Mini H1 Projector on 8th Gen Civic

Many peoples here saw my http://www.8thcivic.com/forums/lighting-h-i-d-s-neon/180663-pro-look-bi-xenon-retrofit-under-250-easy-diy-pnp.html thread started about half year ago. The G3 projector I used in that setup still working strong and I still like it very much, like many other peoples who actually tried by themselves. Well, time passing and projector technology keep improving, a new projector with even better performance, plus having the easy mounting option similar to G3 projector kit become available recently, so that I decided to order a pair and give it a try.

**** This thread still work in progress, and I will keep adding more information when available. ****

I'm calling this new projector "Mini H1 Projector", as it is small in size, and using PnP H1 bulb which widely available. This is currentlly also branded as " Morimoto Mini Bixenon Projectors" on a major store which selling retrofit parts. The "Mini H1" name been used even before that store officially selling that projector and branded with it's own name, and I will just keep using that name.

First here is what I received. There is a couple missing parts on this pictures, which I didn't received on the first shipment but received later.

You can see it has a pair of bare projectors, a pair of shrouds, and a pair of locking rings. The missing parts from this picture are a pair of rubber washers, a pair of H4 adapter plates (not used), and a pair of H7 adapter plates. The shrouds in this picture is an E46-R shrouds, which is I special ordered. The regular mini H1 projector kit is come with a Mini Gatling Gun shrouds instead.

I'm skipping the parts on how to take the bumper off, take the headlight out and take it apart in this thread. If you need more information regarding that, you can found that out on my other thread http://www.8thcivic.com/forums/lighting-h-i-d-s-neon/180663-pro-look-bi-xenon-retrofit-under-250-easy-diy-pnp.html, or other DIY thread here.

OK, the first thing I did after I taken the headlight apart was to test fit this new projector. It is as simple as the G3 projector, which you just will to put the projector through the 9006 bulb hole, and then lock it onto the reflector using the supplied locking ring.

The two wires (red and black) shown on the 2nd picture are the wires for the bi-xenon solenoid. One thing about this mini H1 projector is it is not specific designed to fit 9006 bulb hole, so it didn't come with an adapter plate for 9006 hole. I don't think it is absolutely necessary, but I guess having an extra washer probably a good idea, so I trimmed the supplied H7 adapter and use it.

After I test fit the projector and make sure it does fit our civic headlight, I decided to have the reflector blacked out this time. Just simply use painter tape covered the hgih beam area and spray a couple layer black paint on it. After a few tries, I found using 2 layers of Duplicolor Trim Paint Flat Black (TP 70) and then 2 layer of Duplicolor Engine Emamel Low Gloss Black (DE 1634) give me a pretty good result. I'm not very good on paint job, so you can use whatever method you like.

The next thing to do is the shrouds. I want some special on my style, so I decided to drill some holes on the shroud and have some LED shine thru them. so, first to do is drill some holes.

Then the E46-R shrouds is bigger than our reflector, and require some trim work. I have no dimension on how much needed to be cut, just do it slowly and keep test fitting. (I forgot to take pictures when trimming the shrouds, so I just use some later stage picture here)

and have it test fitted.

Then I put some Amber LED behind each holes. They are Cree P4 Amber Superflux. High quality LED here is important, as it will be ran under very hot environment. I used high temperature black silicon to fix the LED in place.

There are total 17 holes, so I'm wiring them as 3-4-3-4-3. I also decided to have the current regulation curcuit running outside of the headlight (so minimum components inside the headlight hot environment), so there are 6 wires (1 common ground and 5 seperate positive) instead of just two.

Then to see how it works, I test run it with bread board. I'm using LM317LZ to regulate the current to 38mA instead of using simple resistor to limit the current, as I think the Vf for the LED may be having big difference between Low beam is off (Cold) and on (as hot as 180F - 200F). It also give me an advantage since I don't need to remember which wire is for 3-series and which is for 4-series. [b](note: I may need to even lower the current to something like 25mA later, for safer operation)[/b]

Then I put the shrouds onto the projector. The wires are pass through the same hole as the bi-xenon solenoid wires.

Then fire it up and see how it looks.