HID Headlight Retrofits

I recently bought a used 2004 Toyota Prius that came with the OEM HID lights. I found that the lighting is very lacking and since a lot of my commuting (~120 miles/day) happens in the dark, this situation needs to be remedied. In reading through the forums, I found that the Morimoto Mini D2S kit is very highly recommended. In order to preserve my OEM headlights, I bought another set of used Headlights from another member on the forum. These headlights came from a 2005 Prius with standard Halogen lighting. Here are my questions before I place an order

1. Can the Morimoto kit be retrofitted into that Halogen housing?
2. Do I need to buy the entire kit - projectors, ballasts, bulb etc? Or do I need just the projectors and bulbs?
3. My headlight auto leveling sensor is currently broken and hence the lights are not aligned correctly. Do I need to get this sensor fixed before I install the new kit? or does the kit have its own levelers?

TIA.

 

That thread is like my bible for this retrofit I'll read it all over again !!

FWIW, I had sent the same questions to TRS and just got to read the email response:

 

Read the bible again this morning Just ordered these an hour ago and TRS responded that they are shipped!! Now I know what I am doing in the Christmas break!! Already have a set of Halogen headlights on the way so that I don't have to keep the car out of service while I go about my way with the mod!!

1 x D2S: Morimoto 3Five (35w) (3FiveD2S) Kelvin 5000K
1 x Bi-xenon: Morimoto Mini D2S 2.0 (MiniD2SBix) Version LHD (North American Standard)
1 x Gatling Gun 2.0 (GatlingGun) Option Premium

 

Has anybody that converted from reflectors to projectors covered up / tinted / painted their reflectors?

 

Correct me if I am wrong here...Once the projectors are installed right and working, the reflector surface is not used.....right?

 

I saw your posts on that. I'll be careful of that.

 

Well....Update at the end of the holiday week

Since I had the whole week off from work and a 'staycation' planned, I wanted to work on the Prius to

1. Morimoto D2S retrofit on the factory HID headlights
2. Replace cracked fog lights with a new set and install Nokya 2500K yellow fog light bulbs instead of the stock 'pale' fog light bulbs
3. Replace the weenie horns with PIAA 500/600 Hz sport horns
4. Install turn signal LED strips in the mirrors
5. Replace stock air filter with a K&N drop in air filter

Items 2 - 6 arrived by Christmas eve. Unfortunately the main agenda item was not delivered until Thursday. I did not want to tear up the car until I had received the D2S retrofit kit in order to keep the car usable. So, began the work on Friday morning, instead of Tuesday as planned. Cleared out the two bays in the garage and spread out the old family room carpet there. I had the kitchen to myself since the wife was in the office. So I could work with the headlights and bake them.

Most all of the screws/bolts holding the bumper came off easily except the two that hold the spacers. These two were very tight. My guess is that they were rusted in the nuts underneath. Tried to spray it down with some WD-40, but they did not budge. Switched from a philips screw driver to a drill driver - Big mistake and I successfully messed up the heads Then used a low profile bolt out and a Vise Grip to get them out.




Once these were out, the front bumper came off pretty easy. Here's what the Prius looks like, for those who haven't worked on your cars The PIAA horns are already installed in place of the OEM horns.



Here's a closeup of the horn install.







I started with one headlight first - the passenger side head light. The headlight came off easily by removing the three bolts. I read, and re-read the instructions to bake the headlights, watched the various Youtube videos. I used Windex and a wet towel to clean up the dirt around the headlights as this was the first time they had come off since the car was built. Took me a while to get all the grime off. I removed all the screw that were on the headlight housing. Well, everything except the screws holding the ballast and the related wiring, since I could not get the connector out completely and I'd read that the ballast unit can handle the heat.

Preheated the oven to 265 deg. and let it warm up for ~10 minutes before I put the headlight on an aluminium tray and then into the oven. Set two timers for 7 minutes and hung around the kitchen checking the forum for anything that I might have forgotten / over looked. When I took out the headlight after 7 minutes, it did not feel 'hot' as I'd expected. Took it out to the garage and started prying the edges with a flat head screw driver. As I went along the edges, I realized that the baking was not enough. So, the headlight went back into the oven and followed the same process as before, but for only 5 minutes this time, instead of 7. This time I did get it heated up right, but here's the lesson learnt. Be very careful when you set the hot headlight on any surface, ensure that the headlight is not resting on any of the mounting tabs. Before I could realize, I mesed up one of the tabs. (I'll post a picture later). It took some pulling apart to get that headlight housing opened. Another point to keep in mind when pulling the pieces apart - Ensure that the reflector sits back in the housing as you pull the lens off. There are tabs that hold the reflector to the housing. I realized this after the plastic cooled off. I'll have to hit that spot with a heat gun when I start to reassemble the lens.

After removing the leftover pieces inside the reflector, assembled the D2S projectors. Here's when I realized another problem. I had ordered the Gatling Gun 2.0 shrouds. Tried my best, but there was no way the shrouds would mount. Called Zach at TRS only to find out that these shrouds are not compatible with the projector that I'd ordered. Wish someone at TRS could've caught this in the umpteen emails that I traded with them for the past 10-12 days with them on this order It's going to be atleast Thursday before I receive the replacement shrouds from TRS. Hopefully I can bake the pieces back together after that.

Since the headlights would be a few more days to finish, I started work on replacing the Fog Lights. The fog light replacement was easy as it was all snap-ins. Here's a look at the newly installed fog lights. Note that they are not yet aligned. The bumper is still off and I'll aim all the lights later. Missing a headlight too

 

Fog Lights from eBay From looking at them, they seem to be a better quality than OEM. The car is still stripped down waiting for the Gatling Gun Shrouds (the regular model instead of the 2.0). So, I am yet to see the performane of the light output from the fog lights. The unit from ebay came with its own nice wiring kit. I am planning to run the fog separate from the factory wiring so I can turn them on/off independently.

 

No, there is no shield. The product is the same as in the picture I posted.

 

Not a problem. I will do so.

 

Wednesday Update...

The Gatling Gun Shrouds arrived from TRS today. These look very similar from the outside to the GG 2.0 but on the inside the mounting area is very different and a much better fit on the D2S projectors. Due to the low placement of the projector inside the reflectors on the '04 headlights, the shrouds will need to be cut and adapted. Since the shrouds are made of plastic, it is easy to cut and shape them to fit. Here's a rough cut that I made on the shroud.







I used a regular hand saw to cut this in smaller heights until I was satisfied with the fit inside the reflector.





Now that I had this mocked up to what looks like a nice setup, I used a precision file and some finishing sandpaper to shape the edges and remove all the rough edges of the cut. While this was happening, I took the opportunity that the wife had stepped out of the house to remove and bake the driver side headlights to prepare for the projector install. After going through the problems with the passenger headlight, I knew what had to be done to pull the lens off on this headlight housing cleanly. Same routine - preheat the oven to 275 deg, leave the oven for 10 minutes for the heat to spread evenly - put the headlight in the oven, set the timer to 7 minutes and stand nearby reading PC Took the headlight out and strated prying the edges with a flat head screwdriver. Faced the same problem as in the other headlight. Since this is the first time these headlights are being worked upon since they were assembled, the lens was not coming off easily and it took me a second round of baking using the same procedure as above before being able to separate the lens and housing.

Earlier in the afternoon, I was browsing various websites and saw this replacement headlight from ANZO and immediately like the blacked out reflector setup.



So, I scrubbed all the surfaces (reflector and shrouds) with a finishing sandpaper just to get some groves onto the 'chrome' coating on the plastic. Using a can of semi gloss black, I sprayed all the parts and gave them a first coat. Since the temps in VA are below / close to freezing, I wanted to bake the paint in a warm oven. But on reading the various forums, it did not seem to be a good / safe option. I will let these air dry tonight and all day tomorrow. Tomorrow evening I'll have to scrub some more before putting on a 2nd coat of paint and then hit all the painted stuff with clear spray paint.









Well, that is all for tonight. Will continue.

 

Here's how it will look like when finished.