Okay so first the story:

Awhile back, the ricer deep inside me decided he wanted some extra bling blang from the HID inside stock halogen projectors. Well I had read that you can bend the cutoff shield inside the projector backwards about 1mm or so to get a little more blue right at the edge of the cutoff beam pattern.

So I take my passenger side headlight apart, try to bend the shield, *snap* OMG!!!! I had just broken a big chunk of the shield out of my projector! Well I made a temporary shield out of a piece of aluminum drink can and stuck it in there, but the cutoff wasn't nearly as sharp. Whatever, it kept the light where it was supposed to be.

So I went to my bodyshop yesterday and found they had a broken passenger side 98+ Integra headlight laying around *score* so I picked that up for free, took apart my pass. side headlight again, and swapped in the inside portion w/ projector. Finally I have a nice beam pattern again.

While I had the lights apart, I decided to paint the chrome bezel around the projector lens black. It looks really nice, and it actually helps cut down on some of the glare. Also I'm not totally sure, but I think the reduced glare might have made my lights look slightly more blue from a distance.

Alright enough of this, on to the pics:

Here's my old projector/bracket, no shield:


the pieces that broke out:


Now here's everything back together w/ painted projector bezel, lights off:


Lights on:



With the black bezels, the headlights have more of that "beady" look common to projector headlights, since it no longer has the whole bezel around it reflecting light and seeming to light up. I think it looks pretty nice.

I'll get some more pics in the daylight of how it looks. It pretty much looks like the whole low beam circle in the bumper is blacked out.

So learn from my mistakes, the bent shield trick doesn't work on OEM Integra projectors. The projector housing/shield is integrated into that whole bracket that holds everything, and it's made out of some kind of brittle metal material. It won't bend.

 

thas good looking... i always wanted to paint those black, but was too afraid to take my housing apart...

 

looks good so far, i wanna see pics in the day !

 

hey patrick, can you post some pics of the beam output? and maybe even a before and after?

nice thread by the way!

 

Looks very good

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by d8168055 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">thas good looking... i always wanted to paint those black, but was too afraid to take my housing apart...</TD></TR></TABLE>

ditto, I may have to give it a shot now though.

 

paint the other light if you can

 

day pics please!

 

^ indeed...... day pics

 

Alright, I guess I should have painted the high beam bezels, too, but I really don't feel like taking them apart again. Oh well... they look alright to me.

 

personally I dont like how they look painted...just looks funny lookin

 

i say you paint the high beams too. it looks kinda odd right how it is right now.

 

eh... too dark. im not feelin it. keep your lights on all the time and it'll be alright

 

Oh well, no turning back now! They will be replaced when I get 98 front end anyway.

 

i like how that looks...to badd im to lazy to go thru all that to do it... it would match all my emblems i painted flat black with the lightest coat of clear...it prolly doesnt sound good now but it part of my overall theme...anyway..i likes and good job....

 

btw...Patrick, did you re-paint your wheels black? in the pics they dont look like the gunmetal color that I thought they were

 

looks like you got punched and got a black eye

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PatrickGSR94 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Oh well, no turning back now! They will be replaced when I get 98 front end anyway.</TD></TR></TABLE>


boooo

98 front is wuss. 97 with comptech itr lip ownz j0000

 

hehehe...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ScaleExtric &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">btw...Patrick, did you re-paint your wheels black? in the pics they dont look like the gunmetal color that I thought they were</TD></TR></TABLE>

nope, still gunmetal, now w/ a nice thick clearcoat I personally think the wheels would look like if they were black on my car.

 

Here's a couple more daytime pics, this time w/ the lights on:

 

seems kinda silly to lower the quality of your headlights, you do use them to see at night ya know. hope you dont crash and kill anyone.

 

well sir painting the bezels did not decrease light output at all, since the low beam is a projector design and does not use the bezel to put light on the ground, so there is no change in the beam pattern.

I may end up painting the high beam bezels at some point.... which BTW those are separate pieces from the actual high beam reflectors.

 

hey patrick, can you post a pic of the beam cut off with the bezel's painted? (possibly a night shot) thanks in advance man!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by d33 c33 4 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Damn straight. The 94-97 front w/lip looks wow! </TD></TR></TABLE>