01-25-2007, 07:04 PM
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Dual halo projector LED headlights write-up
These Dual halo projector LED headlights made for 01 - 04 Frontiers are the first lights I’ve ever installed / replaced. The removal and install is fairly straight forward, though one bolt was a PITA. Electrical setup was my biggest hitch being there were no instructions and more or less the reason for this write-up. I was impressed with the overall quality of these lights and would recommend them. My one and only gripe is the projection light (low beam) has an annoying artifact at the upper cutoff barrier which is hard to describe, but you see it when you have the lights on. I may one day try to take the lights apart and see if i can sand down the lip on the upper barrier to smooth it out so the light cutoff is nice and straight. The lights also came with two amber bulbs, which you use to replace your clear turn signal bulbs (for legality reasons) and 4 butt connectors so you don’t have to splice any wires. Also I bought a set of Polarg B1 Hybrid M4 194 bulbs (P8713W) which I used to replace the top parking light on each light as I didn’t like the yellow the OEM bulb produced.
Legality - According to WA state patrol, these lights are illegal. Excluding parking lights, there is a limit of 4 forward lights on the front. The fact that the Halos (which are sold as OEM option on BMW's) as well as the DOT lights are part of the parking lights raises doubt in my mind. But I'm told this is the main reason they are illegal. The 2nd aspect which could possibly make them illegal is how blue the light is from the halo / dots lights. I say possibly because it is up to the discretion of the officer. See post 21 for an accurate picture of how "blue" the halos & DOT lights. The officer i spoke to did say the likelihood of me getting pulled over for this is probably very slim and left it at that...
Installation instructions on a 2003 Nissan Frontier:- Tools needed – 10mm socket with extender or 10mm box wrench (ratcheting box wrench preferred), wire cutters, strippers, and possibly a utility knife. For light adjustments an 8mm ratcheting box wrench works well when the lights are installed or a flat & philips head screw driver if the lights are out.
- Removing the two OEM headlights – Each light as a bolt on the top left & top right, these both of these need to be removed. The one near the grill on the driver side light is hard to get to, good luck with that. Once the bolts are removed you can pop out the light by tugging on it a little bit to release the clips on the bottom. Now unplug the two electrical plugs.
- Remove parking & signal lights & wire assembly – Now flip the light over and remove the two parking lights and the blinker. Also remove the wire harness and plug they are attached to. Do not disconnect or cut any of the wires and try not to break the plug. Set aside the OEM headlight as you are done with it
- Bulb replacement – To keep things legal; on the bulbs you removed from your OEM light, replace the clear signal light bulb with the amber one included with the halo lights. This is optional, but I also replaced the top parking light with a Polarg B1 Hybrid M4 194 bulb, because the light it gives off is very similar to the LED & Halo light. Otherwise the bar light next to the 3 dot lights will be yellow instead of the LED / Halo color.
- Wiring the parking / signal light in the Halo headlight - Just as you removed the parking & signal lights & associated wire & plug from your OEM light, you will be re-installing them into similar locations on the new halo lights. Now you need to wire up the remaining two halo & dot lights. There should be 6 wires total for this, 3 black & 3 white. The 3 black wires need to be connected together and spliced into the negative (black) wire that goes to either of the two parking lights or the signal light. I chose to bridge the black dot wire with the top parking light black wire by using the included butt connector. Then I continued that black wire on, and connected the other two black halo wires to it via a wire nut. Now similarly with the 3 white wires, take any one of them and using another butt connector, bridge it to the colored wire for one of your parking lights. Then again connect the end of the white wires together via a wire nut or some other means. This would be the “standard” way to hook the halo & dot lights. Alternatively if you wanted your dot lights to be used along with your signal for example, you could wire the white dot wire to the signal colored wire instead, which would make it act like a signal light instead.
- Test out the new lights - At this point you should be all connected, before putting the light back in I would recommend you test out parking lights (halos), blinker, regular and high beams to make sure everything is working.
- Install the new headlight – Pretty much a reverse of how you removed the OEM headlight, first line up the bottom pin on the light to the socket on the fender side, it may not snap in, just make sure it’s in place. Then on the opposite side, slide the lip on the light into the groove slot in near the grill. Once the two clips are in place then screw your bolts back in. The new lights were a bit tighter fit, but still went in fine.
- Adjusting the lights - there are 2 8mm screws for the regular beams and 2 8mm for the high beams. Turning one screw adjusts the up / down of the beam. The other screw adjusts the left / right of the beam. Getting at these screws can be tricky and you’ll also need a good flat level surface / wall so you can size up the lights while adjusting them. I did this in a parking garage. I was able to adjust the high beams with the lights in using a ratcheting box wrench, but finally had to give up and pop out the lights to adjust the normal beams to where they were close, then lined them up and made the final adjustment while cinching down the mounting screw. I didn't have to adjust the side to side much, but did test that they worked. I chose to cross the beams directly in the middle about 50 yards in front and had the normal beams touch the ground at about the same distance. With the design of the the normal beams they won't blind people in front as the beam height cuts off abruptly, unlike the OEM headlights which used to blind the heck out of people in front of me.
Regarding the beams:- The Halos & DOT lights do have a slight blue tint to them, similar to BMW and other cars seen on the road. So keep in mind the pictures below came out much more blue than they really are, photographic error. Again I recommend replacing the top OEM 194 bulb with a Polarg bulb as it will better match the halo / DOT lights.
- The projection light (low beam) when off has a cool purple glossy look to it. When on it is bright, but has a confined perimeter on top as opposed to traditional headlights that just spread out. This is nice because it allows you to adjust them for the road, but not blind the people in front of you (for those with raised trucks). As mentioned above the Projection light does had a strange artifact in the upper cutoff barrier, which i may one day try to correct if i don't get used to it the way it is.
- The high beam are traditional high beam lights and are comparable with the OEM lights I would imagine and seem quite adequate
Pictures:I merged a lot of pictures together. Depending on your browser settings you may have to resize the image back to its original size to see it well, or turn off Automatic image resizing in your browser options. Also recently redid the night shots since replacing the upper parking light OEM bulb with the Polarg bulb and posted a few comparison shots to show the difference. It's subtle in the pictures, but in person the OEM bulb bugged the heck out of me whereas the Polarg bulb matched quite nicely.
Last edited by dcobb : 02-06-2007 at 05:51 PM.
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