I’ve had my 95 Tacoma for many years, and have been putting a lot of money into it lately to restore it. A couple years ago, I got the whole truck repainted black, and had all body damage fixed, and replaced the bumpers and interior carpet and other random items. I also upgraded the headlights to HID’s, but the headlight housings (standard 7×6 housing) were horrible, and didn’t spread the light the way I wanted it to. They also came with this “projector lens” gimmick inside them, which was worthless.
I found www.theretrofitsource.com by complete accident, and fell in love with their products. After a ton of research, I decided to buy their bi-xenon PNP kit (http://www.theretrofitsource.com/product_info.php?products_id=178)with FX-R projectors, since I already had ballasts. This came with projectors, shrouds, 4300k bulbs, and adapters to hook up the D2S bulbs to my existing ballasts.
They started out like this:
I started by cutting open the housings (the glue was a silicone glue, so the oven bake trick would not work), then painting the inside of the housing black.
I then cut a significant portion of the back of the housing off, with a nice level cut
I bought a 4″ sewer pipe cap for a mounting template for the projector:
I cut the end off the cap, sanded it down, then cut a hole in it for the projector, using a cardboard template I had made.
I then mounted the projector inside the template, and checked the fit. I also trimmed the apollo shrouds so that they would fit the projector, and inside the housing. I painted everything flat black again.
Here, you can see what the projector looks like in the housing, before doing the actual mount.
Using some bolts, I mounted the projector to the template.
Final coat of flat black paint (upper housing looks dimpled because I had some paint issues, and had to sand a bit with the dremel)
I then fused the housing and template together with plastic epoxy putty. I also sealed the front glass back to the housing.
Here they are in the truck before putting the grille back on
Here’s the light pattern from the projectors (pre-adjustment):
Here’s the comparison of the light pattern, next to my 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution with factory HID’s. 25 feet away:
IMO, the cutoff of the Lancer, is better than the FX-R projectors. The cutoff is so hard and defined, rather than being soft and set a much different angle.
I’ve got a few more pics to add. I forgot to take pics of high beams, and of course, the finished product in the daylight. We just got a snowstorm that moved in, and now the truck is dirty as hell!
I plan on doing this same setup on my motorcycle (2008 Honda CBR600RR) in the near future.
