a kit. I can't say enough about Matt, who I can only assume is the owner, since he helped me out a great deal with all of this.

I just bought a set of HIDs through the bulk buy on here for my OE housings to try out. I realize now that these will probably be too blinding to others so that is why I'm investigating projectors. Then I'll just re-use the ballasts from the bulk buy set and pick up whatever bulb (for the keys on the back) type I need for whatever projectors I end up with.

You had mentioned having to aim them down. What is the reason for this? Shouldn't using projectors end up letting you aim them just like any other originally equipped SUVs with HIDs?

 

[Alienman8]

I had to aim them down, since the first time I had them aimed, they were literally pointing into the sky, and I almost died laughing because of it, so I fixed that, but drove around a while and was getting flashed a couple of times, so now they are aimed a tad bit lower. Like you said, they are currently at the level of any other SUV that would, like my mom's MKX:

They are a tad bit lower than they are in that picture, but that is because as you can see in the picture, mine are a lot brighter than the MKX's (I am actually beginning to think that they aren't HIDs at all. hahaha)

If I was to pull up to any SUV that has HIDs standard, mine would be basically the same height.

 

[TowingExplorer]

Okay, thanks for clarifying the level thing for me.

How much did you end up buying your spare OE lights for? I checked the FS forum here but no one's parting 4g's yet.

 

[Alienman8]

Sorry for the double post, but about the projectors, you are pretty much right. There are not that many benefits that I am getting from doing all that I have done, vs just getting the drop-in type projectors, really the only main difference is the width of the light. (All of the following pictures are not mine, but rather property of JVX from HiDplanet.com)
G1 low beam:

G1 High:

G3 low beam:

G3 High:

FX-r low beam:

I couldn't find one of the highs.

The G2s, the ones that are pictured in this thread, are supposidly much bigger/better in terms of width, so they should be much better compared to both G1 and G3.

 

[Alienman8]

Hahaha, now it a double post, not before, sorry! I got them for about 65-80$ I think. not sure, they were all used, but you can get new ones for about 110, 120, all on ebay. Wait for the right deal, just make sure the lenses are good, unlike me... so you don't have to waste 70$

 

[TowingExplorer]

Width can be a problem though when you do begin blinding other drivers. I'd think the G1's are pretty good overall for what I'd want.

I had thought that G1 and G3 were the generation X which they fit. But now that you listed the FX-R at the same time, I was apparently wrong and G1 and G3 are in fact the projector housing type.

The FX-R are probably physically the largest projectors of the bunch listed above which explains why you get the widest pattern.

 

[Alienman8]

Yea, they are actually different projectors, not the generation that they would fit. You would also be correct about the FX-R projector being the biggest,
RX330 (similar size to FX-r) vs G3:

G1 vs RX330:

(again, the above pictures are not mine, they are property of JVX)

Now, don't let the shrouds fool you. the most important part of the projector to determine width is the bowl (the shiny chrome part on the G1/G2, and the dull steel looking type thing on the RX330, basically the part closest to the bulb socket) While the G3 is deffently an improvement, it is still smaller, and thus not as wide.

I'm not sure why width would be a problem in terms of blinding people, since that is why the cutoff drops on the left side, to accommodate for that exact reason. Also, they are very good projectors for the size that they are, don't let these pictures/what I am saying make you feel bad/anything along those lines since they are not as wide/whatever as the FX-r etc. For what they are, they are very very good lil projectors