JDM Projector Install: Straight Splicing

Notes:
• Disconnect negative terminal from battery
• There are no removal instructions or assembly instructions as those should already be straight forward.
• There are four bolts to remove the USDM Headlights and only three to mount the JDM Headlights
• To remove the grill; use a flat screw driver to push the centre lever between the clips down until you hear a 'click'. The plastic lever stays down and this will allow you to remove the whole clip from the frame. The clips come off from the frame and stay mounted to the grill.

Part 1: USDM Electrical Wires Explained


Driver Side
Red = High Beam
Red/Blue = Power
Yellow/Blue = Low Beam


Passenger Side
Red = High Beam
Black/Yellow = Power
Yellow/Blue = Low Beam

Part 2: JDM Electrical Wires Explained


The wires are identical for both driver/passenger side. These really don't need an explanation as you can trace the wires yourself to see which one goes where.
Red = Power (This wire goes to both high/low beam bulbs)
Blue = City Light. (I did not hook this up as I did not have any use for it. I believe this is also their Daytime Running Light. This is paired with the low beam wire.)
White = High Beam (Only goes to the high beam bulb)
Black = Low Beam (Only goes to the low beam bulb)

Looking directly at the connector with the prongs facing you and the tab/clip on top, the wires are as follow.

Top Left = High Beam
Bottom Left = Power
Top Right = City Light
Bottom Right = Low Beam

Part 3: Splicing


My JDM Projectors did not come with the OEM wiring harness. This doesn't make it any more difficult as you could just splice the wires directly to your stock lighting wires, but I wanted the ability to remove my headlights if I ever needed too. These were purchased from Canadian Tire for $4 each. They didn't have a 3 or 4 prong harness and I purchased two different ones so I wouldn't confuse wiring.


This is pretty straight forward. It doesn't matter what wires you use on your new harness (if you chose to go this route) as long as they match up on the other end. If your JDM Projector lights came with the complete harness, you can skip this step and solder the wires to your stock wires.
Don't know how to solder? http://www.aaroncake.net/electronics/solder.htm

Do the same on the stock wiring using picture 01 for reference.

Part 4: Turn Signal Fix


The JDM socket will not work with your USDM turn signals. It is a single filament bulb whereas the USDM ones are a dual filament. This fix requires an exacto knife and 30 seconds. There are four notches surrounding the bulb socket; three of them are the same size and align perfectly. The fourth one is slightly larger in the USDM side.
Take an exacto knife (BE CAREFUL!) or a dremel; whatever you prefer and take out like 1/16th of an inch on both sides. Along the red lines as shown in the picture. This will be done on your USDM socket, the JDM is of no use to you.


With the plastic notch shortened, it fits perfectly into the JDM Lights allowing your signals to work with your upgraded lights.


Three wire turn signal inside JDM head lights.

Review:
The bulbs that I got with these lights were crap so I will be buying some Xtra Visions tomorrow. The cut off is really nice though there isn't much light output due to the shit bulbs. The driver side projector lens can be adjusted horizontally a great deal to avoid blinding oncoming traffic. However, the passenger side is limited. Overall, this took me about one hour to do, it wasn't difficult at all, just soldering and attention to detail was time consuming.

Good luck and hope this helps!!

Great write up! Thank you very much!

I just assumed we had a DIY for the projectors.


Good job dude.

Good job on the writeup! If only this was around when I installed mine!

I'm glad someone did a writeup, now we have a official place for these :)

My JDM projectors did come with the connections and the wires were the same colour, so I just had to slice them together

The JDM plug is on the left and the USDM wires are on the right. I crimped and shrink wrapped my connections. Also, the extra wire I have taped up is for the small bulb in between the projector and turn signal (I didn't want to use it)


In these pictures the car is parked 30 feet away from the garage. These are pictures of my stock headlights and JDM fogs.

---Low beams---------Low with both fogs--------High with fogs

The fogs fill in the lower part of the road and a lot of the low beam area, the high beams pretty much point in the same place as the lows, but its more concentrated on the center.
In other words, my high beams do jack squat and my foglights are more useful than my low beams.

Now for the JDM projectors and JDM fogs

---Low beams---------Low with both fogs---------High with fogs

How to aim your headlights
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/aim/aim.html
MUCH better. The high beams are actually high as you can see from the pictures) and the low beams are well defined. They still need to be raised a tiny bit more. I should have raised my old headlights a bit and that would of helped, but not as much as these new ones have.

Stock vs JDM look

The projectors arnt on with the highs its just the flash

What headlight bulb does the projectors use?

And will this route still be ok if you were to run a aftermarket HID system?

Headlight is H1 bulb.

High beam is H3 I think, not 100% sure.

Originally posted by Cajual:
Projector = Low Beam = H1
Reflector = Hi Beam = H3
Driving Lamp = accessory bulb number 168

Nice writeup. I just finished installing another set in a friends Leggy. Oddly enough the wiring is the same on mine and his, but the the bulbs light up slighly different. On his on low beam only the projectors are lit. On mine (low beam) the projectors are lit and the high beams have a very slight glow to them. The only differences are his is a 97 and mine is a 96. Any ideas?

Which head light has to be reaimed because of them being of a right hand car? Which bolt abjust side to side on the projector top or buttom?

When i installed mine I parked my car up to my garage (10ft away or so, taped off where my USDM headlights were pointing, then when I installed the JDM's, I just aimed them accordingly. And actually, no aiming was necessary, esworthy must've taken care of it before me. The high beams are adjusted side to side with the top screw, and up and down with the bottom. Projectors might be the same?

I tried to get the city lights to work when my high beams came on, but trying to figure out what to tap into was driving me nuts (put a volt meter to the wires and you'll see why, the polarity on the ground wire switches). When I got the city light on, it was so pathetic (a hint of light and nothing more) that I decided not to keep it.

Question:

Is there anyway for me to run a aftermarket HID kit?

On my projectors, it came with the JDM wiring/connector. I just solder that to the USDM wires.

I only got one connector for my headlights. I used speaker wire to install them.

I got 2 H4 harnesses of ebay and wired the projector with them that way if I ever sell them the next person will be install, plug and play

fwiw the city lights suck. They're light output is so incredibly miniscule it's funny. I painted the bulbs yellow so that I could do yellow fogs, city and high beams, but the city lights are this really crappy dull essence of light.

and another question:

When i turn on my low beam setting; the high beam comes on.
and high beam setting; the low beam comes on

and my projector dont light up...well not by much, its always the corner light that lights up the most...wiring problem?

so which bulb size should i get? h1 or h3? or both for HIDs? will that even work like that?

no, I got the male end of the H4 like http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/H4-9003-Male-Connectors-Plugs-wire-harness-HID-D2S-D2R_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ36476QQihZ017QQitemZ270163210733QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

and spliced in the stock JDM wiring harness into this plug therefore the stock wiring harness on the car itself was not touched.

and the JDM headlights are now plug and play for the next person.

can i use h1 or h3 harness? why h4?

stock headlight wiring on the chassis remains the same. Stock headlight uses H4 buld and harness


the wiring above^ is spliced onto the JDM headlight wiring

That H4 harness plugs into the H4 plug that came on the above poster's headlight wiring. If you are in a 97 or newer legacy, you'll have a different plug. He was saying, instead of having to cut wires and splice in, now it's a simple plug and play procedure to remove the headlights and put the stockers back in.

As for your wiring problem, I noticed that when you have low beams on, one wire is positive and the other ground. When you go to highbeam, the positive wire turns negative and you have another wire altogether that is ground. Probably have a wire mixed up.

yeah, i have a '98, so its different.

And I might have to go and double check again with the wiring. it was weird tho, i check for every wire to match up to each other, still wasn't working correctly.

what bulbs are stock in 97 and up? I didn't know that there was a change.

I believe they use 9007, as opposed to the 95-early97 where they used 9003/H4.

yeah 9007 bulbs, thats why i didn't get the h4 harness deal.

so i was kinda right, use h1 harness kit for the low beam.

Hey Warrior. Does your high beam stay on when you flash or turn on high beam ?

Do you mean low beam??

If you meant low beam, then no it didn't. It would always turn off until the high beams turned off. This has since been fixed once I installed my HID retrofit.. high beams are now independent from low beams

I believe if you ground low beam (-) directly to your chassie, this should make low beam stay on when u flash or engage in high beam mode.

The reason is BD / BG headlight has switch ground, your low beam lose (-) when you switch to high beam. Try it and let me know.

Andy

I'm not sure why you want me to try that since I have independent low beams, fogs and high beams... ever since I did my HID install, I've re-wired a lot of stuff to make it independent.

its all good, i was trying to help

sorry that i didn't know u got everything figured out