I have never been a fan of HID kits being installed into halogen headlights. They always throw a dangerous amount of glare at other drivers, make your HI beams useless, and IMHO leave your car look like a cheap POS at night. I had them installed in my Cobra for all of one drive to work before I pulled them.
This has been on my list of things to do for a while now so with some extra time on my hands I went ahead got started. I am not going into detail on how to remove your bumper, wire your HI/LO HID kit or how to bake open your headlights, just search for it and you will find more than enough info.
This posting is nothing more than information for anyone who likes to do things on their own and is in no way meant to be an all inclusive set of directions. With that being said if you choose to do your own retro proceed at your own risk and have fun with it, its really easy to do and worth while. I have absolutely ZERO desire to do this for money so please don't ask me for a quote.
Parts...
Morimoto H1 projectors, will include Shroud, projector, rubber gaskets, alignment plates, bulb mounts, bulb clips, mounting nut.
Bi-xenon: Morimoto Mini H1 4.1 - HID Projectors from The Retrofit Source Inc
9007 HI/LO HID kit (includes HI/LO harness/relay)
OR
9007 LO beam only HID kit (no soldering required, no relay harness included)
H1 HID bulbs (these are what will be installed in your projectors)
HID Kits, BMW Aftermarket Bumpers & Lighting, DEPO - DDM Tuning
Spare set of headlights (optional)
Flat black spray paint
Tools for retro...
Flathead screwdriver
Phillips screwdriver
Hacksaw
File
Needle nose pliers
Solder gun (only for HI/LO)
Utility knife
Painters tape
Pencil
Thin ink pen (used only to remove the connector from the HI beam wires on the projector)
Step 1
Remove and bake open your headlights, 220 degrees for 20 minutes worked for me. Make sure you get both screws and both pins pulled before you start to separate.
Step 2
Remove the halogen reflector bowl, there are 3 mounting tabs holding it in remove the single one first (on one side) then slide the bowl out from the other 2 (on the other side).
Step 3
Remove the bulb cap with a flathead screwdriver from the halogen reflector bowl.
Step 4
Cut the rear portion of the halogen bulb mount off with a hacksaw.
Step 5
Tape off and mark where you will make the clearance cut for the mounted projector and shroud. Score the rear line deeply with the utility knife and cut the other 2 with the hack saw. When you make the 2 cuts on the sides you can snap the rear one cleanly where you scored it.
Step 6
Clean up the edges with your file and then spray paint the reflector bowl flat black. I did this to cover up my cut marks on the chrome reflector, if you don't paint it then your cut marks will be very visible.
*NOTE*
You can drill a hole below the bulb hole through the reflector bowl for the HI beam wires, this way you can seal the headlights with the stock rubber headlight gasket undamaged. (NOT PICTURED)
I cut a small hole in the rubber headlight gasket, removed the connector from the HI beam wires, ran the wires through the rubber headlight gasket, sealed with a few drops of silicon and reinstalled the connector.
Step 7
Mount your projector (labeled which side is TOP) and shroud. From front to back it will be in this order, shroud - projector - thin rubber gasket - painted reflector bowl - flat alignment plate - projector mounting nut - bulb mount.
Flat alignment plate (note the alignment tab, this is where you will rotate the projector from once installed)
HI beam wires running underneath the reflector bowl.
Assembled
Step 8
Reinstall the reflector bowl with mounted projector and bake/reassemble/seal your headlights.
No rubber gasket or bulb installed
Rubber gasket and bulb installed (here you can see the silicon)
For those doing the HI/LO kit here is how you will wire the DDM connector
Step 9
Wire up and install your HID's (cut off the HI beam connector from DDM harness and solder on the ones provided with your MORIMOTO kit), reassemble your bumper, reinstall your headlights and enjoy glare free extremely usable HID light.
If you need to adjust the rotation of the projectors you will use a flathead screwdriver to tap on the tab of the alignment plate. You can do this adjustment with everything fully installed but the headlight removed from the bumper, no need to disassemble the projector. You can use the factory adjustment for up and down.
On a difficulty scale of 1(easy) - 10(hard) I would rate this a 3, the hardest part was baking open the headlights. And its been crappy outside so sorry no cutoff or night time shots.
*EDIT*
Added H1 bulbs to the parts list. I forgot to mention that you need the 9006 adapter to plug into the ballasts but the H1 bulbs are whats installed into the projector itself.
This has been on my list of things to do for a while now so with some extra time on my hands I went ahead got started. I am not going into detail on how to remove your bumper, wire your HI/LO HID kit or how to bake open your headlights, just search for it and you will find more than enough info.
This posting is nothing more than information for anyone who likes to do things on their own and is in no way meant to be an all inclusive set of directions. With that being said if you choose to do your own retro proceed at your own risk and have fun with it, its really easy to do and worth while. I have absolutely ZERO desire to do this for money so please don't ask me for a quote.
Parts...
Morimoto H1 projectors, will include Shroud, projector, rubber gaskets, alignment plates, bulb mounts, bulb clips, mounting nut.
Bi-xenon: Morimoto Mini H1 4.1 - HID Projectors from The Retrofit Source Inc
9007 HI/LO HID kit (includes HI/LO harness/relay)
OR
9007 LO beam only HID kit (no soldering required, no relay harness included)
H1 HID bulbs (these are what will be installed in your projectors)
HID Kits, BMW Aftermarket Bumpers & Lighting, DEPO - DDM Tuning
Spare set of headlights (optional)
Flat black spray paint
Tools for retro...
Flathead screwdriver
Phillips screwdriver
Hacksaw
File
Needle nose pliers
Solder gun (only for HI/LO)
Utility knife
Painters tape
Pencil
Thin ink pen (used only to remove the connector from the HI beam wires on the projector)
Step 1
Remove and bake open your headlights, 220 degrees for 20 minutes worked for me. Make sure you get both screws and both pins pulled before you start to separate.
Step 2
Remove the halogen reflector bowl, there are 3 mounting tabs holding it in remove the single one first (on one side) then slide the bowl out from the other 2 (on the other side).
Step 3
Remove the bulb cap with a flathead screwdriver from the halogen reflector bowl.
Step 4
Cut the rear portion of the halogen bulb mount off with a hacksaw.
Step 5
Tape off and mark where you will make the clearance cut for the mounted projector and shroud. Score the rear line deeply with the utility knife and cut the other 2 with the hack saw. When you make the 2 cuts on the sides you can snap the rear one cleanly where you scored it.
Step 6
Clean up the edges with your file and then spray paint the reflector bowl flat black. I did this to cover up my cut marks on the chrome reflector, if you don't paint it then your cut marks will be very visible.
*NOTE*
You can drill a hole below the bulb hole through the reflector bowl for the HI beam wires, this way you can seal the headlights with the stock rubber headlight gasket undamaged. (NOT PICTURED)
I cut a small hole in the rubber headlight gasket, removed the connector from the HI beam wires, ran the wires through the rubber headlight gasket, sealed with a few drops of silicon and reinstalled the connector.
Step 7
Mount your projector (labeled which side is TOP) and shroud. From front to back it will be in this order, shroud - projector - thin rubber gasket - painted reflector bowl - flat alignment plate - projector mounting nut - bulb mount.
Flat alignment plate (note the alignment tab, this is where you will rotate the projector from once installed)
HI beam wires running underneath the reflector bowl.
Assembled
Step 8
Reinstall the reflector bowl with mounted projector and bake/reassemble/seal your headlights.
No rubber gasket or bulb installed
Rubber gasket and bulb installed (here you can see the silicon)
For those doing the HI/LO kit here is how you will wire the DDM connector
Step 9
Wire up and install your HID's (cut off the HI beam connector from DDM harness and solder on the ones provided with your MORIMOTO kit), reassemble your bumper, reinstall your headlights and enjoy glare free extremely usable HID light.
If you need to adjust the rotation of the projectors you will use a flathead screwdriver to tap on the tab of the alignment plate. You can do this adjustment with everything fully installed but the headlight removed from the bumper, no need to disassemble the projector. You can use the factory adjustment for up and down.
On a difficulty scale of 1(easy) - 10(hard) I would rate this a 3, the hardest part was baking open the headlights. And its been crappy outside so sorry no cutoff or night time shots.
*EDIT*
Added H1 bulbs to the parts list. I forgot to mention that you need the 9006 adapter to plug into the ballasts but the H1 bulbs are whats installed into the projector itself.
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