DIY: Bi-led projector retrofit diy

[nextelbuddy]

Finally completed my nhk bi-led projector retrofit.

E46 AL Bosch headlight bixenon
NHK Bi-led M5 plus projectors
Bosch G5 adapter brackets

Goal was to retrofit the NHK projectors keeping the headlights as stock looking as possible down to retaining the original xenon ballast and wiring.

My reason was to retain oem original functionality of the bixenon headlights as well as originally wiring, grommets and equipment to preserve the factory weather sealing.

Unfortunately it wasn't as easy as I thought it was. I thought I could get away with just plugging the low beam into the factory low beam 9006 connector and wiring the high beam connector of the LED projector to the factory shutter solenoid wiring but doing so didn't do anything.

I ended up having to crack open The factory ballast connector plate and that's when I noticed that the factory high beam shutter solenoid ground wire was shared with the low beam ground connector.

So I did some internal rewiring of the factory low beam power and ground allowing me to reuse The internal factory wiring for the low beam and the high beam. Keeping everything nice, clean and tight inside.

I took some time to make a YouTube video for other E46 people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YORyscDlLIc

[0-60motorsports]

Thats awesome! Especially using the OE ballasts. I havent been through the video yet, do you show how to modify the wiring on there?

[nextelbuddy]

Thats awesome! Especially using the OE ballasts. I havent been through the video yet, do you show how to modify the wiring on there?

Yes, I show the wiring work where I rewire the wiring inside the ballast harness to repurpose the internal high beam and shutter solenoid wiring to keep everything looking and working like factory.

[old///MFanatic]

Wow, that’s one of the most thorough and detailed DIYs I’ve seen! Watching it as opposed to mearly reading it just would not have worked as well. Thank you for taking the time to do the homework involved and sharing what you learned for the community. Bow

[0-60motorsports]

Yes, I show the wiring work where I rewire the wiring inside the ballast harness to repurpose the internal high beam and shutter solenoid wiring to keep everything looking and working like factory.

Awesome! Thank you.

[nextelbuddy]

Wow, that’s one of the most thorough and detailed DIYs I’ve seen! Watching it as opposed to mearly reading it just would not have worked as well. Thank you for taking the time to do the homework involved and sharing what you learned for the community. Bow

Yes, I consider doing a DIY with a bunch of pictures and step by step, but I don't think the message would have came out as clear with a bunch of text. I think a lot of guys like me which are a lot of people on this forum.... DIY minded types.....could probably figure it out with some text and pictures, but just in case for people out there that need a little bit more hand holding. That's why I made the video.

[dukeofchen]

Awesome, this would have been mega helpful when I installed my G5-R's. Forgot exactly how I went about it but I dremeled way more material off the mounting piece than I would have liked...and still had the passenger side come out misaligned. It bugs me every time I drive at night, but it was one of the finickier DIY's I've done so I'm not looking forward to cracking everything open again.

Do you have pics of them in action yet? I got projector envy from the crisp white hue of the G5-BRTs someone posted here, I imagine these LEDs will be killer as well.

[bigjae46]

Nice! I'm going to use this for the wagon I just bought for me...I meant my daughter haha

[JokerElite]

Probably the best headlights in the game!

[liam821]

Really cool, I'll get around to doing this at some point!

[HighOnLSB]

Does this reuse or replace the ignitors in the factory headlights? Would it be possible to use these for a quad projector retrofit, and how much extra work might that take?

[nextelbuddy]

Does this reuse or replace the ignitors in the factory headlights? Would it be possible to use these for a quad projector retrofit, and how much extra work might that take?

this repurposes the xenon ballast and removes the ignitors. the ignitors are inside the headlight housing and if you watch the video you can see i remove them since they arent needed and doing so allowed me to trace and follow wires to figure out how to repurpose the ballast the way I did.