four o two

iTrader: (1)

It all boils down to the kit you use? Are you on crack? No, light output does not boil down to what kit you use. Light output boils down to projector design, reflector housing, bowl shape/design, and shield design, among other things. You are so off-base it's not even funny.

Retrofit beats kit every day of the week. This is not opinion, rather, fact. I like how you failed to post pics of your "amazing" output that rivals that of a retrofit. So, let me.

Here's my old HID kit on my Supra. 10K; output was more like 8K. Notice no definable cutoff and light scattered everywhere. Better than stock I guess, but not by much, considering blue light on a black road isn't conducive to night vision.







Here's my Infiniti FX-35 conversion I did on my Supra. This is one headlight. The other one was being finished. Bulbs are Phillips 85122+ with a little color mod and polished lenses.

Little garage testing...








Now here's both headlights... excuse the image quality, but you get the idea.

four o two

iTrader: (1)

Best part... the bixenon function. Can your kit do that?



...but I guess my first set of pics suck because of the "type of kit" I used, right? Go inform yourself, kiddo.

Lexus@17

iTrader: (3)

Wow very nice.
Did u buy paint the headlight or something?
If so what did u use and how you did it?

montgb

iTrader: (7)

Too sick for words.

mahcah

iTrader: (3)

I didnt even know there was a thread you made on your retro until now ELL Y!!

Great results! Looks really good. Your beam/cutoff dosent look like it bows down as much as i thought it would. The color is great too. Happy for you. Three 2IS retrofits; any more?

I am going to redo my retro with RL's. I was thinking about doing the SC430's again but the cutoff bows down just a tadddd bit. The RL's are more straight and just a hair bit brighter on the sides than the SC430's and the slope is pretty sweet. We'll see. I'm getting the RL's in by Monday next week.

Again, your retro looks great!

Tchan1

iTrader: (1)

That's funny I am actually trying to redo mine too. I think I am going to try to tilt the lens like what JVX did. But the real reason I am re-doing it is because I didn't space the driver side lens that good and I sort of have a double cut off.

mahcah

iTrader: (3)

yeah that can get annoying.. But you sure do have alot of color on your cutoff. ALOT!

JIS

It's too bad our stock OEM HIDs don't look as good as these retrofits on this thread..... is it the projector that Lexus uses on the IS? When I test drove my car, I couldn't tell if it had HID headlights..

crazybuggy

nice work! love the intensive pics! great job!

four o two

iTrader: (1)

You know, the halogen projector on the 2IS isn't that bad; that's why I've been happy with a kit on it. I'm not going to pretend, however, that the light output from that kit can even hold a candle to my FX35's on the Toyota. Pffft.

The easiest way to tell an HID system from a halogen system, apart from the "white" light the [OEM] HID will give off, is the "startup" and shutdown of the light itself. HID gives that "instant-on" look of an LED, whereas a halogen slowly lights up and glows, if that makes sense. HIDs sort of warm up and become brighter too, but the on/off effect they give is unmistakable from halogen.

ELL Y

iTrader: (1)

I bought the parts myself on ebay, HIDplanet forums, craigslist, etc. I then sent in the parts to Rich at HIDIllusionz. Most retrofitters will offer tsx packages (which really aren't the best projectors) for roughly the same amount of money that I paid for my superior SC430s. You can google for them. I dropped it off in person since they are in brooklyn. However, it is a bit costly (my entire setup in the end which included another set of used headlights + all parts) and cost me ~1K. But you gotta pay to play, and if you do the retrofit yourself with your own headlights, you can easily cut the cost of a retrofit in half.

I had it painted by HIDIllusionz flat black. Not sure what they used!

Thanks Mahcah! The beam is really quite sharp- the 55w ballast definitely adds to the brigthness and width, and I easily overpower most stock setups I've seen thus far on the road with me. Clear lens definitely helps!

RLs are a fantastic choice, at least from some of the pictures I have seen. They are so difficult to acquire though.

I do not really notice the bowing down of the SC430s. I can still see a pretty clean straight cutoff on parked cars on both sides of the road. To me, they seem to just fade away evenly, rather than the extreme bowing of the 2IS.

Tilting the lens! I'd like to see that output. I never knew you had a double cutoff either. I wonder how many spacers you must have used. I used two applejacks box spacers to produce my thin blue band in the center while retaining the sharpness granted by the clear lens.

Thanks for the comments

Tchan1

iTrader: (1)

From what I remember I used the 1 stock green spacer and two spacers that I made from high temp paper for making gaskets, got it from ace. Ace seems like the best place for a retrofit-er.

wolverine

iTrader: (9)

so is this like a bolt on thing or do you have to fab up a bracket for the new projectors?

blklexo818

iTrader: (1)

ehhhhhhh im happy w/ my cutout and what not, i want those headlights tho, those are sick!

Chino415

iTrader: (1)

Man that looks clean as hell. Nice job.