offroad200

I have searched and read threads till I'm tired of reading about it. There's lots of great info out there. I just don't understand why I need to retrofit since the GS came with essentially the same housing for HID and halogen (non projector). I understand projectors might be better but by how much? My lights have cutoffs already. Just seems like a lot of work, time and money to achieve roughly the same effect. I don't mind the work or time, but the money part is an issue. Please let me hear your opinions on this issue. Hopefully by people with actual experience and not just hearsay or what you read on the internets.

BTW, I have access to RX330 projectors for free. 2 AFS, 2 regular. IF I were to go that route, would those work? I didn't see a luxury mod bracket for that projector.

Also the non projector plan would be to get a quality set of HIDs from the retro fit source or similar. I had a set from DDM tuning I put into my old BMW with projectors but they seemed to dim pretty bad within a year.

justim

What's your current cut-off like? My GS300 already has the HIDs with auto leveling so I cant say I have any experience retrofitting, but as a driver on the road I hate when people put HIDs in normal housing. They are blinding when they don't have a proper cut-off.

offroad200

I certainly want to avoid that. I'm well aware of people that do that. It's very annoying. This is my car driving up an incline into my garage. They aren't really aimed that high. Sorry for the M3 engine and BMW wheels in this pic.

NorthStyle

iTrader: (16)

Honestly, if you don't understand the reason to upgrade from the stock lights of the 2GS to a projector retrofit then you should probably read a bit more. There's really no comparison between what was offered and what can be achieved through upgrading in terms of clarity, width and cutoff. Not only that, but even between the HID and halogen headlights the bezels are not the same, which is why it the glare exists when tossing an HID kit into halogen housings and it turns out looking like crap.

The time, work and money bit is all dependent on you, but the effect isn't close to being similar, unless you're comparing one retrofit to another, but even when you compare say, a Q45 to an LS430/460 the differences are astounding; this being with the Q45s being much better than stock. But, if you have access to projectors for free, that can cut out a large part of the cost (unless you're having someone perform the work for you which can be another decent chunk of change).

DosyBoy

iTrader: (1)

Of course retrofitting is better but I always wanted to know why the stock hid bowels and housings are identical to non stock

NorthStyle

iTrader: (16)

For comparison, here is an RX330 non-AFS projector cutoff:

Kyle Harty

iTrader: (17)

I was always under the impression that the reflection patterns of the HID and halogen bowls were different. My GS came with factory hids and I hated them, I'd had projectors in a previous car in the early 2000's and the GS hids were comparitively dim, very uneven (hot spots), and didn't have a good spread. I had a Q45 retrofit for a while, those projectors output is notoriously poor as far as projectors go and even they were a huge improvement over stock. I've got LS460 projectors now and they're another good step up from the Q45's, night and day difference from stock.

If you do all city driving you might not appreciate the difference as much but with the amount of country highway driving I do I couldn't get rid of the stock hids quick enough.

monkey92

iTrader: (3)

projectors make a world of difference, specially like kyle said above, you will notice the width when driving in country roads and highways.

Kyle Harty

iTrader: (17)

Yup, I can't even start to count how many animals in the ditch I've spotted early that I wouldn't have seen as quickly or at all without the width of the projectors. On a 4 lane freeway I'm lighting up way into my right ditch, the whole median ditch, and across and even past the other lanes; all without blinding oncoming traffic. The LS430's are even wider. One of the best things I've done to the car and it's a long list.

tmf2004

iTrader: (15)

projectors have so much more benefit than our tradtional HID and non HID headlights, wider and broader range of light, much more brightness and most of all they look cool.... All cars today have projectors.. There's a reason for that...

monkey92

iTrader: (3)

im running ls460s as well and im in love with the width, cant imagine the 430s

clos430

iTrader: (21)

No doubt about it, projectors are a nice upgrade to have. I'm running q45's and even those are noticeably brighter than stock. I do a lot of city driving so light output was not top priority. I just love the way the q45's look on the 2gs.

offbad

iTrader: (5)

you shouldn't do anything with your lighting.

it's obviously not for you

Kaydee

it's not just about the cutoffs, with regular headlights you will be getting those hotspots, whereas with a true HID system the specialized projectors will give you an even and wide light distribution. With a plug and play HID kit, all you're doing is swapping out a brighter bulb, you're not really getting an HID system.

offroad200

Certainly a lot better. Thanks for everyone's comments. That clears things up for me. Basically a wider, cleaner pattern. Since I have access to free projectors, sounds like that's what I'll be doing.