Bugeye to Hawkeye swap, everything you need in one thread

[youngxlos]

*UPDATED WITH WIRING FOR TURN SIGNAL AND HEADLIGHT LEVELING SWITCH AT POST 10 AND 11*
Hey everyone I'm making a thread to put everything I've done in the past few weeks to fully convert from bug eye to hawk eye, a lot of the threads relating to this topic are old, and a lot of the pictures no longer work, I decided to go ahead and do this on my own and take pictures along the way to help the next guy who is looking to do the same thing and needs help.

LET ME BE CLEAR THIS THREAD IS FOR HELPING PEOPLE THAT ARE INTERESTED IN DOING THE CONVERSION, THIS THREAD IS NOT MEANT FOR POST ABOUT WHAT FRONT END IS BEST, I DON'T CARE IF YOU THINK THE BUG EYE IS THE BEST FRONT END, OR THE BLOB EYE IS BEST, WE ALL LIKE DIFFERENT THINGS SO PLEASE KEEP THOSE COMMENTS TO YOURSELF AND DON'T POST THEM HERE, I SIMPLY DON'T CARE AND IT'S MY CAR AND I DO AS I PLEASE WITH IT.

First let me go ahead and break down the parts you'll need to make the conversion

06-07 WRX or STi headlights - I bought mine from a member here for $450
06-07 WRX hood (WRX and STi use the same hood and hood scoop) - Found one at a junk yard for $150
06-07 WRX hood latch release - $30 here or the dealership
06-07 WRX Sedan fenders (wagon fenders are flatter) - got a set for $260 used
06-07 WRX Front bumper - Found one on Ebay for $130 shipped
06-07 WRX Front grille - a lot of stock bumpers don't come with them, you can get an after market one from here
06-07 WRX Radiator support - Dealer is your best bet got mine for $73.45 (part number is 53060FE150)
06-07 front right headlight bracket
06-07 front left headlight bracket
06-07 rear headlight bracket x2
06-07 OEM Ballast and bulb or you can go with a D2S setup like these

The last 4 items listed already came with my headlights so I didn't have to get them, make sure you get the headlights first as its usually the most expensive part and they usually come with brackets so you wont buy anything extra.

All the bolts from the stock fenders will be used on the new fenders the only bolts you'll need to get are 4 bolts to hold the headlights the part number for those bolts is 901270004

Once you have all the parts above you'll have 2 options
1. Modify/cut the stock crash beam, you will need to cut everything marked on red to clear the headlight brackets and allow the bumper to fit

Also cut the stock frame to make enough room for the new headlights (cheapest route) area that will need to be cut
2. Purchase a 06-07 front clip and swap it, go to step 6 on this thread to get an idea of what is require to do to swap in a 06 front clip.

The last step will be figuring out the wiring for the new headlights again you have 2 options here.
1. Buy a plug and play harness from here (the option i went with)
2. Make your own wiring harness following some of this steps
wiring diagram
lots of helpful links to help you

Keep in mind that you will have all your bug eye parts left and you can sell them and make up most of the money you spent getting the new parts. here is how much i sold my parts and they sold FAST
Hood - $100
Front bumper and fenders $260
Retrofitted Bug eye headlights $500

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[youngxlos]

Lets get started with the conversion
First remove hood, front grille, headlights, front bumper, and fenders.
I wont be going over on how to remove those parts because its pretty easy and if you cant remove those parts i would suggest you stop now before going further as the conversion gets a little harder after removing those parts.

Lay out the new support, this is just to see where things will go.


Next is probably the hardest and time consuming part
I'm going to show you where you'll have to drill out the spot welds, pretty obvious but ill circle them in red on the pictures, the easiest way is to get a drill bit designed to remove the spot welds, I didn't have one so i had to use a normal drill bit
Passenger side



Middle section

Driver side




As you can see the stock crash beam has this metal bar that was used to hold to stock bugeye bumper

but as you can see on this next picture it gets in the way of the new headlight bracket and it needs to be removed

[youngxlos]

Once i removed that bar everything lined up

[youngxlos]

Once you have the radiator support lined up with the fenders installed, you can get it spot welded back like the original one, or just have someone weld the seem of it to the chassis.
I have yet to get mine welded, I will eventually.

Swap completed



Let me make it very clear that its very important to do the swap when you have all the parts in hand, i had to wait for my fenders to get everything lined up, its best to get the fenders first they will help you align the radiator support


Here is a picture of the car with the swap completed


I hope this helps anyone who wants to do the swap.
if you have any question post them her or pm me.

[sense of nature]

Looks nice, good info!

[Rice Devil]

any update to the thread pics of the wiring.

[1VIPWRX]

great job man...

[youngxlos]

Originally Posted by Rice Devil

any update to the thread pics of the wiring.

sorry for the late reply, what pictures where you looking for? i bought the plug and play harness from lightwerkz, i still need to do some more wiring as the turn signals don't seem to work, i guess once i figure all that out i can post some pictures, but i added links to where you could source out the best solution to wiring them on your own.

[devilmademedoit]

Nice job. I may consider this when I'm bored of the bugeye

[youngxlos]

Wiring turn signals and headlight leveling switch
So if you got the STi headlights with your conversion you probably got the leveling motors included, to get them to work is actually fairly simple.
here are the items you'll need to buy to get it to work.
06-07 STi leveling switch, this user on ebay jjimports <--- click to go to his page, sells the switch and sometimes even the switch and the harness which makes things much easier when doing the install.
Red 18 gauge wire, the package i bought had 40 feet which was plenty
Black 18 gauge wire, same as the previous
White or yellow 18 gauge wire they didn't have yellow when i went, also same length they are like $5 per package
2 packs of T-Taps
16-14 gauge ring terminals i bought this because the 18 gauge ones the hole was too small for the stock ground bolt, so i had to step it up to this size
and some butt connectors
Two 5ft conduct tite

For the turn signals i just bought 2 3 pin connectors from here

Fastronix Solutions

Fastronix Solutions

^^^^ click the links in the name of the items to see exactly what i bought

Let's get started

Headlight leveling switch

Once you have the leveling switch and all the items i listed above here is what i did to get mine to work.

If you had a bug eye you can use the turn signal plugs, they plugs right in to the leveling motor and it looks stock
here is what it looks like
MAKE SURE YOU CUT THE PLUGS WITH MORE WIRE THAN I DID, BECAUSE IT WOULD MAKE THE INSTALL MUCH EASIER AND YOU WONT EVEN HAVE TO MESS WITH REMOVING THE PINS LIKE I DID.

If you made the same mistake and cut the plug from the stock harness with little wire then you'll have to follow the next few steps.
Remove the pins from the plug.... i didn't use any special tools to remove it, just a lot of patience
here is what you need to do
remove the green cover from the bottom of the plug, then stick a very tiny flat head screw driver and do this

top and bottom of the plug, it took me a few tries but they will come off, I'm sure there is a tool but i didn't have it. once you're done this is what you should have

the leveling motor has 3 wires, red, yellow, and black
I marked what color went where when the plug was connected to the leveling motors

I didn't buy new pins, I just used a soldering iron and solder the new wires to the old wire and pin, be careful and don't make a mess with it, other wise the pins wont go back into the plug.

Make the passenger side wires 6ft long and the driver side headlight 10ft long.

here is what i did with the wiring
On the passenger side headlight I used a T tap to ground the whole circuit

I used this location to ground it, its right next to the stock airbox

I ran the 6ft passenger side wires to the driver side headlight
I used one of the 5 ft conduct tites here to protect the wiring.

You can see here I connected the 6ft passenger side wires to the driver side using T Taps.

[youngxlos]

I routed the 10ft driver side wires into the cabin, behind the battery and also using the other 5ft conduct tite to protect the wires.

then slit it into the firewall hole.


Now the wiring inside the car to the switch.
here is a picture of my wiring under the dash

thanks jezzy for this post
Pin #1 = RG (red with green stripe) runs from switch to LH and RH leveling motors (middle pin #2 on leveling motor on headlight) White wire from headlight motors
Pin #2 = RY - Red/Yellow line (taken from (Fuse Box under dash) locate FB-7, F/B fuse #5, refer to owners manual) Red wire from headlight motors
Pin #3 = unused
Pin #4 = unused
Pin #5 = unused
Pin #6 = B - black (any ground near fuse box under dash) Black wire from headlight motors
Pin #7 = V - violet (taken from "fog light switch harness" where fog light switch plugs into)
Pin #8 = OrW - Orange with white line (taken from "fog light switch harness" where fog light switch plugs into)

Turn signal, parking lights wiring

Getting the turn signals and parking lights to work is also fairly easy, the stock wiring harness has 3 wires Red/yellow, Black, Black/Green

The 06-07 headlights come with one main plug, it looks like this

the 4 wires on the left of the pictures are the ones you'll need to use, cut them from the harness(cut right where the wires meet the harness as you'll need as much wire as possible)
Remove the harness from the headlight assembly as you wont need to use it anymore.

Using the 3pin connectors connect the wires as you see here on the picture (stock wiring side)

Red/yellow on the top pin
Black in the middle pin
Black/Green on the lower pin

Now the headlight side, ill use an older picture of my previous set up to explain this a little better

you should have 4 wires to hook up, 2 red and 2 black.
Look at the wires carefully as one of the Red wires has 2 Red wires joined before they connected to the pin, that is the parking lights power source wire, this should be the top pin (connects to Red/Yellow wire on stock harness)
Then join the 3 Black wires in the middle pin (connects to Black wire on stock harness)
and last the single Red wire should be joined alone on the last pin (connects to Black/Green wire on stock harness)
this is what it should look like

[turborexxy]

im doing the same swap you did, i got most the parts gathered around just need a few more things, will i need to change any of the headlight wiring to get them to work? or will the stock wiring and bulbs fit into the headlights?

[youngxlos]

Originally Posted by turborexxy

im doing the same swap you did, i got most the parts gathered around just need a few more things, will i need to change any of the headlight wiring to get them to work? or will the stock wiring and bulbs fit into the headlights?

I'm sorry but did you not read the thread?
The stock wiring will not work, you'll need to get a wiring harness or make one yourself, I listed where you can buy one and listed a link to a thread with instructions on how to make one in post 1!
Read the entire thread before asking something that is already covered

I don't mean to sound like a douche but all the info is on there

[dylanpeterz]

Your wiring will work with the STi HID headlight correct?

[25rsti]

You need to re-pin or rewire them somehow. It will not be 100% plug n play.