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How to aim the headlights

In my opinion this is a must do for anyone who drops their car. After lowering my car I noticed my headlights were no longer shining far enough down the road and I felt uncomfortable driving highway speeds on dark roads since I was out driving my headlights. It's an easy adjustment. Here's the dirt on how to aim your headlights to US-spec. Sorry you Canadians will have to rough it on this one.

 

Tools:

  • Tape Measure
  • Socket wrench
  • 10mm socket
  • Wall with 25' of flat ground in front of it.

.The Details:

  1. Park your car 25' from a wall on flat ground using a tape measure to confirm an accurate distance from the wall.
     
  2. Measure the distance from the center of your headlight low beam to the ground. Mine was 26" with the H&R springs on the front
     
  3. Open the hood and adjust white circular plastic knob on the back of the headlight. Making the adjustment is easy:

    - Tightening the nut (clock-wise) raises the beam
    - Loosening the nut (counter-clockwise) lowers the beam
     
  4. The upper horizontal edge of the low beam light beam should be 2.1 inches below the centerline of the headlamp. So for example, in my case as I mentioned in step #2, my centerline of my low beam was 26". Therefore, I adjusted my beam until the upper edge of the light beam on the wall was about 24" high. If you have a hard time determining the upper edge of the beam, it's very easy to tell by using your eyes. Lean down 25' from the car until the lights suddenly feel like they're burning into the back of your skull.

After making the adjustment I feel like I can finally enjoy my HIDS again. I really shouldn't have put this one off so long.

Another tip: Be sure to note how many turns of the nut it took to adjust your lights so you can easily put them back to stock when/if you return your suspension to stock. Mine took one full clockwise rotation to raise them to US Spec, but mine likely took more of an adjustment since only the front of my car is dropped.


 

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