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TRS morimoto projectors H1s - complete

seth21

Active Member
Joined
January 18, 2015
Messages
54
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City, State
Georgia
Year, Model & Trim Level
2008
Took on the project yesterday and it went well. This is our family car and night visibility has never been great but especially during the rain.

I first bought the OPT7 LED headlights from Amazon for 100 bucks. They were OK and I knew going into it that they probably wouldn't work well in stock reflector housings. I returned them, amazon made it easy with free shipping.

A few weeks later bought the kit from TRS after deciding to go for the projectors to do it right. I actually live close to them and stopped by one day, neat place and the guy I spoke with was very helpful and took the time to educate me. I also watched several youtube videos that TRS has posted on how to do the swap.

Finished Product
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To open headlight. 290 degree at 10 minutes was the secret number for me that made the headlight open up easily. I've read of a bunch of different numbers people use.

How the projector shows up, be sure to get the desiccant out as its hiding in there. Be sure to use a 9V battery to test solenoid 30-40 times as recommended by TRS.
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I had already screwed on the shroud in this picture.
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I did not remove the reflector bowl from the black reflector housing, removing the bowl looked like a real hassle and I thought I had enough access to get it done. I use a dremel to do the trimming for me.

Finished headlight. I'm not 100% happy with how the back is sealed. I would prefer a big boot that went over the whole HID plug but the stock one doesn't make it. It does still seal on the back of the reflector like it does from the factory so hopefully it will be fine. I will address it later if I see moisture in the headlight. 2 wires at the bottom are the hi/low solenoid, I made a small slit in the gasket and pulled the 2 wires through.
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Finished headlight
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Wiring harness. See below to get an idea of what the harness is like, one of the ballast isn't in the picture. It was definitely more wiring than I was expecting but it comes with a diagram that explains it. It took probably an hour - 1.5 hours to get the wiring right. I wanted to make sure it looked as stock as possible and didn't have a bunch of wires hanging around so I picked up some self taping screws and black zip ties. I honestly thought I just plugged in a ballast at the headlight but the harness showed up. Luckily it did because I read alittle bit on it and you get better performance because the light is powered right off the battery and the headlight circuit is just used to signal the relay.
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Removed battery tray and made room to install the relay and drivers side ballast. Used self tapping screws to mount them.
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Passenger side ballast mounted behind the air box.
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Light pattern. This picture doesn't even do the lights justice, I drove them around last night and was blown away. Makes sense when you think about it, you basically have your high beam brights on all the time but are blocking the top half. On top of that, your lights are putting out more lumens as well. My passenger side light wasn't totally level in this picture but I later straightened it out.
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Overall, very happy! Its hard to put a price on good night visibility. As I've read everywhere, TRS was great to deal with. If you are considering a non-projector upgrade, I say skip that other stuff and save up the $270 to do the right way. I'm also not a fan of people who put crazy bright lights into stock housings and blind everyone.

It is important to note that I am current getting headlight errors and this makes sense to me because the headlights circuits aren't really pulling any power except closing the relay so the computer thinks the light is out. I'll do some research on how to remedy it and post another topic on it.
 



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Nice job. It looks far less awkward in this application than I might imagine! Well done and thanks for the write up!
 






Easy fix for the errors. Im running HIDs right now, waiting for this weather to warm up before I do my retrofit, but order some of these resistors.

50w 6ohm splice-in resistors
http://www.amazon.com/4PCS-ARTR-6oh...452008276&sr=8-2&keywords=splice+in+resistors

What you do, is connect one side of the resistor to the body/frame (ground it) and the other wire you splice into your low beam wire on the headlight harness. Same with the high beam wire, one for each beam, on each side (4 total)

Took me about 20 minutes to throw 6 of them in. (I have switchback blinkers, so I needed one for each of my blinkers as well) I just used the quicksplice, I didnt care for the ones they came with, I had a pack in my toolbox, then wrapped with some electrical tape.

I spliced in longer wires too, so I could mount them cleanly out of the way, onto the fender. They get HOT, so you dont want them touching other wires, or plastic.

And thanks for this little write up, gives me some more confidence on doing them. How long do you think it took you from start to finish? And did you glue the projectors down or anything, or just use the provided bolts and such they come with? How did you align them to be straight in the housing?

Sorry for so many questions, I appreciate any advice/help! I would just hate to mess up a pair of $120 headlights, and $300 in projectors lol
 






I was watching some videos, did the projector just line up with the stock headlight hole? I started building them for my buddies Silverado, which needed the hole trimmed almost twice as big to fit the back of the projector through, so it didnt just "line up" with the hardware like I just saw in a TRS Youtube video. He did them in a Civic in the video, and literally after opening the headlight, screwed them in and sealed the headlight back up then the only aiming was up/down with the housing adjuster screws.

Edit* Realized thats only for two different style headlights. (I think its like H1 and H7, but dont quote me, where the projector will just line up perfectly with that adapter plate)

I decided to give it a go, headlights are out of the truck, the "neck" is sanded down so the projector threads come through far enough, and now im painting the shrouds and reflector bowls. Shrouds are red, bowls are gonna be flat black. In the future I was planning on flat black wheels, and red brake calipers, so itll be a nice little accent.

So far, this project isnt bad at all. Aside from the waiting periods like baking the headlights, and waiting for paint to dry, im only about 45 minutes to an hour in, and now all I essentially have todo is run the wire harness, mount/aim and seal the headlights back up and ill be done. Shouldn't be more than another two hours of work. Dont know why this project intimidated me so much in the past.

Im also doing white halo's on the front of my shrouds. Thanks for doing this write up!
 






I spent roughly 6 hours on the whole deal. It's one of those things where I think I could do it in 3 hours if I did it again. I took my time in unpacking all the parts and went nice and slow, like you said . . . I'm not trying to ruin a pair of headlights.

Mount projector
I did not glue the projectors down. I used the aluminum nut and mounting hardware. Really it's just a rubber washer on the front side of the reflector and a washer on the backside. I did have to use a dremel to trim down the backside of the headlight so enough threads would come through the headlight for the nut to catch. I feel good about the mounting, I think the reflector bowl would break off the headlight housing before the projector separated from the reflector bowl.

Aligning
The alignment washer that comes with the kit does nothing for us. As you pointed out, some headlights have it easy. Id recommend mounting the light and then installing the headlight into the car before attaching lense. I didn't do this and ended up having to adjust a projector afterwards. One light was wrong rotation wise and was pointed alittle inward.


Shrouds
I used the mini gatlin I believe which actually can screw into the projector. Most others are glued on.

I think the hardest part of this whole project is nutting up and taking a dremel to set of perfectly good headlights. One good part is the area that you dremel ends up being covered up by the projector so it doesn't have to be perfect.
 






I hit a roadblock when I thought everything was going good. Didn't dremmel the neck of the headlight down enough to let enough threads through. What I though was enough, was not enough to clear the bulb mount thing you have to screw back on. So as I'm assembling them to mount to the Explorer and align, I found out I had to take it all back apart! Some words were exchanged...lol.

I'm good now, had to wash the dust off them from sanding the neck down and just waiting for them to dry, but when you said one was the wrong rotation, do you mean upside down?
 






Not upside down although I could see that as an easy mistake to make. Mine was just tilted maybe 5-10 degrees so the headlight 'line' on the wall wasn't completely horizontal. It was barely noticeable but one of those small things that can drive you nuts if you know about it.
 






Very nicely done! Glad to see our products in more and more Sport Tracs! I work for TRS
 






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