My Quad Projector HLs! :D

[visibiliti]

OVERVIEW

Ok, I am pretty busy today, so it's going to take a few sessions for me to update this with everything I want to add to it.

1) Design ideas, criteria, inspiration, thank yous
2) Build photos
3) Night shots



-Need better HLs-
First of all, I knew for a long time that I wanted to upgrade my HL for the G, mainly because I think it looks badass and makes the car look so much newer compared to the older 03-05 HLs. That being said, I still didn't like the lower foglight reflector area of the 06+ HLs, so I had decided on setting out to get quad projectors. I did alot of browsing and searching through the lighting forums, and got many ideas and a feel for how difficult the project was going to be.

-My new project-
I originally was going to have ivoryGT work on my lights, but by the time I finished my ideas and had the funds, he was no longer working on lights, so I set out to do the project on my own, with zero background in any work like this at all. I honestly had never even used a soldering iron before, lol let alone actually put super expensive lights IN AN OVEN! But I had great amounts of help along the way, and went from being a lighting newb to a lighting guru (or so I'd like to think! )

-Shout outs and props-
Thank you's for knowledge and inspiration to: IvoryGT, ON, E_K, Ghayes23, redlude97, accordfreak

And of course my thank you for teaching me massive amounts of random things about tools and projects in general, and for helping me with my build to: volcom_koda

In the interest of centralizing and propagating the information I used and knowledge I obtained for the project, here are some links to threads that have excellent information and pictures:
[DIY] HL Removal
[DIY] Opening HLs/Painting Bezel
[DIY] Cutoff/Color Mod
[DIY] Polishing HL Covers
[DIY] HL Aiming and Adjustment
[Discussion] Philips 85122+ vs 85122CM
[Discussion] Wiring for Lower Projector
[Build] ON's Quad
[Build] E_K's Quad
[Build] An IvoryGT Quad
[Build] Another IvoryGT Quad
[Build] Ghayes23's Quad


-My personal criteria-
Originally I wanted to go all out and implement a clearance strip back in since they removed it on the 06+ HLs. I had grand plans for a very special unique mod that no one had done yet for the clearance strip and parking lights. Needless to say, towards the end of my project, I changed my mind due to the overall theme for the build of my car. I ended up adhering to these criteria:

• Clean
• Colormod'd
• 5000K
• Quad lo-beam and hi-beam
• OEM Adjustability
• OEM Paint Scheme
• OEM Shrouds
• OEM Parts

Since the overall theme of my car is a very clean subtle look, I had to scrap my wild parking light/clearance strip idea and keep my build as clean as possible for now. I did come up with another solution for the parking lights/clearance strip but it will have to wait until later in the summer.

-What's inside?-
So, here is what I ended up using for the project:

• 4x G35 Projectors
• 4x Clear Lenses
• 4x Modded spacers and cutoff shields
• 4x G35 shrouds
• Duplicolor Bumper Coating; Black
• 4x Matsu****a Ballasts
• 4x Philips 85122CM Bulbs

Yes, it's all overkill. But that is what I wanted, really. A very fun-filled, learning-oriented project that would result in massive light output on the road for me at night. Honestly, I hated the old 03 HL light output Again, I wanted to keep the overall look of my lights clean and OEM-like. I want random people that are not into cars to be able to look at my lights and think "wow those infiniti lights are really cool these days" rather than "wow that person totally messed up their headlights like mis-matched whoaaaa" That is why I chose to use OEM shrouds, and why I chose to paint it the way I did. I had seen many types of paint schemes for the 06+ HLs here on driver, but ended up being influenced predominantly by other car companies most recent light housings:

C6 vette, mazda3, TC (these are just some of many that I happened to see that influenced me)



Rather than paint the entire shroud around the projector chrome, they just had a simple chrome ring around the end of it. I liked this look and decided to try it for my project. I think the look came out very awesome, and it looks really good on the car IRL! It's not perfect, but I did what I could. Most of the flaws cannot be seen unless you bend down to within a foot of the light.

Teaser:

Teh oldness


Teh newness

[visibiliti]

BUILD PHOTOS

First of all, this is not a full fledged DIY, but I will still attempt to share as much knowledge as I can by posting quite a few pictures from the build process.

Pic of PS setup to work on lights indoors. Note the convenient push button switch to turn PS on and off!



Filing down lower projector after cutting extra off with hacksaw to get it to fit in the housing


Before modding cutoff shield and spacer


After some preliminary mods, Philips 85122+ (~4300K, 3400 lumens)


Philips 85122CM, amazingly white in person, NO blue tint as seen below, im just not great with a camera (~4800K, 3100 lumens)


Bake bake bake (I generally played around with 225-240 degrees F and took 2 or 3 times to open and re-seal my HLs)


For mounting my lower projector, there were infinite ways that I could have done it, but I wanted a very elegant straightforward solution that made use of the OEM mounting locations that the reflector used to be mounted to. Here is a prelim shot of my solution


Here is a picture showing how I needed to design a way for the bottom part of my projector to connect to the lower mount point. This is the point that adjusts pitch and is controllable from outside the headlight. I wanted my lower projector to be able to be adjusted similar to the factory reflector so that I could adjust pitch after my setup was complete and sealed. This way, I can run it as an additional low beam, but in the future if I ever want to run 3000K fogs I will be able to aim it back down!


Solution to this problem changed a few times due to my stupidness, but here is what I came up with


Cool so now I have it mounted, and it retains OEM adjustability. Feelin' good now.


Power em up with the PS to adjust my horizontal correctly. Got it.


Here I am trying to get my lower shroud to fit behind the OEM bezel. Talk about headache. I wasted so much time on this part trying to decide what to cut and what not to, and how to mount. Luckily I had an extra bezel to practice on! This part was seriously a pain because I was being way too picky and specific. Ugh. The extra bezel was also nice to practice cutting out the shroud.


Here is a glimpse at how much mess cutting the plastic bezels makes. That stuff gets soooo annoying.


Almost ready for paint, just gotta dremel off some of the back side to get the lower shroud to fit in. Not gonna show you guys the painting pictures because I suck hardcore at painting, had to have volcom_koda come in and help me fix it. In the end I learned alot about painting and am MUCH better at it now! woot


Here is a shot of my T-Taps into the upper solenoid wires, connecting them to the lower solenoid in parallel so that I can get quad hi-beams when I flip em on


Here they are completed though


Since the projector had to sit far enough back for lens clearance, it stuck out too far through the back of the housing. So I took some old caps and dremelled them out and then bonded them to the new caps, so that I still have the OEM sealing but I just have a deeper cap now In this shot you can also see my nylon plug in the middle that I am used to route wires through.


Here are the lights on the car, just making sure everything works groovy before sealin' em back up


Closeup of testing


Time to put em all together


Ok so I decided to run a separate harness and relay for power for the lower set of projectors, rather than using the existing foglight circuit. So here is a picture of the connector I installed in the back of the headlight. It runs inside the headlight to the ballast that I have mounted inside. This way, the HL can unconnect from the harness when taking it off the car.


Ok here they are all sealed up and on the car




ADDENDA
Mounting Information for Lower Projector
Custom Bracket for Lower Mount


30sec flyby of parts before I seal it all up


Video of testing the quad hi-beam functionality. The goal was for my solenoid T-Tap'd connections to be a success. Spoiler: they were. This is a pretty boring video but it is useful knowledge for anyone curious about how the hi-beams in your car even work. The solenoid receives power and activates, which pulls the post down. The cutoff shield is attached to the post, so it gets pulled down, and all of your light now escapes through your projector lens.

[visibiliti]

NIGHT SHOTS

reserved for night shots

[Deftronix]

Those are sweet! Looking forware to seeing mroe shots Black grill and those go well with your LR!

[willthethrill]

amazing transformation. makes me want projectors now.

[E_K]

Very nice job. The OEM shrouds half black/chrome really set it off.

I agree with you on the OEM look. Most people think my headlights are 06 headlights with just one extra set of projectors in the fog area.

[elayman]

looks nice. I would have liked to see the lower projector's housing painted all black. I think it stands out a little too much, both of them being chrome, but I'm sure it looks better in person

[O HELLA OEM]

DAMN that looks sick!

[Darkstar752]

Looks amazing. What was the total cost and total manhours required to do this? Was there a DIY you followed?

I'm really interested too, and have zero experience. BTW, I like how your Kuruma Z bumper has better fitment then the stock one haha. Where did you get it from?

[visibiliti]

Thanks for all the replies so far

Darkstar752, please don't even ask me the total cost and total manhours required... LOL they both ended up being wayyyy more than I anticipated. Towards the end cost became a backseat compared to getting it done and just learning from it

I have to say I spent at least 80-100 hours working on it. I mean, it was stretched out over like 2 months! That sounds like an insane amount but when you have never done this before, you will have like 4 hour sessions just banging your head aganist a wall trying to figure stuff out. I am very confident now that I know the solution to everything that I could do this same setup again in around 10-15 hours I'd say. Also, I wasted alot of time with some ideas and designs and practice that I didn't even end up integrating into my final product.

I also gained alot of proficiency and knowledge about tools, wiring, soldering, hacksawing, filing, DREMELLING (omg best tool EVAR) and my car in general. I'm unquestionably happy that I took on the project from start to finish, as the skills I gained from it are basically priceless and have really turned me into a DIY-loving person now.


There was no specific DIY, alot of it was just getting in there and seeing it in front of you in person. Online pictures and threads of other setups (search "quad" in lighting forum) definitely gave me motivation and inspiration. There are just alot of little things you gotta solve as you go along. The people I thanked in the first post were great sources of information.

Thanks for the compliment on my new bumper. I purchased it from Concept Z Performance in Arizona. PM Coz@CZP here on the forums for info. He is very friendly and helpful.

[Beebo]

looks great

[redlude97]

looks great, so you were able to reuse the top 2 projector mounts without modification for the lower projector? Looks like you took your time and did everything correctly

[Hossmaxima]

man that looks really nice and clean, great work

[sfgr415]

These have to be some of the cleanest headlights on this site. I personally have all flat black projectors. I am not too crazy about leaving chrome on, however, your set is amazing.

[nomadgamer]

+1 they look tits