Ok, so I installed my headlights and aligned the pattern, but although I'm certain the Z pattern is aligned (although slightly off to try and compensate for the weird light pattern I'm talking about) and i have the lights pointed in the right directions, something is not right. Specifically its the light output itself. The brightest part of the beam is pointed drastically to the left to the point that the right side of the road is barely illuminated compared to the left and I have no clue why. Also it seems that there is very little light that shines directly ahead leading me to guess that maybe just maybe I have d2r bulbs in the headlights...but wasn't brilliant enough to check when i had the headlights out.

Ok so here are pictures to give a better idea of what i'm trying to show.






As you can see the beam keeps shifting to the left as I roll the car back , even though the Z pattern stays in the same place on the wall (i did my best to align it straight ahead).

Any ideas , suggestions ? ...I mean at this point I know i have to take the lights off anyway...gotta change the damn fog lights out.

 

Let me guess, you bought pre-recalled headlights? This is exactly why I was against people selling them in the beginning, you get a crapshoot. Remove the headlights, adjust the cutoff using the 3 bolts on the rear, and reaim using my DIY https://g35driver.com/forums/body-interior-exterior-lighting-diy/160947-diy-how-properly-aim-06-coupe-projectors.html

 

look, i did use your DIY and all it does is align the lights according to the cutoff, which is exactly what I did. As i mentioned the cutoff is aligned approximately correctly. Vertically its fine (might not seem like it, but thats just due to the slanted driveway) . Horizontally its fine also because the cutoff does not move left when i roll the car back, it doesn't move at all , the cutoff pattern stays perfectly still on the wall when i roll the car back or forward in a straight line. THE PROBLEM is that the beam of light , as in the light circled in red moves left when i roll the car back..NOT the cutoff, thats why I'm so confused. This is not an alignment issue and believe me the 3 8mm bolts on the back did squat to fix the actual light beam pointing left even after about 3 hours worth of fiddling.

 

ok, this picture should help. You can see that the cutoff Z pattern is aligned straigh ahead with the black dots on the garage door and IT DOES NOT SHIFT left or right even when you roll the car forward or backwards, it stays aligned with the black dots. I drew vertical red lines to mark the cutoff. The problem is that the beams of light themselves point left as marked by the slanted red lines.



And the more i roll the car back the more the beams travel left on the garage door, which means they are in fact pointed left.

 

you are too close to the wall to align anything, and your dots aren'te where the cutoffs are at, they are moving to the left.
In this pic

what you are showing as your "driver's side" cutoff is actually the "passenger side" cutoff that has moved into the position of the driver's side cutoff. Both of your lights are aimed to the left, not straight ahead.

 

Here's what I mean

 

abslutely not, I'm not sure how to tell you what it is , but i think best way is for you to compare just these two pics. You can clearly see that in the first the cutoff is right in front of the car as well as the 2 bright beams of light and they align with the cutoff.

In the second pic, the cutoff is still in the same horizontal spot , but the beams of light are not aligned with the cutoff, the have traveled left! Thats the confusing part.

And please believe me when I say this is not an issue of alignment, because my first mistake was actually trying to align the beams of light that are traveling left and I couldn't do it. I had to travel so far to the right that the projector was beginning to touch the headlight housing that surrounds it and even then the beam was still facing left. Afterwords I aligned it according to the Z pattern as per the DIY. This stopped the cutoff from traveling around when the car was moved back or forward, but THE PROBLEM IS THE BEAMS OF LIGHT AREN'T LINED UP WITH THE CUTOFF and I have no idea how thats even possible.

Oh and btw you mentioned I'm too close to the wall to align anything...I aligned it from 25 ft away...so please don't give me that, I'm not here to argue with you, I'm just looking for some advice as to what might be causing the primary beam of light not lining up with the cutoff before I start taking things apart.



pic1
pic2

 

get some d2s bulbs, 06 projectors aren't designed for d2r, d2r have less output do to the fact they have a reflector on the bulb

 

Dammit g7x5! you beat me to it! ^^^ lol but +1111000000

Seriously, grab the D2S and your problems with the amount of light output should go away. Check the classifieds here first as well as Ebay. You can get a set for about 50-70. I'd seek out the Phillips 85122 if you can find those because they colorshift down the line to a more whiter light output with very slight blue tint vs the 85122+ which is designed to resist colorshifting.

As for the alignment issues, I'd hold off on those to see how the projectors react to the D2S HID projector bulbs first then go from there. When I get back to my parents this weekend, I'll snap more pics of the 06 lamps I have with 85122s and with the clear lense from the Acura TSX on there so you can see how your cuttoff line can look! These projectors have plenty of potential Hang in there!

 

did you cut the notch in the d2r bulbs when you installed them then? I was assuming you did so correctly, if not then the bulbs aren't seated correctly which is causing the beams to point to the left

 

you need to adjust the horizontal aim with the headlights OFF the car.

the best way to know if your horizontal aim is correct is just look straight into the projector, if the metal part is shifted to the left or the right of the housing, it's off. It needs to be dead center, but the vertical aim from factory is a little low, so that can be adjust higher.

 

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense, i bought these off ebay and i never bother looking at the bulb itself in fear of touching it and then ending up with the thing dying. This would perfectly explain what i've been seeing. Specifically its almost as if the projector is pointing straight , but the light beam is pointing to the left. I mean I've suspected it might be a D2R bulb due to the lack of lighting on the road DIRECTLY in front of the car ( d2r bulbs have a black covering on the tip right ?) , but i forgot about the different seating...that would cause them pointing the wrong damn way.

I'll update everyone when i take the lights off again, but yea looks like this might be a great example of what happens when u put d2r's in these projectors.

Oh and btw can anyone recommend some nice roughly 6k color fog light bulbs ?

 

Yup, D2R's were the culprit, I scraped off the black imprint of each bulb, then dremelled a new notch in the base and now i have home-made D2S's . The difference is like night and day, I can say i'm back in love with these. I'll post pics soon to show off the difference. Thanks for the help

 

lots of good info in this thread thanks.

 

what type of bulbs come with the 06 projectors? and which are the regular ones like 04?
-Tim