3" projectors in low beams

PrismKing · Dec 28, 2016

Has anyone retrofitted a 3" projector into the low beam housing? Been looking at it from the outside and trying to figure out how easily the factory bezel and shroud can be swapped. Really hoping to fit a set of RX350 non-AFS bixenons in there. Otherwise probably a 4TL-R.

mrgold35 · Dec 28, 2016

Are you going for improved looks or improved function?

The OEM HIDs for the MDX are not that great for a $40K-$50K luxury SUV. I just upgraded to OSRAM 5000K Cool Blue and adjusted my HIDs up a little. It went from crappy to descent. I remember seeing a thread (either here or Acurazine) about someone exchanging the HID lens and that improved HID light output.

PrismKing · Dec 28, 2016

[FONT=&quot]Improved function. The factory projectors are garbage. Even with a brand new set of Osrams or Philips, they have a halogen shield on them, which drives me nuts. It has the smiley on the edges, plus squirrel spotters, which makes me think they just pulled the shield from an Accord or similar. Even if I kept the factory projectors, would be using a clear lens (probably ZKW-R, need to check with TRS on that), plus do a shield mod. Completely remove the spotter ramp and flat area and replace it with a curved shield for a completely flat cutoff and good width. Spaced forward a bit for sharper cutoff at distance. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The issue with doing that is that I have to have the vehicle out of commission during the entire mod process, which can take a long time. With a separate set of projectors, I can fully tune the shield and lens spacing (if bixenon) without having the headlights torn apart.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The squirrel spotters really get me. Virtually all factory halogen projectors have them, and it’s heavily frowned upon to just swap in a set of PnP HIDs without covering the spotter slits in the shield, or doing a full shield mod to eliminate them. Reason being, there’s a lot of glare to oncoming drivers, which is doubly bad with HIDs. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]The attached images [FONT=&quot]are [FONT=&quot]stock halogen [FONT=&quot]shields ([FONT=&quot]Google search)[/FONT], which [FONT=&quot]are[/FONT] nearly identical to my wife's Camry projectors in stock con[FONT=&quot]figuration[FONT=&quot], then a [FONT=&quot]few from the [FONT=&quot]mods. Cur[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]ved[/FONT] shield with prism tails[FONT=&quot] and [/FONT]STi-R clear lens. Beam pro[FONT=&quot]file is extremely wide with good light distribution on eithe[FONT=&quot]r side[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot].[/FONT] Cut[FONT=&quot]off is flat, no bowing.[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]
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Illustro · Dec 31, 2016

We get very heavy fog here and lots of deer and in my opinion halogen does a far better job as it cuts throw the fog while hid/led reflects off the fog and makes it hard to see or blinds you. I think a combination of hid/led headlights and halogen fog lights work great.

PrismKing · Dec 31, 2016

Agreed, although with the right color, an HID can be effective in dense fog. Anything over 3500K or so does more harm than good, just from the sheer intensity of the light. I wouldn't mind running a 4200K set in the fogs if I could manage fitting a Morimoto Matchbox projector in the fogs, then throw some amber Lamin-X film on. I'd be interested to see how it compares to straight 3000K bulbs with no film. The issue with factory fogs on most vehicles is they just kind of scatter the light. A properly tuned fog projector is considerably more effective, regardless of whether it's HID, LED, or halogen.

letoaster · Nov 24, 2017

did you retrofited a 3' projector in the 2th gen mdx headlights?

lest year, i did open mine up, put in clear lens black series and osram night breakers d2s bulbs, and the results are far from ideal.

zero2sixtyZ · Jan 2, 2018

Any update on this? I'm sure there are broken headlights / junkyard specials available for these cars. There are enough of them on the roads.

Doing a front end refresh (bumper, Osram CBIs, maybe new headlights) and wouldn't mind tearing into a set of spare headlights over winter, but never done a projector swap / retrofit before.

3" projectors in low beams

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