i have seen all the links for iclub and scoobymods and both deal with the jdm hid lights. does anyone have the pic of the actual non hid cutoff shield mod? i have also seen a pic of what it looks like before it was modded, but i can never find the after pic. i just want to gather all the info i can before i mod my non hid light pattern. thanks

not a single person who did this mod ever took a pic? well i'm going to do mine later today and i guess i'll let you know how it turns out. after taking the lights apart, i realize that all the pics ever posted about cutoff shields, none of them look like this. weak :( so i have no way to compare. oh well

well, i was able to grind them completely flat so i guess thats it.

Did you remember to shim the cutoff shield up higher so that your hotspot isn't misplaced in the pattern?

If not, you will now have to aim your lights a LOT lower and as a result, your highbeams will be pointing down at the ground since they aim as a unit instead of separately.

In addition to general aiming, with the cutoff unshimmed, since your hotspot is now so much more exposed in the pattern, your lights will be brighter, but most of the brightness will be gained in the close foreground area. The result will be your eyes adjust to the brighter foreground and your distance and peripheral vision will be reduced.

So if you didn't already shim it, go back in and get it done.

they can not be shimmed due to the fact that the cutoff shield rest below the projector and any shim will further push the shield lower.

yeah, how do you shim them? i am also in the process of modding my hid masks and i was wondering about that difference...could you let me know how to shim them? thanks

Brooks

they can not be shimmed due to the fact that the cutoff shield rest below the projector and any shim will further push the shield lower.I think you are mistaken, unless the JDM projectors are drastically different from the EDM projectors that I had. I had no trouble shimming mine.

you should take a look at some of the pics of the jdm projectors, the cut off shield mounts at the bottom of the lens, from the outside. that would make it impossible to shim. sorry, the edms and even the jdm HID's are much different.

well then you're screwed :)

Maybe you can bend the portion of the inner frame that holds the highbeam reflector so that it doesn't aim down at the road along with your lowbeam?

Also, where are these pics? Didn't you start this thread looking for pics? I'd really like to take a look at the way it's mounted.

screwed maybe, but if you read my first post you would know that i was looking for a after pic of what i was doing. thanks anyways


http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i4/taerron/SIMG0063.jpg


look at the base of the projector at the 2 screws, thats where the cutoff shield mounts too. and yes, it mounts from the bottom, thus making it impossible to shim. the comment about looking at the pics would put you in the same boat as me, i never found any pics. all the pics ever posted were of the HID cutoff shield, not the non HID shield.

doubt it's that different the hid. I used a dremel and shaved off the shield flat. But thats under the projector.

oh but it is different from the HID version

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i4/taerron/SIMG0064.jpg

interesting difference

Do the mounting holes go all the way through the base of the projector? If so, just bolt it on top instead of on bottom. You may have to shave it down some more if you do that. Will it fit like that?

i had considered that too, but there is a grove in which the cutoff sits for alignment. i think if i tried that route, the cutoff would extend way past the halfway mark. if you can see the cut off, thats the way it looked before the cut, there isn't much there to begin with. so cutting anymore or even converting to LHD would be very risky, and i wasn't willing to try that on a set of brand new lights.

oh but it is different from the HID version

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i4/taerron/SIMG0064.jpg
What mask is that from? that looks very different than my jdm black chrome hid mask...here is what mine looks like after the dremel mod...





http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/9681/dscf47953nw.jpg

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/4338/mask3dr.jpg

that mask is from the non HID jdm sti headlight

took a few pics of the modded jdm cutoff shield of mine. more work was needed to get rid of a halo that was glare off the stainless sleeve in front of the projector. yes i knew there was going to be some glare over the top of the shield due to making it flat. but if you look closely at other jdm lights, even the non-modded lights have some glare coming off.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i4/taerron/Picture004.jpg
what i couldn't understand, is that the light has the lhd step up to the right. i have no idea how that happend, i cut the shield flat?????

i will take more pics tonight regarding the removal of the sleeve. the left light was a modded jdm, the right was the stock headlight

The light dispersion of the JDM lights look whack :huh:

If that's how all of the JDMs and EDMs look sans light pattern issues, then I'm starting to understand why the members who went from these to either Morrettes or Prodrives were complaining about inferior light output.

inferior yes, but the H1 bulb do kinda suck as everyone knows. i think there is more to the whack output than the crazy cutoff. i just haven't figured it out. the projector as you know isn't the best, but its the easiest to obtain. i have a few more ideas left until i say screw it and go for a different projector all together. however, i have my eyes on another project that these lights may end up financing. what you and i may deem unacceptable, others may not mind at all. some people just don't care about how the light output is, just that they are "bling."

Yeah, I'm biased towards light output...not bling :)

so am i, but i think there are more options out there to fix these lights

don't use the H1 bulbs as a scapegoat. they're not terribly efficient but they're more than capable of producing a good beam pattern and lots of light. they work fine in FF1000s:lol:

capable? seems like they suck compared to my stock setup. looks like the 9007 wins that battle.

bump for more info...

i will post more info this weekend. i'm going to build my own cutoff shield and go from there.

so what exactly is shimming? i'm about to purchase some hid's for my jdm non-hid projectors....

shimming is adding washers or spacers to the base of the cutoff shield to affectively raising it up to help account for grinding away the RHD angle. you might have some problems trying to do that to the jdm lights.

I just did this mod and my lights still disperse to the left a bit. Do you think maybe if you grinded more of the mask down it would help like so?

http://members.cox.net/superflyej20/cutoff.jpg

If you look closely, there's still an uneven ammount of metal on there... You'd be cutting off quite a bit of metal and would have to shim it but like you said I don't think us non hid/edm owners can.

if you look at the pic i posted earlier, the driver light is a modded jdm and the other is a stock light. my light doesn't disperse light to the left, but it has lots of glare. i'm going to break it apart this weekend and see if i can make my own cutoff shield. i'll keep you posted on the progress. who knows, it might work??

the modding of the jdm light will take a better turn soon. just going to be done with it and do a hid projector retro. thats the only other option i see for these lights. will post updates as they happen

Any updates on the HID retro fit into your lights?

sorry nothing yet, funds have been tight for a while. i was trying to sell some rims, intercooler and such to finance this project with no luck. no updates as of now.

finally got some tsx projectors to complete my retro. should have that done up within the next few weeks. i'll take some pics, but there are plenty of write ups on this mod. either way, this should prove to be fun at the very least

bump from the dead. the tsx retro is finally complete thanks to Lightwerkz! after seeing the output like this, i am glad i never installed the lights with the crappy jdm projectors.

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1127306&page=6

Haha adam it was you all along who did that butchery of a job on your jdms.
Hehe no worries, glad everything turned out for the better.

oh its mandatory to show the light output now!

one was done, and i tried to do it to the other. it didn't work. thats why i found you. remember, i had those lights since may 06. after what i saw on the driver side, i tried to fix it and shim it and anything else i could think of. but to no avail, i just put them in storage until it found the tsx swap thread. i broke them out and started to find the projectors and such for the retro. i wish i could take full credit for the hatchet job, but sorry.

i need to make a small adjustment to the driver side and i'll take a shot at a night time pic

sounds good !

here you go!
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i4/taerron/Picture006.jpg
I posted more on your vendor for sale page.

Awesome, as metioned I would lower the passenger side, other then that VERY nice for a tsx...I think you got lucky, those are nice !

i'll try to fine tune them a little better. once again, thanks!!