Thanks. Definitely not a regular install for this but worth it in the end.

Two more pics for now. One with the stock lights, second with projectors + HID.

 

that comparison shot is unbelievable..if we havent been speakin on it for the past week or so u couldnt tell those heads are smoked at all..nice job bro it looks really good.. [thumbs up]

 

Thanks I'm happy I got them.


Btw, does anyone know if normally halos are visible during the day? In the daytime pics I've posted the halos are on but can't see them at all.

 

not visible unless its a dark cloudy day..

 

damn, was hoping I could use the halos for daylight running... :\

 

I can guess that the base model 350Z didn't come with HIDs, and I can also make an edumacated guess that the base model outsold any other option package, as it does in every car sold with different packages ever made.

Keep in mind not all projectors are "meant" for HIDs. As far as projectors being specially designed for HIDs, what makes you think that? There are two methods of directing light in headlight applications: reflecting and projecting.

Reflecting just means you have shiny sh*t in the headlight to point light in a "This way is forward. And kind of sideways. And a little up and down." kind of direction.

Projectors are set up just like reflectors, with two tiny additions. The first is an elliptical focusing lens which, much like the cornea and lens of the human eye (only in reverse). It directs light in a "This is forward" kind of direction. The light straying up? BLAMMO! B*tch-slapped by the second addition: the cutoff. The cutoff's only job is to keep light from straying too high and into oncoming drivers' eyes.

As far as the difference in HIDs, it's in the bulb and wiring. Sure, some (higher-level manufacturers) have projectors designed to aim light up/down for high/low beams, but quite a lot of projectors on the market have dedicated reflector high-beams.

Now quality is a different story. Obviously OEM projectors will be of better quality than some $150 aftermarket projectors.

*edit: and yeah, you can't see halos in direct sunlight. On overcast days you might seem them, but they still wouldn't be very visible. You really need to wait until dusk or nighttime to actually see them.

 

The 350Z car was unavailable for this day, couldn't get a hold of that bastard. All 2006 350Z have BI-Xenon HID's with projectors. A comparison between the 350Z stock projectors and ravi_oli's projectors isn't a fair one. There is added benefit if you use Aftermarket HID's and Aftermarket Projectors even though they aren't meant to be used together.

The 350Z uses a halogen bulb designed to work with the projector already provided by Nissan, and reduces a lot of top glare. The HID's and aftermarket projectors used in this project also reduce top glare but not consistently and it doesn't have that clean of a cutoff as OEM projectors do. All of the light the HID's produce isn't all concentrated to the center like it should be but it also isn't blinding oncoming traffic. OEM projectors are designed a lot differently then aftermarkets hence the not so great light output.

If you are to use just HID's with no projectors no matter how low it set to there is still going to be glare that distracts incoming traffic. Aftermarket HID's and projectors even though they aren't meant to work together still aid in removing the top glare from the cutoff and the glare produced from the left housing that blinds us all. So if you want to go through the affordable for now semi-cheap route :P get HID's and projectors. No matter how sucky aftermarket projectors are they still aid with glare, and remember HID's are a lot brighter then regular halogens that come stock on non HID models so the projectors won't kill your output as much as a regular halogen. You will still have a an even clearer view with HID and projectors vs stock non HID halogens.

More of this is explained on the sticky here:

https://www.hondacivicforum.com/foru...ad.php?t=63317

So what is the solution to getting a perfect cutoff and eliminating almost all the glare? Projector retrofit, with good quality projectors.

Hopefully soon we can have a comparison with ravi_oli when i get my S2000 projectors.

 

So, looking at all the pics and everything that my friend and I ended up doing to get this mod done I've decided not to do a write up. Instead I'm going to post some pics of the two major things we did. There are plenty of write ups online already on how to remove civic bumpers, headlights, etc...

NOTE: this is just what I had to do. I don't recommend anyone else do this to their car and/or lights.

----------------------------

First obstacle was putting the HID bulbs into the new headlights. The opening for the bulb in back of the housing was too small so we had to file down the opening and make it bigger.

Pic shows before (left) and after (right). Actually, in the end we ended filing down the opening even more than what's shown in the after shot. Looking at some other HID kits out there, they look like what I have but I don't know if there are different type bulbs out there that would have fit without doing this.




Second was finding a place to mount the ballasts for the HIDs. Not much room in behind the headlights (especially driver's side) to mount them so we took the fenders off and drilled holes into the sidewall to mount them.

Pic shows passenger (left) and driver's (right) sides of the car. We used the bracket that the fender screws onto to zip tie the smaller box to. The signal part of new lights aren't as deep as the stock ones so this mod didn't get in the way when putting the new lights on.




These are the only major jobs that we did. Filing down the opening in the new lights was a PITA!! That's what made the whole thing take 12 hours to do.

Some random pics of the car during the build.

 

Forgot about this one. We had to cutout a portion of the back of the rubber dust cap for the low beam that came with the new lights. This was done to insert the grommet that came with the HID kit. Then we used compound to seal the two parts together. The blue wire also had to be cut pushed back into the cap through a new hole and re-tapped.