What is retrofitting? Im sure youve all heard the term but some may be unsure as to what exactly it means. Basically, its putting all components and parts of a true xenon HID system in a car that does not come with it. This includes projectors, bulbs, ballasts, shrouds, and harnesses. I will cover each of these things and give details to those who may be interested in doing this in the near future or those just looking for more information. Doing a retrofit is the only way to maximize your cars light output, without blinding others on the road.
Projectors:
Unlike our halogen system, the projectors themselves are what decide if it will be a single xenon or bi-xenon. The reason that projectors have such a razor sharp cutoff is due to a shield which partially covers part of the bulb when you are running the low beams. When the high beam is switched on (in a bi-xenon setup) the built in soilenoid pulls down the cutoff shield revealing all of the light.
Here is the cutoff of a LS430 projector. Not only does this shield keep it from blinding others, but controls the light and directs it exactly where it needs to go, on the road.
Here is what happens when the cutoff shield is removed.
Now there is a good amount of projectors out there so you might wonder which one is best for you? Every projector is different, and every projector has a different pattern, intensity, width, and color. The choice will ultimately be up to you.
If you decide to go with a single xenon setup, meaning you will not have high beams, the most popular options would be:
LS430
S2000
TSX
The LS430 is hands down the best projector ever made. It has almost 180 degrees of light. The only downside is that it is a bit pricey, and is a single xenon.
The S2000 and TSX projectors are very well balanced and priced well also. They are great projectors.
If you want a bi-xenon setup, the most popular choices are
FX35
TL
E55
These are all very good projectors with the FX and TL having a slight advantage over the E55 in width and intensity. The E55 has the best high beam in the market.
Since we have fairly big headlights, fitment will not be a problem for any projector. So now we move on to our shrouds.
Shrouds
Shrouds are the decorative plates that go around the projector to cover the projector itself and not the lens. There are many to choose from and they are all purely cosmetic. Here are some of the more popular shrouds.
Mini-gun shrouds:
E46 shrouds:
Bulbs:
Now you need some bulbs to put into your projectors. Most people here are used to these smurf blue 10,000k bulbs which are about as bright as a dim flashlight. The bulb of choice is the Philips 85122+ 4300k bulbs. These bulbs are OEM and the quality is superb. Why 4300k you may ask? That is the temperature of light that is closest to the sun's natural light, which can be compared to how you would see things at around noon. The higher or lower you go, the more light you will sacrifice.
If maximum light is your main concern, then stick with 4300k.
Clear Lenses:
Many people are now swapping the lens of a projector in order to get more color at the cutoff. Here is an example of a projector with a clear lens conversion.
This way you can get the bright 4300k color on the ground, and have this purple blueish color at the cutoff which looks amazing from a far. Also the flicker is awesome when hitting a bump. It is really simple and cheap to do this and it will not affect light output in any way.
Ballasts and Harness:
In order to get everything fired up you will need a custom made wiring harness made to fit your car and of course ballasts. The best ballast of choice is the Matsushita Gen 3 OEM ballasts. They are the highest quality ballasts out there as they are OEM. Any place that sells retrofits should also be able to make you a harness to fit the car. A retrofit should be 100% plug and play.
You can find these parts online and some reputable shops sell them as kits.
The Retrofit Source (U.S.) - HID Projector Retrofit Kits, Retrofit and HID Componenents, Projectors Lens, Wiring Harnesses, Shrouds and more!
This kit brings EVERYTHING you need to do a retrofit on your car and have the outputs ive posted. The only thing is that you will need to find someone experienced in doing this to drill your headlights and mount/aim the projectors. You can easily find a local retrofitter to do this.
Now why would anyone spend that much money when they can just buy a plug and play HID kit for $40? Easy. Honda spent hours upon hours of research and developing headlights to work with OEM halogen bulbs. You know the halogen bulb on its own is actually very dim. But with the right amount of reflectors, that dim light can be amplified to the EXACT amount that needs to be on the road to not blind people, yet still provide lighting. When you introduce such a powerful bulb as a xenon bulb, all those reflectors will amplify it even more and scatter the light where normally a halogen bulb would not shine and isnt meant too. Not to mention into the eyes of other drivers.
Here are some pictures showing how much better a retrofit can be. This a picture of an 8000k HID kit in a stock Scion tC headlight.
Notice how there is no pattern, just two hot spots in the middle. So much glare that you cant even see what your looking at. And all that extra light that you see shining over the garage door, would do absolutely nothing on the street but blind other drivers and light up the sky. Now here is the same car with retrofitted projectors.
Everything is well lighted, and clearly. No glare either. This is what matters the most during real world driving.
In conclusion this is the best decision in terms of maximum light performance, and also gives your car that luxury look. Here are some more pictures for you guys to drool over! Please feel free to ask any questions! Hopefully we can start seeing some more retrofits!
just what i was looking for, Thanks
question tho: i have the indepedant fog lights that is set up to stay on with high beams too, does the ballast serve some kind of resistor so that the fog lights doesnt over load? (im doing HID foggies too) its happened once before and i dont want it to happen to the HID retrofits. can i know what exactly the ballast is for? thanks in advnace 
after a couple other mods 
Linear Mode
