DIY: CTR non-projector head light rewire

[BigE19]

So i purchased a bunch of CTR goodies..



I googled and found DA9_GSR's write up DIY.

If you have a 2002 or 2003 EP3 follow this:

- add a second power wire (it's red/yel on the left headlight harness and solid red on the right headlight harness)
- this will give you two power wires
- one of those power wires goes to the igniter
- the other power wire goes to the red wire sticking out of the JDM headlight housing (it goes to the HI/LO solenoid)
- then all you're left with is the two ground wires (one wire is red/blu and the other is black on both headlight harnesses)
- the igniters get grounded to the front bumper beam (left igniter to left bumper beam G301 and right igniter to right bumper beam G201)
- finally the black wire coming out of the JDM headlights gets spliced to the red/blu wire in both the OEM left and right headlight harnesses

Then you have to replace the headlight fuses to 20A instead of the 15A OEM ones. Don't worry, the OEM wires are capable of holding 20A. This circuit is only rated at less than 9A running.

But perform this at your own risk. I'm not liable for any mistakes on your end.

Cheers.




I was about to begin when noticing some of the wires, and i was unsure about the locations



so that is the jdm headlight with factory ballast.

so out of the bottom of the headlight housing you have a red power and a red /blue wire. On the ballast just a red and black.

now looking at the 9003 plug you have three wires



As you can see a red/yellow wire, solid red, and a red black wire. This is passenger side.

Driver side you have red/yellow, red/yellow, red/blue wire.

[nmysiismyn]

Man, that engine bay needs a bath!

I'm confused.. My pre-facelift JDM headlights don't have a ballast.

[DA9_GSR]

I'm confused.. My pre-facelift JDM headlights don't have a ballast.

You got screwed dude. Honda calls their ballasts "igniters".

[nmysiismyn]

You got screwed dude. Honda calls their ballasts "igniters".

I still love 'em, but I'm curious.. So, they're HID-ready?
That's hard to believe when they don't come with the round, glass, bulb cover thingamajiggy and/or the leveling system to provide that clean cutoff found on legit HID headlights...

[Passenger]

I still love 'em, but I'm curious.. So, they're HID-ready?
That's hard to believe when they don't come with the projector lense and/or the leveling system to provide that clean cutoff found on legit HID headlights...

fixed

[nmysiismyn]

fixed

[Passenger]

[Red_liner740]

not all HID systems are projector beam based. For instance my dads Volvo S60 is HID but no projector. 02/03 Maximas are HID but no projector...

With that being said, how is the JDM headlight housing any different than North American other than the ballasts?

[BigE19]

no different in the housing just using oem hids. Better then aftermarket. im just confused on what to do with the spare red.yellow wire on each 9003 wire harness. DA9 said that both sides are red.blue but mine is red.black on drivers side.

[Draw7Seven]

So your ballast connection, as stated already, is pos/neg wires to turn the bulbs on and off using the ballast/igniter combo (in my world, a ballast and an igniter are not the same thing, but that's neither here nor there).

The one below is the pos/neg connection for the Hi vs Lo solenoid. My assumption is that from your stock harness, if you splice the positive lo beam to your positive ballast, positive high beam to your positive hi/lo solenoid, and ground out the remaining two wires on each headlight (as we can assume they are grounds), then when you turn on your lights you'll get your lows, and when you turn on your highs your solenoid will do the work based on getting a signal from the hi positive line. In my head this makes sense.

I'll also note that while the wires can be any color in the world on those pigtails you have connected to the solenoids, it should be noticed that closer to where that loom heads into the housing itself I see a gap next to the grommet in your picture. Through that gap I see a red wire and a black wire, which is a definite clue for red positive black negative. If you pull that loom off or pinch with your fingers to trace the black and red wires up to the pigtail connection, you can be much more certain of which solenoid wire on your pigtail should be charged and which should be grounded, no matter if they're purple, green, or polka dotted. From personal experience people hack up any harness they can find to put together a plug and play setup for these lights, so your colors are understandably not the same as DA9's.

http://www.mypage.tsn.cc/roddqld/soc...ng_diagram.jpg

So on each side my suggestion is run your low to your ballast pos, your high to your solenoid pos, and your grounds either into the ground on the H4 (9003) plug or any chassis ground.

But this is based more on what should work rather than an understanding of how exactly the hi/lo solenoid operates. I've only run 02/03 halogens and facelift CTR HID's (so I had an entirely different bulb for highs).

[Draw7Seven]

not all HID systems are projector beam based. For instance my dads Volvo S60 is HID but no projector. 02/03 Maximas are HID but no projector...

With that being said, how is the JDM headlight housing any different than North American other than the ballasts?

qft

Answer: the JDM housing has a more "gunmetal" finish than the silvery USDM halogens. Other than that, obviously they're designed to take an HID setup (as it was an option for them) whereas the USDM housing needs to serve no other function than to house a standard halogen H4 (thanks American Honda, we love you too).

[nmysiismyn]

not all HID systems are projector beam based. For instance my dads Volvo S60 is HID but no projector. 02/03 Maximas are HID but no projector...

With that being said, how is the JDM headlight housing any different than North American other than the ballasts?

Until now, the only difference's that I've been aware of is that they have a dark chrome housing and they're designed to aim a bit up-left to light the street signs, whereas ours are just chrome housings and aim a bit up-right to light street signs.

[BigE19]

So your ballast connection, as stated already, is pos/neg wires to turn the bulbs on and off using the ballast/igniter combo (in my world, a ballast and an igniter are not the same thing, but that's neither here nor there).

The one below is the pos/neg connection for the Hi vs Lo solenoid. My assumption is that from your stock harness, if you splice the positive lo beam to your positive ballast, positive high beam to your positive hi/lo solenoid, and ground out the remaining two wires on each headlight (as we can assume they are grounds), then when you turn on your lights you'll get your lows, and when you turn on your highs your solenoid will do the work based on getting a signal from the hi positive line. In my head this makes sense.

I'll also note that while the wires can be any color in the world on those pigtails you have connected to the solenoids, it should be noticed that closer to where that loom heads into the housing itself I see a gap next to the grommet in your picture. Through that gap I see a red wire and a black wire, which is a definite clue for red positive black negative. If you pull that loom off or pinch with your fingers to trace the black and red wires up to the pigtail connection, you can be much more certain of which solenoid wire on your pigtail should be charged and which should be grounded, no matter if they're purple, green, or polka dotted. From personal experience people hack up any harness they can find to put together a plug and play setup for these lights, so your colors are understandably not the same as DA9's.

http://www.mypage.tsn.cc/roddqld/soc...ng_diagram.jpg

So on each side my suggestion is run your low to your ballast pos, your high to your solenoid pos, and your grounds either into the ground on the H4 (9003) plug or any chassis ground.

But this is based more on what should work rather than an understanding of how exactly the hi/lo solenoid operates. I've only run 02/03 halogens and facelift CTR HID's (so I had an entirely different bulb for highs).

right on ill give that a shot. thanks for the information

[Red_liner740]

^^ There might be a problem with that.

if the oem HID works by removing the shield for high beam, wiring up the solenoid to high beam +'ve and ballast to low beam +'ve wont work.

When you turn on your high beams you will activate the solenoid but deactivate the low beam killing the ballast power.

I just played all day wiring up my projector retrofit to my 02 SIR. you have to use a relay kit for bi-xenon conversions...it plugs directly into the oem 3 wire connector plus additional wire to battery and two ground points. It uses low beam power to turn on the igniters through a relay and uses the high beam power as signal line to the solenoid.

[Draw7Seven]

^^ There might be a problem with that.

if the oem HID works by removing the shield for high beam, wiring up the solenoid to high beam +'ve and ballast to low beam +'ve wont work.

When you turn on your high beams you will activate the solenoid but deactivate the low beam killing the ballast power.

I just played all day wiring up my projector retrofit to my 02 SIR. you have to use a relay kit for bi-xenon conversions...it plugs directly into the oem 3 wire connector plus additional wire to battery and two ground points. It uses low beam power to turn on the igniters through a relay and uses the high beam power as signal line to the solenoid.

You're right, of course. Our high switch is going to do just that: give power to the solenoid instead of the ballast rather than in addition to. You can either run a relay as suggested or there's a way to do it without, if I can track down Ocelaris and Talon's old posts...