First, again, big thanks to all who've gone before. I've never done one of these conversions before, and have been wanting to do it for a couple of years.
@ton504 i got my depos on ebay from neondials about a year or so ago. haven't checked on them recently, but it seems like they come and go in and out of stock.
I picked up the morimoto h1 mini kit from TRS (the retrofit source) over their black friday sale, which happened to correspond with the release of version 7.0. this is advertised as a completely new design for the mini, and is supposed to prevent the issues had in the past with the stuck shutter. I went with the 5500k light bulbs, and the 50W ballasts.
i originally went with the E-46R shroud that everyone else seems to have used. After opening up the lights, it's clear why so many have used it. While browsing the black friday deals, there was a set of halo's on sale for $10. I just couldn't pass it up. After I got everything in, I decided that the halos would look better with the gatlin gun (one of those shrouds comes with a vent to mount the halo inside), and I liked the look.
I utilized a lot of videos from TRS, and went with their suggestion to bake for 7 min at 207 deg. Each and every time I did this, i had no trouble separating the lenses. Word of caution when doing this: the glue that hold the lenses together is super sticky and nasty. As you're opening the glass, take the time to use your screwdriver to cut through the strands of it as you're opening so that you limit or prevent getting it on things you don't want it on. The first light that I opened, I rushed the opening, as I was so excited that it actually worked, and had that stuff get on things you don't want it on. Cleanup of that is NOT fun.
The mini was super easy to put on, as you get the adapter plate that makes lining it up straight really easy. Be mindful that after tightening the assembly up, it's possible to move the projector out of alignment. Make sure that you're able to insert the bulb with the protrusion point straight down, otherwise you'll be pulling the light back off to adjust it again. this is probably common sense for a lot of you, but again, this was my first rodeo with these.
the halo was the biggest wiring challenge, as the TRS harness kit is very well labeled. The hard part is figuring out where to mount your relays and ballasts.
I wired my halo's to my parking lights for now, and had thought they were originally supposed to be a switch backed system that would blink orange with my turn signal. at this point they just blink.
in the end, none of this is really hard, just a bit tedious and time consuming. without the halo's it would have been a lot faster for me, but still a solid half day of work at least.
just have a few pics for now as I just finished this up and need to get to bed. i need to adjust the lights down some, and included the one of my front yard at low beam to give some sense of output.
To say it's a massive improvement wouldn't even do it justice. The depo's look great, and I know some people have been able to get light output out of them without doing the conversion, but I've just never been happy with mine. The HIR's in the stock headlights was way better in my opinion. This blows away anything I've ever seen before. I'd recommend this to anyone.
