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Projector Headlights unit installation: complete how-to

35K views 81 replies 29 participants last post by  gve 
#1 · (Edited)
As I have mentioned in Uh-ho... it starts, I have ordered a short antenna, SRT front grill emblem and new black + halo headlamp units for my SRT4, from Modern Performance. Delivery was very quick: within 4 days from across the states up to Montreal. Kudos. it actually caught me off-guard, requiring me to go pick up the package at the post office; when I got around to it.

Because the photos are big, it was much easier to put them on my MobileMe account and link here. Instead of inlining the photos (they're high-res), I've only linked their caption here. Click on them to view the photos individually. The complete photo album with photo captions is available here. Photos are otherwise linked in the following text using their caption as link.

Following the Front emblem glue solution discussion, I went ahead and bought ProFoam red double-sided automotive adhesive tape for ABS fixtures and other body trim parts. It's equivalent to the same function tape from 3M. It worked well and was easy to deal with:

ProFoam double-sided tape for SRT emblem

Once affixed, it didn't move anymore and felt quite secure on there:

SRT emblem

The short antenna was easy. Unscrew the factory one, screw the new one in. Since the new antenna has a round base rather than a bolt hexagonal one, you have to use a fair amount of hand grip to torque it in place to a sturdy fit. Still, it felt like an easy thing to remove so I used blue LockTite bolt adhesive (not pictured). A couple of drops evenly spread on the thread and voilà. Dont get any of that on you, or your car paint :-/

Short antena (use blue LockTite on the thread)

Now the more elaborate job: the headlamp unit replacement. If you didn't follow the previous threads, I used this nice headlamps set.

So that you have a complete toolset ready when you begin, have the following stuff handy:

  • Ratchet tool with 1/4 and 3/8 (or was that 1/2?) lug nuts
  • Short-length phillips screw driver (medium)
  • Short-length flat screw driver (medium)
  • Blanket or cushy surface to lay down facia, not to scratch it
  • BE WARNED: get Extra wire splice (joining clips) because headlight units only comes with 4 (way too few). I used 14. I had to run out for more.
  • OPTIONAL: 2 sets of electric tab connector (not included)
  • NO SOLDERING REQUIRED (but highly recommended when satisfied with the wiring pattern)
  • Helping hands for handling the facia
  • Electric (black) tape

And the pièce de résistance, a 6 page excerpt of the user service manual that I yanked out just for this purpose and your benefit. See attachment for access to the PDF. These instructions should not differ weither you have a SRT4 or not. The non-SRT service manual instructions for removing facia didn't have any difference with my facia layout. See attached document at the bottom of this post.

In the first part of this booklet, about removing the inner liner of the wheel well, it talks about jacking up the car and removing the front wheels. If you wiggle your way through, turning the wheels to the opposite side you're working on, you wont have to remove the wheels or jack up the car. You'll save some time. Also, only remove the top-to-front clips and screws. You dont need to take it all off. This is only to gain access to some of the facia hidden screws.

WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING
WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING
WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING

dis I say WARNING ??

READ ALL of this tutorial BEFORE you proceed, to avoid surprise. Particularly the garage door tape markers I mention at the end.

There is one phillips screw and two 1/4 bolt screws to from the front of the wheel well:

Front right: bolt and screw holes holding front facia

Plus a number of plastic push rivets: follow the booklet for their exact emplacements:

Front right: push rivets holding fender lining

Above the wheel, between the exterior of the car and the suspension strut is a rather hidden one:

Front right: shot looking up strut tower for push rivet

Notice by strut tower: missing 1 rivet from factory! Both sides! Duh! I'll go buy a pair tomorrow to plug that it. I have a feeling that might become a rattler with time.

There are two size for push rivets. The front facia (under the hood) and under the facia (facing ground) use smaller push rivets while in the wheel well and under the facia by the wheel well, they used larger plastic push rivets:

Push Rivets (two sizes)

What you'll end up removing:

  • 20 small push rivets (+ 2 missing from factory)
  • 10 large push rivets (underbody)
  • 6 bolt screws
  • 2 phillips screws

Once the wheel well rivets are out, you can gently rank it out from inside the well to make room:

Front right: lossening inner fender liner

When the liner is detatch from top-to-front, you can simply let it rest on the tire:

Front Left wheel liner loose on wheel

Looking up the wheel well under the corner of the front facia is a hidden 1/4 bolt screw (so, 3 bolt screws + 1 phillips screw per side).

Front right: one last screw olding fender to top metal sheeting

When you remove stuff from your car, make sure you secure the parts in an orderly fashion:

Collection of push rivets and screws :)

The front facia is also held up by a large flat mushroom-like upside-down stud (about 2" diameter). The front facia as a horizontal-plane flat surface with a V-shaped groove that slides on top of that stud. Gently pull the front facia forward to slide it out of it's snug fit:

Front fachia has a V-shape notch that nudges in this big round stud (see side photo)

Pull the facia forward by a few inches but mind the fog light wiring. looking down the facia (front left) between the fender and the facia:

Disconnecting the fog light before pulling facia off

Unlock the red tab of the fog light connector and press the tab to release the connector from the light assembly. Proceed likewise for other light connectors. Then you can remove the facia:

Pulling facia forward, delodging it from the stud (notice V shape on facia)

More front facia detail:

Front right detail of V notch in facia

My garage door has an overhead mercury lamp which I almost never use. I flipped it on for the first time in months:

Meanwhile, wasps are pissed that I lit up their new home!

Seems like that light had become the new home of the wasp nest I destroyed from my front porch last winter :-/

Side view of the mushroom facia stud:

V-shape facia notch holding big round stud (side view). It fits by sliding the facia V notch in, to a snug fit

Note that I had purposely left two push rivets from under the car. It didn't look like it was necessary to remove the whole thing. We kept the inner-most rivet pair (brake air duct outside, push rivet inside):

Front left, peering up from under the body, looking at brake air duct and last holding push rivets

Not sure if there was a reason (lazyness) but given the facia was resting comfortably on a blanket, we decided to leave it there:

Looking like a car wreck

It was less freaky to look at my car that way anyway!

Moment of panic!

Facia secured on the ground (showing you my trash bins wich I had kicked down earlier...):

Front facia lying down on cushy covers :)

There are 3 bolts (same size as the top facia bolts) that hold the headlamp units: 1 engine side and 2 fender side, with a hip-joint -like ball screw that fits in a plastic joint as fourth mounting corner:

Front left, facing headlight and V-shape notch in facia, notice one headlight bold under the park light
Front left: facing headlight and it's two other bolts (one obscured)

This is what it will look like with a headlight unit removed:

Front left headlight unit removed. Lots of AC piping under there!

The new headlamp units come with bulbs, except for the park/turn signal. You'll have to use the bulb socket from the factory unit:

Park light from factory headlamp unit must be re-used for new headlight kid. Simply unscrew it from it's socket
Puting factory park light into the park slot of new unit (under the "remove" sticker)

You can see that the factory unit has a much cleaner design. I'm not sure why the new unit had to have all these wires sticking out, other than allowing you to wire the extra lighting to your preference. It's kinda messy though and is rather intimidating if you're not accustomed to that:

Comparing new unit (top) and factory unit (bottom). Lots more wiring on new unit :-/

With the new headlight partially connected, we rested it near it's final emplacement for a quick compare with the factory one. Only the traditional lamps and halos were plugged in at that point. Halos dont show up in mid-day afternoon. We thought for a moment they didn't work (and was momentarily pissed) o_O:

Unbolted light test for wiring confirmation.

We wasted a good 40 min trying to figure out why the halos didn't light up, until we realized they were lit >:-|

For connecting all the extra lightings on the headlamp units, simply use a quick-splice clamp as those (few) provided with the unit. Locate a black wire on the new headlamp unit's main projector wire, and clamp all extra black wires to that (the order doesn't mater: they're all ground wires):

Snapping ground wired together (why this isn't factory-wired is a mystery)

You'll be left with 3 white (live power) wires to connect: the LED strip above the park/turn signal lights, the inner 3 white LEDs and the halo lights. The 3 wires come out of transformer/ballasts glued on the back of the headlamp units. If you ever played serpents, you'll know which connects to what extra light fixtures.

THE FOLLOWING MAY DIFFER ACCORDING TO YOUR PREFERENCES!!!

I have wired my units as such:

  • LED strip powers with parks (position light) signal and NOT with turn signal*
  • Halos power with Drive lights
  • 3 White LEDs power with HIGH beam (unlike the factory one, they are separate bulbs from Drive ones, in this headlamp unit)

*the park light has a 3-wire connector for GROUND, PARK and TURN signals. Ground is black. PARK is the center wire; you can't miss it:

LED "strip" live wire (the longest) connects to park light (center wire on the 3 prong plug)

Park light connector to LED strip was given a connector tab for convenience (not included in headlamp kit):

It connects to the center wire of the plug (female connector on the car side, and male connector on the park/turn signal side)

With final plug result with black electrical tape:

Park connector all taped-up and secured

The more you know...

If you're color-blind, get a buddy to help!

So, quick-splice -connecting the two remaining white wires to the proper (non-black) live wire off the lamps you want to use, I taped off all wire ends and properly tucked things in place:

Front left (looking from engine bay out); headlight and facia in place, showing "access" for lamp adjustment

You can either adjust the headlamp beam aim by accessing through the wheel well, or do what we did: close everything up in a hurry because we were too excited and then have to wiggle your tiny screw driver around the tiny opening to adjust the headlamps (we got stupid on that one). It's a tight fit but it's kinda doable. The outer-most (Drive) front-right headlamp is the most difficult one because of all the AC piping in that area. I had to turn the last screw's dented washer using a finger tip... not comfy...

Before removing anything (way up there at the beginning of the entire process), I had used painter tape on the garage door to mark original beam alignment. It's not a complete solution, but for a quick start, it was handy. The PDF booklet I provided you with on top of this post contains proper (complete) instructions, guides and measurement for beam alignment.

Using tape markers on the garage door with original headlamp saves a bit of time re-aligning new units. More work to be done on this (forgot high beams...)

And here is the final result!

Ta-daa!

And this is how clear those lights are:

Clear enough, despite some nay-sayers

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the result but inexperience caused us to panic on the halo when we couldn't see them in broad daylight, thinking we had messed up the wiring. Also, I forgot to MARK THE HIGH BEAMS on the garage door!! :-/

That's it for now. I'll post better pictures as I make them.

I should pop 10,000 REP with this right? :D
 
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#2 ·
great!
thx man!

:rep:... when i can
 
#4 ·
First let me say that those lights give to your SRT a mean look! I love them :smileup:

That's really a great How-To I think I'll give you :rep: (if I can) ... even if this will increase you ratio :i_rolleyes:

And love the "mouser Rocks" in the tags :gr_grin: LOL
But why don't you use our gallery to upload the pics ?
 
#5 · (Edited)

And love the "mouser Rocks" in the tags :gr_grin: LOL
But why don't you use our gallery to upload the pics ?
It's a bit of a pain to size the photos to spec to upload them directly on here.

On a Mac, using iPhoto, it simply grabs the photos out of my camera and I can make a selection of the good stuff into a specific album. This album is then 1 click away from publication on "MobileMe" (an Apple subscription thing) where my photos are uploaded, maintained and synchronized with my local iPhoto archives. When I change a photo caption or album content, it automatically updates on the web site.

Given it took me a couple of hours to edit this how-to, iPhoto's simplicity was a no-brainer. It also allowed me to publish the same photo sets to FaceBook.

Apple's iLife toolset (of which iPhoto is part) is truly awesome to work with. It's what I use (iWeb in particular) to edit my web site.
 
#7 ·
Looks nice mouser. reps when i can.

I'm glad you used blue LockTite on your antenna. I found out the hard way once using Red LockTite on something that i should have used Blue LockTite LOL!!!
 
#10 · (Edited)
I've made a small change: I have decided to reconnect the 3-LED spotlights with the rest of the unit rather than simply on high-beams. It's nicer this way:





I'm also done aligning the beams.
 
#12 ·
Looks good! Damnit! I've been giving out too many reps lately and can't rep this one yet.

I thought I did decent how-to's, but that is the best I've ever seen! :worshippy: Thanks for taking the time to edumacate us all.
Thanks :smileup: Maybe if you come around to it, it'll cancel out the negative REP I got from a noob :shakehead: The comment was positive so it points to a honest mistake. :wavey:

So, what's next? :popc1:
In no particular order, this is what I have in mind for the time being:

  • PT-Performance' K&N filter and inner-tubing
  • struts/sway bars
  • Engine mounts (PT's again)
  • Catch Can

I really want to stabilize the car a tad before (and if) I ramp up the power of this car. I'm not so much looking as a straight-arrow performer as much as a Bee-From-Hell agile car.

Still hesitating a lot on Stage 1. Fricking eco/legal conscience of mine. Not bad boy enough. :shakehead:
 
#13 ·
those three LEDs do you think you would be able to add in resitors and and tie them in with your blinker and make them like a sequential turn signal in the front.

That would be sweet
 
#15 ·
The 3-LED spots are connected in parallel after a small transformer. It would be rather complicated to independently wire them for a progressive illumination.

We did look at various illumination options when we set it up. I had initially wired them up only for DRL/High usage but they look so sweet turned on (and they're very bright) that I decided to re-wire them on park lights so they're always on.
 
#16 ·
The lights are said to take 1.5 hours to install. It took us about 4 hours, including 40 wasted minutes to examine the halos, cehcking the lines with a volt meter and comparing direct-to-battery connection.

We thought they didn't light up but it's just that they're tiny LEDs that funnel light through a plastic ring and that doesn't produce a lot of light. So daytime, they dont really show. Comes dusk however and they're pretty obvious (see photos).

I think a careful installation, taking your time not to damage anything and given instructions, should take between 2.5 and 3 hours.
 
#19 ·
Got it, Any who I'll rep if i can since I forgot to originally
I can't rep Gotta pass it out LOL
 
#21 ·
Oh I forgot that thread of yours. And I had rated it too!

We now have two tutorials on the headlamp :p
 
#24 ·
They are separate bulbs for high/low beams.

Inner spots are high beams (and DRL where applicable).
 
#25 ·
FYI, some users had reported condensation build up in those Projector headlights.

There is a simple remedy if it does happen. The Projector headlight units have a small black cap that can be poped-up off. It's a small cap about 3/8ths in diameter and as deep, black as the unit housing (same material).

If your light condenses a bit, remove the cap and the headlight heat will dry the unit out as you drive . Voila. no more condensation.
 
#27 ·
FYI, some users had reported condensation build up in those Projector headlights.

There is a simple remedy if it does happen. The Projector headlight units have a small black cap that can be poped-up off. It's a small cap about 3/8ths in diameter and as deep, black as the unit housing (same material).

If your light condenses a bit, remove the cap and the headlight heat will dry the unit out as you drive . Voila. no more condensation.

That's exactly the problem I have with these headlights. The passenger side headlight fogs every time I wash the car or when it rains. I thought it was because it's right above the condenser for the A/C. Did you leave that cap off?
 
#31 ·
Hi guys,

This is my first post on here, though I've been admiring from afar for while. Mouser's halo install guide has been my bible for the past couple days since I just bought a pair of the chrome version halos. I'm thinking about wiring like:

3 lights and halos on all the time
LED strip during park AND turn

Has anyone done the LED for turn? I'm just wondering if it looks good or not.

INSTALL SATURDAY! (unless it snows)
 
#32 ·
Are you talking about the 3 white spot LEDs or the yellow LED strip?

The LED strip is rather faint daytime so I wouldn't count on that for show. I just plugged them on the park lights.
 
#34 ·
Looks nice at night but IMHO, it's the weak point of the headlight set.

Make sure you apply sealant around the light assembly. They tend to fog up.
 
#37 ·
Thanks. I'm trying to document things as I make my mods. it's a reference for myself as well.

Glad it could help you.

I'm preparing another one for the WOT Box. It's greatly required because the manufacturer assumes you've dealt with the wiring in question before. Wich I haven't. I just spent a couple of hours just exploring and making sure we had the right wired before putting cutters into my ECU!
 
#39 ·
Mine have been off for a few weeks now and whenever the light condenses, which happens when the car stays outside the garage throughout the night, it usually clears up as the light warms/dries the unit as I drive around.

I park in a garage at home and a semi-closed office tower garage.
 
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