2015 Murano LED retrofit into 2013 Prius
 

As I've mentioned in the various LED headlight threads that have popped up over the last several months here, I've been using drop-in H11 LED bulbs off ebay for ~18 months now as an experiment. According to the seller, the bulbs I got use two LEDs that together consume 18W per bulb, and put out 2000 lumens. They've been mostly okay for around-town driving, but (as I've read is common with these LED replacements) they don't have the distance of the stock halogens, and they put out a lot more light above the cutout than the halogens did (for a demonstration, see this thread. Mine don't look quite that bad, but they are noticeably less bright on the highway than halogens).

So, in exploring options for getting some better lighting, I came across a great deal on new 2015 Nissan Murano LED low-beam projectors and LED high-beam reflectors, and decided to try a retrofit which I will document in this thread. Only a few people have done this, but there is some information out there--this thread I found particularly useful. The Murano assemblies have a single 11W LED for each beam that puts out a nice white light with good distance, which is exactly what I'm looking for. So, after cutting headlight power consumption to one third, from 110W to 36W, this will cut it almost in half again, from 36W to 22W, get rid of the fan noise, and have better output and pattern to boot.

The low-beam projectors (lenses removed for swap):

http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...pswxygb82g.jpg

The OEM lenses are clear, but have faceting that produces a wider, more colorful cutoff and other prismatic effects:

http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...psxsn84edq.jpg

I'm replacing those with TSX-R clear lenses. Sharper cutoff, no lines!

http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9m4eriai.jpg

Next up: lens gluing.

Wooo, sounds cool!

I like where this is going....

After sitting overnight while the JB Weld cured, they're glued up and ready to go:

http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...psun7oqrrl.jpg

Now, I'm toying with the idea of picking up another set of low-beam LED projectors, either Murano or Corolla, since they're so cheap right now and doing a quad-projector retrofit, with a light bar in the front grill for my highbeams. Hmm....

Just be sure to set them on stun the first time you take them out for a test drive.

This is too cool, I added it to the LED wiki.

Link to source for headlamps? It is starting to look appealing on my car.

believe this is it:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tml#post490632
hope there are some left when I get the cash to do mine.

I did some research and it looks like chances are that this isn't strictly legal. With that said, I consider it unlikely that it would be a problem. Once I have the money to afford a citation for improper headlamps, I'd likely do the conversion since my headlamp lenses are cataract yellow due to UV.

I may just polish my headlight lenses though. If I was to do all around LED retro, I'd have to disable my idle up valve to see most of the FE gains (on my car, the idle up valve is ran off of the tail lights).

These are in a legal "gray area," as far as I can tell. If you read the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards code, section 108, there are all sorts of testing requirements and certifications for headlamps. These projectors, having been pulled straight out of a production vehicle in the US market, meet those criteria, and the code doesn't say anything about swapping approved headlight components between housings. Running more than 4 light sources in the headlamps is illegal as well, but I'll only have 4 projectors in there total, so I can get by there on a technicality.

Just ordered another set of LED low beams, the trapezoidal Corolla projectors. I think they'll fit nicely in the high beam reflector area. They're the same Koito assembly and 11W chip as the Murano projectors; this will give me 22W per headlight with both on, slightly more than I'm running now but much less than the stock 55W, and should have output comparable to 55W HID bulbs.

whats the total output of these, and are there 4 total?

There will be 4 total when I'm done, 1 Murano and 1 Corolla projector in each headlight. Based on what people have been saying at HIDPlanet who have used either of these, the output of each is a little less than a typical HID projector retrofit, so I'm hopeful that with two projectors going, output will be a little stronger than HID but still with a nice cutoff, and lots of color flicker from the Corolla projectors.

with running 4, do you just turn 2 off for low beams? i thought projectors typically had moving shutters that were the difference between high/low. i know next to nothing about projectors other than i would love more light.

I have reflector halogen highs and lows. It would scream rice if I had projectors.

These LEDs are low beam only, but I do have a set of the reflector high beams from the Murano. I'll wire these up so all 4 turn on with the low beams. In a "bi-xenon" projector (high and low in one unit), the cutoff shield is wired to a solenoid and relay and flips down to let more light out when the highbeams are turned on.

Here's a GIF of bi-xenon projectors flipping between low and high:

http://www.pakwheels.com/forums/atta...ef505c0c8e.gif

These are 4 HID projectors. Nothing in the bulb output itself changes; the cutoff moves out of the way to get more distance from the light that's already there. In a lowbeam-only projector, the cutoff shield is fixed and does not move.

On my last car, I retrofitted Morimoto Mini H1 projectors into the reflector housings; I thought I had a picture of it but can't find it on my computer. It didn't look all that bad.

is that a ghost that appears out of nowhere at the end of the alleyway?

That's kind of creepy

The HIDPlanet user who posted that is in Pakistan, so clearly it's Osama bin Laden.

guess i didn't read enough about this. thought it was dual beam, not just low. will reconsider using one. only have room for one projector.

Depends. Check out retrofitlab.com.

Now, TRS also has Nissan Rogue lowbeam-only LED projectors for $100. The heatsink is taller, but if you can make that work those are an even better deal.

I got the Corolla LEDs the other day, and got everything together tonight and checked to make sure everything is working.

http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...psool45u1y.jpg

Next up is to pot the ballasts.

I'm excited to see how this turns out. I've projector-retrofitted my Insight, but if I can drop the HIDs down to even lower power LEDs, I'd like to.

Update (finally):

I pulled the headlights off the car and baked them apart this afternoon. Looking at the space available, I'm now deciding to ditch the quads and just go with a single, lowbeam LED projector in each headlight. I can fit the Corolla heatsinks in with no trimming (a big plus), and I'll swap the Nissan reflector bowl and lens assembly (one piece) tomorrow--they're a direct fit, conveniently, being the same design from the same manufacturer. That will get rid of the weird, trapezoidal Corolla lens and fit the standard Nissan lens (with clear lens swap) nicely behind the stock shroud. I'll leave the highbeams, which I never use, as is for now and get LED fogs if the lowbeams aren't enough. The most common complaint with these Koito LEDs on hidplanet.com is that the beam isn't as wide as a good HID projector, something good fogs will address but another Koito projector wouldn't. The Retrofit Source has drop-in replacement Morimoto LED fogs, so I would just have to upgrade to the OEM foglight grill and then use those.

i would like to see some progress pics. before and afters. any luck?

Changing the lens may have ruined the legality.

why?

Update pictures:

Passenger headlight, baked open:
http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1zdvfuid.jpg

Both headlights, ready to go:
http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...psxfeb2ohl.jpg

The Corolla version uses a smaller heatsink, for some reason. It will fit nicely inside the headlight housing with no trimming, so I swapped the round lenses and reflectors from the Muranos over:
http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...psizrufsln.jpg

Pretty substantial difference in size, even though the chips are the same:
http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...pspj1v3htp.jpg

As a bonus, the Corolla controllers are smaller and metal instead of plastic.

H11 harnesses, scavenged from the old drop-in LEDs, soldered up:
http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...psr5lv8r1v.jpg

And, after much trimming of the halogen mounting/cutoff plate, mocked up and ready to be JB Weld-ed together:
http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...pskpbm2zi9.jpg

Because the assembly was tested and certified as a whole.

then there are a lot of illegal autos on the road and a lot of companies out there promoting it. doubt this will be any different.

I'm not worried about the legality of this modification (someone else brought that up originally). The setup I was running before (drop-in LED bulbs) was blatantly illegal, as are all the plug-and-play LED and HID kits out there; if this is illegal, it's only on a technicality, and I very much doubt I will get hassled for it. Plus, with the better beam pattern, distance, output, and cutoff, this will be safer while using less power.

More picture dump. I'm about to go put the headlights back on the car and find somewhere to aim them.

I ended up not using JB Weld to fix the projectors in place; I modified the stock mounting brackets to accept the LED projectors, dremeling quite a bit off.
http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...psf2mpstb0.jpg

Then, I attached with nuts, bolts, and generous amounts of Loctite, centering them on the bracket, using the stock cutoff (marked with pen before dremeling) to get the rotation right, and checking by measuring distances from the top and side edges of the housing and comparing with the stock projectors.
http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...psf5cibvba.jpg

http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8xtqd6pd.jpg

I used a PVC pipe fitting from Menard's to fill the hole in the rubber gasket behind the lowbeam, drilling out the center to pass the connector through and using silicon to seal the hole (not pictured). The LED controller and all wiring are inside the headlight housing.
http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...psruveplp0.jpg

Baked back together and ready to go on the car:
http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...psns3qefwq.jpg

I removed the orange reflector to give them a little cleaner look.
http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...pseefprmwn.jpg

The halogens had a 3" lens, and the LEDs only 2.5", so I had some leeway. They aren't perfectly centered, but close enough for government work.
http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...psoztximy2.jpg

First shot, without having aimed anything yet:
http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...psrjjn7tjx.jpg

I'll get some distance output shots later tonight.

UPDATE: Done!
 

Leveled them out at 25 feet:
http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...psm7bynwzx.jpg

The difference between these and the drop-in LEDs is amazing. Where the latter had no distance and put out almost as much light above the cutoff (through the "squirrel finder") as below it, these have a nice, sharp cutoff (thanks to the TSX-R lenses) with a bit of color, and even pattern with lots of output below it. Distance is excellent, and width seems to be pretty good too. I'm glad now I didn't bother with the quads, as that would have been overkill. And the best part is: 22W total power consumption!
http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...pspjbn6xlb.jpg

If you're looking to lower headlight power usage, this is the way to do it. Two OEM projectors cost $125-$130, a few bolts and washers are a couple bucks, and the lenses--which don't have to be replaced--were $10 B-stock closeouts. So, all in these aren't much more than the cost of drop-in LED bulbs.

I'm definitely interested in this as an upgrade for my Insight, but my only concern is the (still) relatively narrow beam. It might still be worth the tradeoff, and even with some lower powered LED fogs it would draw considerably less than even the HIDs I have installed.

I was concerned about width as well, which is why I thought about doing quads at first. But, the beams are wider than they appear in the photo, and after cruising around town for a bit, I went out on some country roads for an hour to try them in the dark. They're about as wide as the halogen/drop-in LEDs were. I might add LED fogs still in the future, but for now I'm satisfied with the performance of these.

Just wondering how these are working out and if you still like them?