DIY Honda City Projector Retrofit (Mini H1)

[MominHaq]

Tutorial Included Below

Let's begin.

Disclaimer:

I am not responsible if you screw anything over.This tutorial is for educational purposes only and should be taken as such. I am merely providing a guide. There is no guarantee that you will do your retrofit as good/bad as I did. Proceed with caution.

Caution:

When installing HID's on your car it is good practice to disconnect the negative terminal of the battery to prevent accidentally shorting out anything or worse getting zapped. Be careful and observe safety.

Tools Required:

Screwdriver.
Spanner (Usually found in the toolkit of your car. Size may vary)
Hairdryer. (A heat gun or an oven can be used but this is the safest method. It takes longer to open the headlights but chances of melting them are reduced)
Spare headlamps (Optional. If you are willing to open your original headlights like I did then no need to get these)
Electrical Tape
Needle nose pliers
Patience (Most important. It took a total of 12 hours to get this done, be patient)

Tips:
Have someone assist you to prevent suicidal thoughts. No seriously, a second set of hands will be very useful when opening the headlamps. More on that later.

Begin by removing the bumper. This is specifically for the Honda City so keep that in mind if working on a different car. Remove the 4 clips. Then the 2 screws in the wheels well.

Gently lift the grill and pull toward yourself. The bumper is snapped in place and should be very easy to take out.

Next remove the 4 bolts holding the headlamp to the body. The headlamps have a metal frame attached to them that holds the bumper in place. You will have to remove the frame to open the headlamps. It is held in place by a single bolt.

Here is what your car should look like if you did everything correctly. Keep in mind that you do not need to remove the engine splash guard.

Total Cost:

The Projectors + 4 CCFLS + Wiring Harness + 2 H1 Bulbs = 11000 PKR
Ballasts = 3000 PKR

[MominHaq]

The next step is what I considered to be most frightening part, opening the headlamps. Turns out it is not too bad, you just need patience. If you can do this correctly, the rest of the retrofit is a piece of cake. If I can do it, anyone can because I have no prior related experience.

Find yourself a comfortable working area. After you remove the metal frame from the headlamps, it is time to open them up. I used a hairdryer. A heat gun will be way quicker but you run the risk of melting the headlamp very quickly. With the hairdryer it would be very hard to do so.

Also remove the H4 bulb from the headlamp.

Place the headlamp on a towel, wear some gloves and begin heating the perimeter of the headlamp. The time to heat up the headlamps honestly depends on the hairdryer. After heating it up, first carefully pry the clips using a flat head screwdriver. You will probably have to repeat the heating process. Pry apart the headlamp from the top corner of the headlamp(for the city this is near the turn signal bulb reflector). As you pry apart the headlamp have someone cut the headlamp sealant(which has become soft from the heat) with a knife to prevent it from sticking to the chrome reflector(that would be bad).

Again, let me assure you that you will need absolute patience for this process if you want to prevent any damage to the headlamp.

This is what the headlamp should look like after you have separated it.The majority of the chrome reflector is attached to the lens except for the main beam reflector.

Here I have just placed the projector to see how it looks inside. First without the shroud and then with the shroud.

[MominHaq]

As you can probably tell from the picture without the shroud, the projector is rotated way too much to the right. More on that shortly on how to fix it.

To fit the projector take off the bulb holder from the back of the projector by removing the 3 screws. Also attach the provided rubber ring on the back of the projector to prevent damage to the chrome reflector.

If your projectors are level(for this gen city they will certainly not be because of the rotational orientation of the city's chrome reflector), then skip this step.

This bugger is what caused a lot of the rotational problems. This is meant to keep the projector from rotating either way. It is a H4 adaptor.

Now, as mentioned previously, the city's reflector is rotated to the right so when you slot the projector it it also rotated to the right as shown. However it should be level as shown in the second picture.

How it is(not level)

How it should be(level)

Now, to fix this issue you will need to shave off a bit of the notch I circled in the adaptor plate above to have it rotate back to the left.

After leveling, tighten the projector using the provided locking ring with needle nose pliers carefully. After that you can reattach the bulb holder with the 3 screws.

[MominHaq]

Before resealing the headlamps, I would advise to test fire the projector by attaching the headlamps on the car. There are plenty of guides online to wire HIDs but if you have a question, don't hesitate to ask. At this point I just wired it quickly.

The tape marks you see are where the original headlights were aimed. I parked the car 20 feet away from the wall and marked off the cuttoff of the halogen beam. The left halogen was aimed lower so I did not worry too much.

Now this is how the aiming was without the rotational correction. Horrendous.

This is the final result after rotating the projector to the left. Not bad at all. (Underexposed)

[MominHaq]

Very close to the end now. Time to reseal the headlamps. Start by reheating the perimeter of the headlamps and bring the two separated parts together and attach the clips back. This will be much quicker than opening the headlamps but you still need patience to seal them correctly.

Do everything in reverse now and you should be done.

Not to forget the wiring of the HIDs. Some tips:

Use electrical tape to cover all the connections.
Attach the ground wires of the ballasts to a clean un-used spot such as a bolt in direct contact with the metal frame.

For this particular city finding a spot for the ballasts is tough. For the left ballast I attached it to the battery holder. For the right ballast I attached it to the bottom of the windshield washer fluid bottle.

Furthermore, point the connectors of the ballast down so they don't collect water.

The height and left-right adjustment of the headlamps can be done using the stock adjusters with a screwdriver.

Disconnecting the negative terminal of the battery will disable(not technically) the auto up-down feature of the driver side power window. This happens because the car "forgets" the position of the window and thus doesn't "know" what to do. The fix is simple. Just lower your window, hold the button in position for 20 seconds, do the same in the up postion.

There you go, you should have significantly better output than your stock headlamps and you will not blind oncoming drivers.

[MominHaq]

This is a GIF showing the low and high beam

[MominHaq]

Low beam. Here the lights were aimed too low.

[iamadee]

Great effort/ Keep it up....

[rustam54]

Great Effort Sir. And very nicely and neatly done.

Though I can imagine the sabr required during those 12 hours of retrofit, you still made it look like a piece of cake for the rest of the PWers.

Enjoy the sharp cut-offs.

[juadjee]

One of the best DIY and following tutorials EVER! Great job Momin!

[MominHaq]

Thanks guys. Don't be scared to do it yourself. It is much more rewarding.

[waleed80]

and the LightMan is back welcome bro

[vickybhai]

Very nice DIY.....
i am planning for a foglight projector retrofit of my passo...is the procedure same or somewhat different then this???

Sent from my GT-I9300 using PW Forums mobile app

[sk_020]

Excellent job Momin.
Gonna try this on my car soon.

[dav111]

very good job and nicely explained step by step at least people should realize that it is not that hard after seeing this detailed tutorial btw your city is looking very aggressive after installation of projectors,

[MominHaq]

Thanks guys.

Very nice DIY.....
i am planning for a foglight projector retrofit of my passo...is the procedure same or somewhat different then this???

Sent from my GT-I9300 using PW Forums mobile app

The procedure for taking the headlamps off the car will be a little different but the rest should be the same.

[rizi_85]

Excellent DIY!

I also did a retrofit in a friend's 2006 vitz with the same projectors and that rotational issue was there as well. Had to trim that locking bit to get the required rotation. Couldn't take the pics while doing DIY as no camera was available at that time. But he is enjoying some good light on the road and really nice cutoffs

[dav111]

Excellent DIY!

I also did a retrofit in a friend's 2006 vitz with the same projectors and that rotational issue was there as well. Had to trim that locking bit to get the required rotation. Couldn't take the pics while doing DIY as no camera was available at that time. But he is enjoying some good light on the road and really nice cutoffs

actually this hub is of usa spec but our cars are of Japanese spec that is they reason these adapters have rotational issue

[rizi_85]

actually this hub is of usa spec but our cars are of Japanese spec that is they reason these adapters have rotational issue

hmm but trimming that lock is not a big deal. I am glad that the OP mentioned this issue in detail so that other members who will use same projectors can do it even before installation.

[aakbar]

@MominHaq...
Nice effort and some real great result. Your car looks a lot better with projectors. Could you plz tell me if we really need HID's to go with projectors instead of halogen lamps? i'm thinking to install such projectors in my City 2012 too.