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I read this entire thread yesterday from the beginning. Was just planning to browse and see how the car started but man what a **** show you have gone through. Glad you stuck with it, car looks amazing
Wow, the whole thread. That is impressive for sure. COVID-19 makes us do crazy things.
Minor updates - Not being able to leave well-enough alone, I've recently completed some work on the interior of the car. First, I replaced my center speaker - yes I still have one - with a JBL GX302 3-1/2" 75W 2-Way GX Series Coaxial Car Audio speaker -
Much better sound than the paper cone one that was in the car. FYI - I use a mini Alpine amp to drive the center speaker. While the center speaker is not the most powerful component, it does fill out the sound in the car.
Second, I took apart my HVAC console and repaired its broken bits, which were many. Got this all ready to install, but then bought a mint condition complete unit from ls1swap and installed it instead. The new console looks like it was transported from the past into now - very excellent condition:
Or course I can't leave perfect alone, so I swapped the control unit from my old setup into the new console as I recently doubled the number and light output on the controls by adding in extra LEDs:
The end result is a newly revived interior console with improved lighting:
Oh yeah, I upgraded the LEDs in my Rx8 shift ****, which brightened the light output of the shift **** quite a bit.
So, what's left? I am updating my headlight setup. I ordered some LED Morimoto 2 Stroke bulbs from The Retrofit Source and I will install these for use in my 90mm Hella high beams. I also ordered some Morimoto HID D2S ballasts to replace the aging Hella ones I installed a number of years ago.
I just completed swapping out several of my headlight components. As you may recall, I retrofitted my setup to be a "sleepy eye" projector low-beam Hella HID unit and a high beam Hella halogen reflector setup. I had also swapped out the halogen high beam bulb for an HID bulb and ballast upgrade from The Retrofit Source. The low beam projectors on this setup are an amazing upgrade to the stock units and vastly improve the light output. The high beam HID setup worked well and improved the light output, but the downside to using an HID in the reflector is that the HID bulb takes a few seconds to warm up to produce full light output. So, the result was a slight delay in the high beam functioning well. Lastly, my Hella low beam HID ballasts were getting a bit old in age.
So, I've now upgraded the setup with some new goodies from The Retrofit Source:
First, I've replaced the high beam reflector HID setup with Morimoto 2 Stroke LED bulbs. The LED bulbs now come on instantly, resolving the previous delay issue of the old HID high beam setup. The 2 Stroke LED bulbs are pretty cool as they include cooling fans in the base of the bulb, improving longevity. The downside to the LED bulbs is that even though they are rated at 2,440 lumens per bulb, they will not be quite as bright as the previous HID setup.
So, to keep the light output bright, I rewired my low beam HIDs to stay on when I activate the high beam LEDs. Many thanks to Gen2n3 for his help in getting this to work. The solution to having the lows stay on with the highs was to add into the wiring a diode that acts as a prevention to power back-feeding. In short, the diode keeps the low beams from back-feeding power to the highs when I deactivate the highs. Works well.
Lastly, I swapped out my older low beam Hella ballasts for new 35w Morimoto ballasts and went through the wiring to button everything up well. All in all, quite pleased with the end result. I'm heading over in the next few days to have the headlight aligned and will then post up pics of the output.
If anyone is interested in the Hella D2S ballasts and connectors at no cost, let me know. I did also end up with two Morimoto 50w HID ballasts and D2S bulbs if someone can use those as well.
06-01-20, 05:25 PM
