The stock LX headlights suck.
A year ago i installed an HID kit from KBcarstuff into the LX using rebased bulbs to fit into the LX's factory H1 projector housings. The kit was fairly standard and included ballasts, igniters and a wiring harness with relays to trigger off the factory headlight plugs.
Light output was disappointing, primarily due to the rebased bulb not having the output in the correct location to properly reflect in the bowl. There's very little room to space bulbs in the LX, certainly nowhere close to the couple of millimetres required to correct the output. I struggled for a year with poor headlights... luckily being up north means long days in the summer and little need for headlights.
Winter came and I had a couple of options. I could have tried my luck with another pair of rebased bulbs, but there was no guarantee they'd be any better. After reading @ed94r 's post from 2007 (!) I decided to do a full retrofit of TSX projectors. TSX projectors are well regarded for their output and have a double benefit of having a very "simple" mounting flange that works well to integrate into the LX headlights. Ed had also done the measuring to show that mounting the TSX projectors on the factory mounting bracket would put the projector lens in the exact same position as the factory setup.
I ordered a pair of used TSX projectors, D2S to AMP adapters (to mate up with my existing HID setup from KBcarstuff), morimoto headlight sealer and D2S bulbs from TRS. On a personal note, the CAD/USD exchange rate sucks.
Down to business!
Removing the LX headlights is more complicated than it needs to be and not without risks, such as snapping the trim piece in half that goes between the high- and low-beam bulbs. Whoops!
Removing the trim piece and screws on the top of the headlight is straightforward:
Popping out the side marker takes a bit of confidence, especially when the plastic is cold from being out in -20 weather. I let the truck warm up for a day in the garage to avoid that problem. I used a wooden handle from something to lever the side marker forward and pop it out.
The side marker exposes another 10mm bolt to undo. There's another 10mm bolt hidden on the inboard side of the headlight housing hidden behind the plastic shield. I was able to bend the shield a little bit to get this bolt undone, then pull it up with a magnet. Once the headlight housing is free to move, you'll find that the hockey-stick trim piece is in your way. After poking around, I realized that the trim piece can be removed by pulling it forward. It is held in by two clips. Rather than "wedge" the clips out by massaging them with a trim removal tool or screwdriver, I elected to go with the pulling method. Unfortunately my pulling was not centred on the trim piece, resulting in one clip coming undone before the other... which resulted in the picture below.
Oh well. Learn from my mistake. For what it's worth, the replacement part is still available and does not come painted. I'll replace it come spring. For now I'm rocking electrical tape!
With the trim removed (the other side had no issues), I removed the headlight housings and then stripped them down to get them ready for the oven. Remove everything, including the clips that hold the lenses on.
Baking is stressful! I put each lens in the oven for just under 7 minutes at 270F on a baking sheet. Make sure you let the baking sheet cool down in between lenses. I didn't let it cool down enough and my second lens had small evidence of melting plastic on the points where the housing was directly touching the sheet. No permanent or significant damage. Learn from my mistake.
I quickly pulled the lens out of the oven and used a small flathead screwdriver to pry the lens off the housing. This process went better than I expected, and I used warm glue as an opportunity to remove as much of it as possible from both the lens and the housing.
I also removed my completely destroyed 3M lens protectors. Think these were hampering light output?
I then got down to work with my dremel, carefully cutting out the front half of the stock LX projector leaving just the bracket in place. Below is the LX front half on the top right and the TSX front half on the bottom right.
Here is the LX bracket with the front half of the projector removed. The four screw holes left on the bracket are excellent for centering the TXS projector in the bracket.
After measuring about 30 times, I marked and drilled two holes in the LX bracket to mount the TSX projector. I picked up some small hardware from a local store to mount the two together. I spent a lot of time fiddling with the projector mounting on the LX bracket to ensure it wasn't rotated and was positioned as close to vertical/horizontal centre as possible.
The TSX projector housing is deep! You won't be able to use the OEM caps that screw onto the back of the housing. I have ordered 80mm rubber caps from TRS and will be fitting them in the next few days. I measured the outside diameter of the housing to be ~84mm, so there is a risk that the 80mm caps won't fit.
Final mounting. I ended up drilling two holes in the LX bracket (on the right side of this picture) and having just enough clearance to use a third bolt/washer setup to hold the TSX projector the bracket on the lower left. This is very similar to the fitment @ed94r ended up with. I also used one of the threaded holes on the LX bracket on the left side for a fourth screw.
And from the back....
Starting to put it all together:
When I ordered the TXS projectors, TRS sent them with the factory Acura projector lenses, as well as TSX-R "clear" lenses. The TSX-R lenses are often considered an upgrade to the factory lenses. I tried them out and was disappointed with their performance compared to the OEM Acura lenses. Even after trying a range of spacers I was unable to get the TSX-R lenses to perform as well as the Acura ones. Satisfied, I committed to the Acura lenses, laid in a new bead of headlight butyl and put the headlights back in the oven for round 2.
The result is nothing short of amazing. I am extremely satisfied with the output, cutoff... really everything.
I would highly recommend this path for anyone looking to upgrade the LX headlights!
A year ago i installed an HID kit from KBcarstuff into the LX using rebased bulbs to fit into the LX's factory H1 projector housings. The kit was fairly standard and included ballasts, igniters and a wiring harness with relays to trigger off the factory headlight plugs.
Light output was disappointing, primarily due to the rebased bulb not having the output in the correct location to properly reflect in the bowl. There's very little room to space bulbs in the LX, certainly nowhere close to the couple of millimetres required to correct the output. I struggled for a year with poor headlights... luckily being up north means long days in the summer and little need for headlights.
Winter came and I had a couple of options. I could have tried my luck with another pair of rebased bulbs, but there was no guarantee they'd be any better. After reading @ed94r 's post from 2007 (!) I decided to do a full retrofit of TSX projectors. TSX projectors are well regarded for their output and have a double benefit of having a very "simple" mounting flange that works well to integrate into the LX headlights. Ed had also done the measuring to show that mounting the TSX projectors on the factory mounting bracket would put the projector lens in the exact same position as the factory setup.
I ordered a pair of used TSX projectors, D2S to AMP adapters (to mate up with my existing HID setup from KBcarstuff), morimoto headlight sealer and D2S bulbs from TRS. On a personal note, the CAD/USD exchange rate sucks.
Down to business!
Removing the LX headlights is more complicated than it needs to be and not without risks, such as snapping the trim piece in half that goes between the high- and low-beam bulbs. Whoops!
Removing the trim piece and screws on the top of the headlight is straightforward:
Popping out the side marker takes a bit of confidence, especially when the plastic is cold from being out in -20 weather. I let the truck warm up for a day in the garage to avoid that problem. I used a wooden handle from something to lever the side marker forward and pop it out.
The side marker exposes another 10mm bolt to undo. There's another 10mm bolt hidden on the inboard side of the headlight housing hidden behind the plastic shield. I was able to bend the shield a little bit to get this bolt undone, then pull it up with a magnet. Once the headlight housing is free to move, you'll find that the hockey-stick trim piece is in your way. After poking around, I realized that the trim piece can be removed by pulling it forward. It is held in by two clips. Rather than "wedge" the clips out by massaging them with a trim removal tool or screwdriver, I elected to go with the pulling method. Unfortunately my pulling was not centred on the trim piece, resulting in one clip coming undone before the other... which resulted in the picture below.
Oh well. Learn from my mistake. For what it's worth, the replacement part is still available and does not come painted. I'll replace it come spring. For now I'm rocking electrical tape!
With the trim removed (the other side had no issues), I removed the headlight housings and then stripped them down to get them ready for the oven. Remove everything, including the clips that hold the lenses on.
Baking is stressful! I put each lens in the oven for just under 7 minutes at 270F on a baking sheet. Make sure you let the baking sheet cool down in between lenses. I didn't let it cool down enough and my second lens had small evidence of melting plastic on the points where the housing was directly touching the sheet. No permanent or significant damage. Learn from my mistake.
I quickly pulled the lens out of the oven and used a small flathead screwdriver to pry the lens off the housing. This process went better than I expected, and I used warm glue as an opportunity to remove as much of it as possible from both the lens and the housing.
I also removed my completely destroyed 3M lens protectors. Think these were hampering light output?
I then got down to work with my dremel, carefully cutting out the front half of the stock LX projector leaving just the bracket in place. Below is the LX front half on the top right and the TSX front half on the bottom right.
Here is the LX bracket with the front half of the projector removed. The four screw holes left on the bracket are excellent for centering the TXS projector in the bracket.
After measuring about 30 times, I marked and drilled two holes in the LX bracket to mount the TSX projector. I picked up some small hardware from a local store to mount the two together. I spent a lot of time fiddling with the projector mounting on the LX bracket to ensure it wasn't rotated and was positioned as close to vertical/horizontal centre as possible.
The TSX projector housing is deep! You won't be able to use the OEM caps that screw onto the back of the housing. I have ordered 80mm rubber caps from TRS and will be fitting them in the next few days. I measured the outside diameter of the housing to be ~84mm, so there is a risk that the 80mm caps won't fit.
Final mounting. I ended up drilling two holes in the LX bracket (on the right side of this picture) and having just enough clearance to use a third bolt/washer setup to hold the TSX projector the bracket on the lower left. This is very similar to the fitment @ed94r ended up with. I also used one of the threaded holes on the LX bracket on the left side for a fourth screw.
And from the back....
Starting to put it all together:
When I ordered the TXS projectors, TRS sent them with the factory Acura projector lenses, as well as TSX-R "clear" lenses. The TSX-R lenses are often considered an upgrade to the factory lenses. I tried them out and was disappointed with their performance compared to the OEM Acura lenses. Even after trying a range of spacers I was unable to get the TSX-R lenses to perform as well as the Acura ones. Satisfied, I committed to the Acura lenses, laid in a new bead of headlight butyl and put the headlights back in the oven for round 2.
The result is nothing short of amazing. I am extremely satisfied with the output, cutoff... really everything.
I would highly recommend this path for anyone looking to upgrade the LX headlights!