Write up process for the Quad HID Projector Toyota Scion tC headlights.

It has Quad HID projectors where the projectors were pulled from the Infiniti FX and Audi vehicles. High powered LED turn signal, CCFL Halos as DRL. The stock parking lights and the stock turn has been "deleted" cosmetically, covered up and the whole front cosmetic trim will be color matched to the vehicle's color. Modified the stock side amber reflective piece and matching cosmetic bezel rings that are painted Silver to cover up the projectors.

Stock Headlights Front & Rear

View of clearance behind headlights. Driver side has max 2" behind the stock low beam rubber gasket & high beam has at least 5" clearance.

Stock Low Beam Output

Stock High Beam Output

Stock Low & High beam output together.

The max clearance I have for the projector, D2S bulb, and D2S bulb connector is 2" behind this rubber gasket.

The upper "eye lid" portion of the headlight is where I designed the LED turn signal to be and this will replace the stock turn signal on the headlight. The LED's will be 32 Lumileds SuperFlux amber ones attached over the chrome "eye lid" behind the stock plastic cover.

You can see in this angle from the side, that the surface is curved and ideally I would need the LED's to sit perpendicular 90 degrees to the ground.

Every hole has to be drilled to accumulate the SuperFlux LED's and this is the only way I can precisely control the placement of the LED's. A long very long process but well worth for the quality of the outcome. The holes were all marked out and spaced out evenly across the "chrome eye lid" area and then punched, and drilled.

With the material all precisely cut out for clearance and holes drilled, I then proceeded to mount the LumiLed's Superflux amber leds. Notice how the LED's are flush to the surface I "flattened" or sanded down so it has a flat surface that is relatively 90 degrees, perpendicular to the ground and leveled.

Back view with the LED's mounted.

Shot of the rear with the electrical connections all made of the LED's. Looks clean & simple huh? Clean yes... simple no.

Here's the driver side with some additional close up pictures. The first few picture shows the slot cut out which is approximately the same thickness as the LED's themselves.

Here you can see below the clearance of the gap which is very close to the thickness of the LED's and this allows more chrome surface up top to be used as a reflector.

The rest of the chrome finish was left intact so there can be increased output from a single row of led as shown below. With the reflection from the shiny surface, it looks as though as there's two rows of led output. With the clear cover that goes over it, it will give it a more diffused look to it.

There was clearance issue behind the LED's which was solved by... you guessed it, giving it clearance. The back plastic black casing that has been cut out for clearance will be filled up after the headlight is done and sealed. It will be covered up from the outside.

With the LED turn signals on the eye brow part of the headlight, the stock turn signal cavity can be filled up to give it a more flush and clean appearance.

Stock, before being cut and modified.

Plastic has been cut, this also gives more clearance for accessories I'll be installing inside the headlight to give it a more clutter free clean appearance on the overall headlight.

Polycarbonate backing plate cut out, shaped and attached. This is to keep the integrity of the thin edges and to prevent the cosmetic painted surface from cracking in the future.

Plastic has been scuffed up and sanded to promote a better bond with the expoy used.

Clean edge, no messy dripping epoxy.

Epoxy was used to fill the surface instead of bondo. It's a more expensive way of doing it but bondo is like a sponge and will shrink, since the cavity is large, epoxy was a better option to fill the cavity and a stronger option as well.

Expoy was filled, sanded down and as you can see, only a little filler is needed to complete the surface.

Bondo can be used, but only to fill minor imperfection. Polyester Filler was used here to fill in the rest of the surface and allows the edge to be feather sanded to achieve a level and even surface.

Wet and block sanded down the surface.

Flat, even, smooth finish and will be scuffed and prepped for urethane base coat. With minimal filler used, the chances of the edges cracking in the future are kept to a minimal.

With the stock turn signal area flush and covered, the stock turn signal reflector can be removed for additional space for other components that I'll be installing inside the headlights.

Stock interior low / high beam reflectors.

Stock reflectors are reverse engineered to find the stock dimensions, angles, etc and will be used to design and machine the proper aluminum brackets to mount the new projectors so they are centered and level relative to the stock low and high beams.

One of the two type of projector that'll be used in this headlight; this one is from the Infiniti FX headlights.

Machining brackets out of billet aluminum to mount the Infiniti FX Bi-xenon projectors in the stock Scion tC's low beam reflector area.

For those who did not notice, these brackets are not square, they have a taper edge on 3 out of the 4 edges along the outside edge of the aluminum piece. Holes were drilled and tapped.

FX projectors mounted in stock low beam area.

For better quality and precision, I always align the low beam projector to the factory stock's high beam with a dual or quad projector setup. This way the HID projector beam alignment will be relatively aligned to where it should be when it's installed on the car, less adjustment on the car, the better. You can also see the lighting color temperature difference of the brand 4100k bulb compared to the yellowier hue of the halogen high beam bulb.

The projector used in the stock high beam reflector area is a Valeo H7 projector with a D2S-H7 adaptor. The H7 version of this projector has a smaller reflective bowl in terms of the width compared to the D2S version, the difference was not that great, but it made a difference in terms of clearance issue with the stock Scion tC rear headlight casing so the more realistic practical choice was to use the H7 version. It is used for hte primary low beam in this quad projector setup. The Infiniti FX projector fills in the width of the beam output from the areas that the Valeo H7 projector lacks in, however the clear lenses Valeo projector has a sharper cut off line and is able to easier generate the slight blue / purple hue along the cut off line.

Below is some pictures from part of the engineering design process, machining and mounting of the Valeo projector in the stock high beam area.

With the cosmetic bezel design I choose, there was clearance issue involving the bezel hitting the stock tC cosmetic trim piece. Even if there was clearance, the clearance wasn't large enough for me to be happy with it as I have to make sure nothing is touching or hitting since these headlights are adjustable parts and nothing can interfere with the movement and adjustability of the headlights.

Here you can see there's not much room for the bezel ring to move forward if I needed to aim the beam lower. Keep in mind the bezels pictured here are not the ones used on the headlight, they were test fitting pieces. The actual ones used has been freshly painted with a two stage urethane paint system from my body shop.

Here, I marked off and scribed the stock tC cosmetic trim piece since it was blocking me from even test fitting the smaller bezel ring that goes over the Valeo projector.

After cutting, grinding and shaping, proper clearance is achieved to my satisfaction shown below.

Below, you can see the thin careful notch I made for the return wire on one end of the CCFL halo's.

Here you can see the difference between the stock and the modified one. The top one is the one I cut out, rounded out and the bottom one is the stock one.

To give this headlight a slightly more unique look, I decided to have only a .58" width of the side amber reflective piece shown and to achieve this, the area I want shown is masked off and the rest will be painted along with the other pieces.

After the parts were properly masked off, scuffed and cleaned with a special Standox Plastic Cleaner, it was then painted with the same color as the body of the car with a two stage urethane base and clear coat. The paint we use is a german paint company called Standox, much superior to PPG and Dupont, actually any urethane automotive paint is better then then the low quality PPG & Dupont, other then.. of course rattle cans. In this case, Standox was used only because that's what we have in the body shop, but for all practical purposes, anything painted inside the headlight is less critical then say, a quarter panel on the car, but is still better then using rattle spray cans. The urethane hardened clear coat gives it a much cleaner smooth finish that closely matches the stock paint.

The cosmetic round bezel rings however were painted with just the base silver color.

After the pieces were painted, they were cured under an infrared lamp so it cures from inside out. This is critical in my opinion as the temperature inside the headlight can easily exceed 150 degrees under a hot sunny day and unlike the body panels on the car, any paint fume would have a harder time being evaporated to the outside air as the pieces are enclosed inside the headlight with only a few vents to prevent fogging.

I decided to take some pictures under the sun after the pieces were cured and before I brought them home.

As you can see, the reflection along the front part of the headlight shows the evenness and straightness of the stock turn signal area that I filled in and block sanded.

Another reflection from the building across the street that you can see in the picture below. Undistorted image proves that all the long hours and effort to carefully wet sand, block sand the area paid off.

Here's the side amber pieces before I peel off the masking tape and the fine line tape.

Fine line tape comes off next!

Fine line tape with good prep work equals a clean sharp edge with no peeling of paint or paint seeping underneath the fine line tape.

Just showing the clean reflective surface from my SL emblem.

Round silver cosmetic bezels and side amber painted, cured and in a box ready to go home!

All the parts has to be dismantled one last time, cleaned and put back together. Wherever there is screw, there is loc-tite, and wherever there is light leakage it is covered up.

Clear cleaned lenses on the Valeo projector.

Before the cosmetic bezel rings can be attached to the projector, both mating surface, the back of the bezel and the surface of the projector ring has to be scuffed and sanded. In this case I'm showing you the lens retainer on the FX, the sanded version next to the stock one that hasn't been sanded down.

Aluminum tape is used to prevent light leakage from the openings on the projector. This prevents unwanted light from shining out of the housing and lighting up undesired parts of the headlight. The only light that should be coming out of the projector is out of the front projector lenses, this gives it a much cleaner quality appearance instead of scattered light all over the housing. Takes time and effort but quality is my number one concern at the end.

Testing to make sure light isn't leaking out of areas that I don't want or can not let it leak out.

With the cosmetic bezel rings attached.

The CCFL halos are installed with great precision and cleanness. No excessive adhesives is visible, great attention to detail and attention to cleaning up the adhesives used to attach the halos were used. Making sure the halos didn't crack under thermal expansion was also taken into consideration.

3M's automotive acrylic plus attachment tape was used to secure the heat sink from the LED's power regulator, the LED's power regulator, CCFL's inverter and the wires required to make everything light up and work.

Wires were soldiered and covered in heat shrink inside the headlight, not crimped or twisted and covered with electrical tape. More time consuming but again, quality is my main concern here.

One thing I realized while doing this project, was the fact that the chrome quality used on the outer plastic cosmetic trim inside the headlight was of very extremely low quality. It was inevitable that I had to mask off the chrome portion and the LED's in the eye lid area so the rest of the trim can be painted the same color as the car, however I didn't expect part of the chrome to peel off as I took off the mask that was used to cover it up. This problem is rare but it happened so I had to find a practical solution. What I came up with was to use the highly reflective aluminum tape I used to cover up the side of the projector, and use it to cover and repair the chrome surface. The problem with this is, if you've ever used those aluminized metal tape, you'll learn that it's "almost" impossible to keep it from wrinkling and keeping it smooth without any marks on it, the reason behind this is, the second you start unrolling it or if you bend it ever so slightly, it will leave a mark that you can't remove in the tape. After a few hours of playing around and figuring out how to keep it perfectly smooth, I devised a new technique to keep it smooth and level as I taped it over the old chrome surface and even was able to smooth the tape along the contoured edges and cutting off the excessive while keeping it smooth. Obviously I had to use two sections since the tape's width wasn't large enough but they are barely visible with the plastic diffused cover that goes over it.

After the final assembly of all four projectors, the Valeo low beam projectors has to be aligned with the FX Bi-Xenon projectors so the low beam projector's cut off lines are pointed only slightly higher then the FX ones. This again allows the Valeo to be the one with the main cut off line while the FX improves on the over all width of the beam and the additional intensity that comes with having quad projectors on a vehicle.

These were taken inside my garage and the headlights are not on the vehicle so don't assume the beam is crooked when looking at it relative to the ground or the garage door because it's not.

Valeo Low beam only.

FX Bi-Xenon's low beam only.

Both the Valeo and FX projectors on, this is where I adjust either one or both projectors to align the cut off line relative to each other so they are not too spread apart (height wise) while the Valeo's cut off line are above the FX ones. For other headlights where the projectors are not sitting at the same height in the headlight, the difference would have to be greater then the actual physical height distance the projectors sit at inside the headlight, but for the Scion tC both projectors sit relatively level and at the same height.

And this is with the FX's Bi-Xenon's high beam triggered on.

Some detailed shots of the final assembly before I clean and put the clear headlight lenses on and seal the headlight.

You can see below how all the R&D work paid off, the projectors are sitting centered relative to the circular opening.

Enough clearance to adjust the projector up, down, and rotational.

Clean CCFL Halo install.

Everything nice and centered!

Part of the research & development process included that the projector can not be readily seen from the side and that the thickness of the bezel had to be able to cover the raw projector when viewing from the side. This is what limits me how far forward and how far back I can have the projector sit inside the headlight housings.

This is another area where the real reward comes from the precise engineering and design work I did. The max clearance I had on the driver side was ONLY 2". With the D2S power cap and FX projector installed, the end result was that it was sticking out 1 15/16" which leaves me with only 1/16" of clearance, this was less then I was comfortable with but this was where I came lucky and that the headlight didn't have to be adjusted much and it was enough clearance when it was installed on the car. If I installed the projector anymore forward into the housing, the side of the bezel rings would have not been able to cover the projector when viewed from the side.

Now here's the back view of the headlight, notice again how the projectors are "centered" with the stock openings. There isn't any left and right adjustments on these headlights so there was no correction just to get it centered for the pictures, this is how it is in reality after I machined the mounts and installed the projectors.

This is just to show you how closely the COLOR of the AMBER LED's matches the stock coated incandescent turn signal bulb.

Here you can see the difference in the color of the light between the halogen stock on the left and the dual HID projector in a single headlight setup on the right.

Before....

After!!!

The DRL Halo's are visible during day time as well!

Here's me installing the lights and checking for clearance and all that good stuff. =)

Side view, projector is not visible which was one of the objectives.

Just when we brought the car out to aim the lights, it started to sprinkle...

With just the FX projectors on.

Now with the FX & the Valeo projectors, increase in intensity. This is how the car is normally driven with at night time.

And when someone pisses the driver off, BAM goes the high beam via the FX Bi-Xenon projectors.

Some slight color from the Valeo projectors, I adjusted the projector's cut off shield to give a slight color at the cut off line without sacrificing too much of the sharpness which is more desirable then the color; after all you don't drive in front of a white wall or white truck all the time and the sharpness is still noticeable even after the color can't be seen anymore down the road.

The view behind the Passenger headlight in the engine bay, the passenger side has a lot more clearance then the Driver side.

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The back of the Driver side headlight was a lot more like hell, there is literally only about 1/8" clearance behind the driver side FX projector which you can't see.

Here you can see how the top of both cut off line on the Valeo projector lines up just nicely, has a slight flare, some don't like it, some do, subjective feature.

Just two projectors on, the FX's.

And then with the Valeos on, 4 projectors, kind of hard to tell the cut off line difference since was taken far away and the intensity was very bright.

All 4 projectors on and the high beams activated at the same time.

Taken from the Driver seat view. All 4 projectors on and...

High Beams!

Hope you guys enjoyed the write up and appreciate the amount of work I put into these custom tC Quad projector headlights.

Best Regards,
Larry Wu
LittoDeviL Performance
Vertical Investment Portfolio Group
littodevil@gmail.com
(650) 703-0911