Mod Journal - Charles the Prius

Already have the before, stoked for the after!

 

No headlight swap today as planned. Dang…

Ultimately I’m going to have to open both my customs headlights and stock headlights and swap the innards/the backs.

I fitted and tested them today. They look sooo clean, unfortunately I don’t feel confident in the weather sealing of the halogen converted to hid projectors and would rather go with the tried and tested hid housings. Should’ve done this from the start honestly but I didn’t think much was different between the two besides the reflectors, the levelers, and the hid components (figured they shared the same connectors for the wiring harness and had the same full plastic caps.

I could keep working with what I have but I just can’t afford to dish more money on the same project when the obvious solution is to have used the HID housings in the first place.

At this point between the tools and supplies I’m easily over $500 in this project. If I had just dished out the extra money for the HID housings I would’ve been between $300-$400. $200 if I used the ones in my car but there’s not a single day where I’m not driving, so that wasn’t going to happen.

At this point I’m looking at Saturday most likely but if I can I want to do it on Tuesday or Thursday.

Basically while I heat up the custom headlights to re-sperate them I’ll pull the stock ones out. While the stock ones are heating I’ll unscrew all the internals of the custom, then the stocks. And reverse the process.

This does mean I’ll be able to keep the leveling motor so that’s cool lol. Oh well.

 

I sealed the lens with Butyl rope too, not worried about that part. The halogens come with a rubber boot instead of a plastic one like the HID’s have it would be hard to seal up but still have access to those cables. There’s also a hole that wouldn’t be covered up on the bottom and ultimately, with the HID’s already being HID’s everything would be easier since it’s all integrated and more importantly, all safely sealed up.

Super stoked with my car! Color and all, I just gotta fix all the dents from university parking and fix those rock chips that litter the front end. Love dark cars

 

What did you do to seal that large hole where the cap was? If I can make it work I’d rather not break open the HID’s Incase I need them

 

I have caps, what kind of weather did you face with that setup? In Oregon we get it all but a lot of fog mostly

 

Eh if it worked for you ill see if it’ll work for me!

 

46.X MPG, 4xx mile trip, bumped my Spotify hard and had a good time



Headlights going in today or tomorrow

 

Headlights are in. Stoked to do an after video and pics

 

Quick post about my setup.

I ended up sticking with my Halogen housings and spending an entire day creating a sealed enclosure that didn’t splice any wires from the factory harness. (I.E. “plug and play”) this is so if I encounter any problems down the road wether something messes up, I get into an accident, or sell the car, my stock HID’s can be swapped in less than 30 minutes.

The most challenging quest was looking for a solution to get the factory 12v plug mated with the Morimoto 55W (which is actually 50W) ballast.

I browsed all over the web for days looking for a pigtail and decided I’d have to hack one myself.

I got a hold of two brand new plastic HID headlight covers which have this connector built in. I swapped the new ones for the old ones, I hated the idea of cutting new ones!

I also bought a female 9006 pigtail with wires from Autozone. I stripped the ends, soldered them to some connectors that slide onto those little flat slots (sorry, not an electrical engineer), soldered them, and put some heat shrink wrap over the wires and connectors to avoid any sparking or arcing.

I then hacked my plastic covers, plugged the yellow positive into #1 on the cap and the Black negative into #2 (there’s marking 1&2 on the cap)

I then filled it with silicone JB Weld. That’ll never come undone!





Next step was routing the igniter wire through the housing while creating a seal. The igniter includes a 40mm rubber cap, Walmart didn’t have any of those hole boring drill bits in mm, but they had a 1.5” which is close. I cut a hole on the top directly above the igniter plug. I actually recommend not doing it here as the rubber boot conflicts with the frame of the car, it still fits but you’ll need to push it in and hold it when you go to bolt the headlight in. Looking back I wish I had routed it through before sealing it up and having it poke out the bottom like factory but my headlights were already sealed before I realized I needed AF ballasts and I really didn’t want to open them up again!




For the rubber boots I found a 1/2” PVC plug at Home Depot and screwed it on, the JB welded it.





I drilled a hole for my high beams and stripped the wire Incase I needed to open them. Also needed to mate this part with the factory wiring harness and the supplied pins weren’t working with me. Used the little orange boots they come with to fill the hole and taped them up with wire tape. I didn’t use any connectors or solder because again, if the need to open these arises I’ll be able to just pull em out. They’re pretty secure and I’m not worried about them at all.


I cut an ugly hole to fit the stock ballasts then decided it wasn’t going to work well. I drilled some holes, JB welded nuts for security and strength for the ballasts.



Plastic welded most of a piece of plastic I had lying around to the housing



Then finished everything off with MOAR JB weld!



This is the passenger side unit. It’s uglier than the drivers side but functional, sealed, and ya can’t see this part anyways!

The drivers side looks much better as it was all my second attempt and I hadn’t cut out a nasty hole in that one yet.

Ballasts bolted and plugged in.


Everything works!



I did a super quick alignment as I had work. They’re aimed low and while nobody has flashed me yet and you need to practically lay on the ground before they get bright I still need to find some time to properly aim them.

I drove with them last night while working, and then on my way home. They’re super bright, especially with that 55w ballast. Color is 5500k, Projectors are Morimoto d2s 4s which are a night and day difference compared to the old 3’s. The biggest surprise was the highs. Even with the lights aimed pretty low they lit up everything! I could see deer, skunks, cats, and whatever else extremely far in advanced. I’ve already ran over 3 skunks and just can’t do it anymore. That’s stays with you for weeks!

I’ll take more photos and videos when the setup is properly aimed. I also want to check my boots and some wires to make sure nothing is getting too hot or too pinched.

 

So the drivers side high beam is sticking open partially. Can’t find any info on the 4.0 only 3.0 about sticking issues, and I realllyyyy don’t want to open these back up

Running with the car on Popeye mode (drivers side unplugged) until I get the time to take a greater look at these

 

The LH side high beam shield sticks open pretty often, then has short bursts of working normally, then it's back at it. I've decided this project is a serious pain in the nice person.

But on a serious note, I've gone back to stock. The LH light is stripped of all screws and parts and ready to be baked back open and I'll have to play with the shutter and a 9V battery to find what the deal is.

The joys of modifications

 

Talked to drew from TRS after determining that the Mini D2S 4.0 solenoid was sticking at times. Once they view my video they’ll send me a new mid section with a new solenoid and shield.

After a sweet taste of headlight heaven I just can’t wait to get these stock headlights back out and those sweet projectors back in

 

Started to install new rear Matrix Bar


Then found they were both 20mm...

Matrix bar is heavier, fits in the same spot, came out of a matrix. Something isn’t right?




(Aluminum painted bar is from a matrix, Black is from my Touring)