Dodge Viper Gen 2 Headlight dissection. Uses: Headlight cleaning, bezel painting, pr

[KNG SNKE]

Step 1
Jack the car up. This will give you more room behind the headlight to work with.
Step 2
Locate the 6 plastic bolts that secure the headlight closeout panel in place. The top 3 are circled in the photo, the bottom 3 are inside the wheel well behind the headlight.

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

Step 3
Remove the 3 wing nuts on the headlight backing. There is a 4th nut on the back that just needs to be unscrewed. Remove the top 2 screws on the headlight.

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

Step 4
Remove the blinker screw. The blinker has a tube sticking into the housing, it is easiest to grab a pair of needle nose and remove the tub from the outside bottom right corner of the headlight. Also for this step unscrew all of the wiring inside the headlight and move it out of your way.

You must be registered for see images attach

Step 5
Remove the remaining 3 screws holding your projector assembly in place. Once loose wiggle it a little bit and carefully remove the assembly.

You must be registered for see images attach

Step 6
Remove the remaining bezel screws. Once these screws are removed it is time to remove the bezel. You will need to pull up on the top of the headlight case so that you can easily remove this bezel without scratching it. It sounds hard, it's really easy though.

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

Step 7
Observe the dark cold eyes of your car

You must be registered for see images attach

Step 8
Select your can of air of choice and spray out the dust from the inside of the headlamps. Ensure not to huff the can of air, it may contain bittergent.

You must be registered for see images attach

Step 9
Tape off your bezel if you plan on painting it. Make sure you scuff it up good as well.

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

Step 10
Reinstall the bezel and replace the screws from the steps earlier.

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

Step 11 Step back and admire
OEM with 8K HID

You must be registered for see images attach

 

[KNG SNKE]

Re: Dodge Viper Gen 2 Headlight dissection. Uses: Headlight cleaning, bezel painting

Painted Bezel, 5k HID, TSX R lens

You must be registered for see images attach

And overall shots

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

Projector retrofit
Step 1
Buy a quality projector. TSX with TSXR lens are the top of the line projectors on the market. Choose your D2S bulb. If you have existing HID's you can buy an adaptor so you don't need a whole new HID kid, you can use your old ballasts.

You must be registered for see images attach

Step 2
Mount the projector to the oem housing. There are many ways to do this but making a metal template and using jb weld works great. Ensure the projector fit in the headlight hole the same way the oem one did.

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

Step 3
Shave the OEM high beam reflector if necessary

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

Step 4
Reinstall projector assembly

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

Step 5
Adjust the Projectors cutoff. There are 2 adjustment screws inside the headlamp. They are 4MM. One for up and down, one for side to side. The side to side adjustment is to the inside of the headlamp below the bolt. The up down adjustment is visible in the photo.

You must be registered for see images attach

 

[AFL in NJ]

Re: Dodge Viper Gen 2 Headlight dissection. Uses: Headlight cleaning, bezel painting

Awesome write-up! I hope the moderators turn this into a .pdf and put it in the how-to section.

Regards,
Aaron

 

[KNG SNKE]

Re: Dodge Viper Gen 2 Headlight dissection. Uses: Headlight cleaning, bezel painting

Comparison shot.
Before

You must be registered for see images attach

After

You must be registered for see images attach

 

[KNG SNKE]

Re: Dodge Viper Gen 2 Headlight dissection. Uses: Headlight cleaning, bezel painting

So I was able to see how good these projectors are tonight and they are outstanding. Picture one is OEM projector with an HID bulb. You will notice there really is no solid cutoff, there is a faded cutoff which is horrible, a hotspot in the middle, and pretty much no light control. This picture was taken with the passenger headlight covered up so what your seeing is just the factory projector with an hid bulb.

You must be registered for see images attach

This photo is a picture of the retrofitted headlamp with an HID bulb in it. The cutoff is perfect and the light control is outstanding. This is what a HID projector is suppose to look like.

You must be registered for see images attach

 

[Jance GTS]

Re: Dodge Viper Gen 2 Headlight dissection. Uses: Headlight cleaning, bezel painting

Mind if I ask what you paid for the new projectors?

 

[KNG SNKE]

Re: Dodge Viper Gen 2 Headlight dissection. Uses: Headlight cleaning, bezel painting

I got a smoking deal but this is the link to the projectors. You will also need a D2S bulb. They did a Viper retrofit a long time ago and the headlights were badly damaged in shipping. The retrofit was fine and has been sitting around for a long time so they cut me a deal on it with clear lenses.

http://www.theretrofitsource.com/product_info.php?products_id=61

 

[KNG SNKE]

Re: Dodge Viper Gen 2 Headlight dissection. Uses: Headlight cleaning, bezel painting

And the final product aligned today and washed. Overall I might need to raise the headlight be a little bit but the light output is amazing. I bought 5k and 6k bulbs but ended up staying with 5k. In the headlight housing the 5k looked much brighter then the 6k and the color different was negligible. My camera made the headlight bulbs look like they are completely blue, they are not. They are pure white. It must of been a setting I had. Overall I am happy with the light output.

Before (the photo of the light was only the drivers side headlamp, the light scattered everywhere)

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

Final product

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

Lining the car up to align headlights and the view afterwards.

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

And the view from the inside of the car lined up to the center

You must be registered for see images attach

 

[KNG SNKE]

Re: Dodge Viper Gen 2 Headlight dissection. Uses: Headlight cleaning, bezel painting

For those interested I am currently redoing the projector retrofit. I will end up doing a full write up on how to do this mod for those interested.

 

[AaronFL]

Re: Dodge Viper Gen 2 Headlight dissection. Uses: Headlight cleaning, bezel painting

Top notch work! The difference with those new projectors is amazing! Thanks for the post.

 

[KNG SNKE]

Re: Dodge Viper Gen 2 Headlight dissection. Uses: Headlight cleaning, bezel painting

Had some time to toy with an etching machine so decided to give it a go on a spare lens. Thoughts? Too much? The image is not done but it is just a tester to see how it looks. Slightly noticeable when installed on the car but when the lights are on the snake illuminates pretty good. So far it does not appear to affect the cutoff but I won't know until my new clear lenses show up. The picture with the logo illuminated is with the 5k HID on. I could not get a good shot of it due to the brightness.

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

 

[BigMrE]

Re: Dodge Viper Gen 2 Headlight dissection. Uses: Headlight cleaning, bezel painting

I like the logos a lot...great work overall!

 

[KNG SNKE]

Re: Dodge Viper Gen 2 Headlight dissection. Uses: Headlight cleaning, bezel painting

Sorry I have not posted the results of redoing the retrofit. The lens on the original retrofit caused the bezels to bubble a little bit so I sanded and repaired them and I sank the projectors further into the headlights, actually to around the oem depth. I got promoted a little while ago so I've been slammed for a while now with regular work, promotion work, etc. I have had the new lenses out in the sun now for a bit and so far no damage to them. It seems it is getting to cold out now too get a good test on them but I will try to make sure no damage is being done before I post the how to start to finish on the retrofit.

 

[Jance GTS]

Re: Dodge Viper Gen 2 Headlight dissection. Uses: Headlight cleaning, bezel painting

It just bubbled the oem bezel because you painted them? Or because the new projectors run hotter?

I'd like to see pictures of your trial and error screw up please

So I don't make this same mistake

Congrats on the promotion!

 

[KNG SNKE]

Re: Dodge Viper Gen 2 Headlight dissection. Uses: Headlight cleaning, bezel painting

It bubbled the bezels because the new projectors have super clear lenses and the sun would "REFRACT" through the lense and bubble the bezels. The projectors temp runs fine, no issues. I sank the projectors a little deeper in the headlight housing to change the angle the sun would hit the lense and I also coated the bezels in high temp paint as well as switched my lenses to fresnel lenses instead of super clear ones. So far so good.

 

[ShawnR]

Reviving an old thread here, but is there any way to get larger pictures of the first post? I have a pretty big monitor, but the pics are still postage stamp sized. I need to take mine apart and this is the information I need, but pics are just too small to really be useful.