Did a Bi-Xenon headlight retrofit on a 993. Here's what it took...

[tacomahogany]

I acquired a 993 Turbo last November and let me start by saying: it is one of the best, most charming, and fun cars I’ve ever owned and driven. Having said that, the headlights are what one would expect from the late 90s: crap. Mine has the upgraded Litronic (HID/xenon) lights and even then, they don’t work very well at night.

Conveniently, the OEM headlight assemblies on all Porsche 993s (OEM Halogen, and Litronic) are extremely easy to work on thanks to the fact that they come out of the car easily, and can be disassembled in minutes. Time for an upgrade.

Here's the kit that was used: 993 RetroQuik

With a few cars in storage in my showroom from a friend here in Atlanta at Motorcar Studio and also RWB Atlanta, I thought it would be cooler to take apart the headlights on Nakai’s personal RWB widebody Cabrio first and document the process for you guys. Ill do mine next.

This conversion on the Litronic-equipped 993’s should really only take you a half hour to do. On halogen equipped cars, figure about 1-1.5 hours, only because you need to run some extra wiring and mount the HID Ballasts in addition to swapping out the projectors inside the lights.




First, the tools. Yep, not much to it. T20 Security Torx bit (security part is important!) a Philips screw driver, and a 7mm wrench.



Now, the parts. This is the Morimoto RetroQuik system for the Porsche 993 from The Retrofit Source. The kit comes with modern bi-xenon projectors (low and high beam), the necessary hardware and brackets to mount them in the 993 headlights, new ballasts and igniters, HID bulbs, and all of the wiring needed to make this plug n play.



Lets begin! pop the hood and remove each headlight by rotating the latch on each side of the engine bay. You just need to rotate it towards the back to release the headlight. If the headlight seems “stuck” when you’re trying to pull it out, put the lever in the vertical position. I found that helps position the lock so its easy to remove the housing.




And we’re off!!


Here is what the inside of the Halogen headlights looks like:

Here is what the inside of the Litronic headlights look like:


Regardless what you have, there will be three T20 Torx security screws that hold the projector into the housing. They can all be accessed and removed just from the back, with no need to take apart the whole headlight. Note: It is important to have a security bit set with the little opening for the dot in the middle of the torx screw. Otherwise you won’t be able to get the projector out.