HID headlights...

[johnboneske]

Ok, I know this has been asked before...But I dont know much about them... I have a 95' SHO, a 97 Expedition, and a 06" Trailblazer EXT and am thinking of upgrading to HID's in all of them. I want to know more about the from an "expert".

Are they high/low beam?

What color do I want to have the "import" look like on BMW's, Benz, etc? 6000K, 8000K?

They are just plug and play right? Not the cutting a harness is a big deal, or rewiring, but plug and play is the easiest...

Do you recommend aftermartket headlight housings that are clear? Does someone make a projector type replacement headlight lens?

Any help would be appriciated...

 

[kidrock52]

Hid

All the kits I have seen are plug-n-play. You attach your new harness to your old harness via the side by your battery. Just unplug the OEM harness from your bulb and plug it in to the HID harness. Then plug in your HID bulbs into the headlamp housings. Attach the negative to your negative battery post or a well grounded area on the car. Then attach the positive to the battery. This also works with your fog lights if you want. The bulbs in the SHO are 9007 for headlights, which are lo-beam and hi-beam, and 893 for the fog lights. You will want to clean your housings really well on the outside with a headlight restoration kit or by your own means. You also will probably want to re-align your headlights as they will be really bright and the fluting on the inside of the headlamps will cause light to "scatter". I would recommend buying some of the more expensive ones as the really cheap ones tend to burn up the ballasts and the bulbs quite a bit. As for the temp. ratings you will have to check with the manufacturer. Color temps seem to be different with a lot of them. I hope this answers some of your questions. I am in no way an "expert" on this subject. I have never had HID's in any of my vehicles. I just like to read up on this sort of stuff.

 

[SHOtime2511]

An expert would tell you that unless you retrofit proper projectors into your headlights,don't install HID's.
retrofit,OEM or stay home.

 

[Art5]

Well, since I do this for part-time living, I can chime in. Both or your fords use same one bulb for both low and high beams, but Chevy uses one bulb for each. Expedition will be very bright with HIDs, but SHO not as much(not clear reflector). For expedition you can buy aftermarket headlights with projectors under $100 on ebay. If you do that, then you will probably have seperate bulbs for low and high beams, which woul be a lot better. YOu could just use HID in your low beam housing and still have high beam regular. With projector it will be a huge difference at night. Projectors make hid color a lot more visible. I would suggest anywere between 5000K and 6000K for that. For your Chevy you could use the same bulb color, unless you want to go something crazy like purple or pink.Now in SHO, because of the lense, I would suggest 4300K or 5000K(for a little blueish accent). But if your lense is foggy, you will not get all that light through, so there will not be much of a difference. If you think you don't really use high beams to drive with, I suggest to go with 9007-2 bulbs, which gives you low- xenon and high- hallogen, but just to signal with. If you use your high beams, then there are a lot of different options for that, but it all depends you how much crazy, financially, do you want to go. YOu can have HID bulbs with built in relays to change the angle of it for high beams, you can get bulbs with dual xenon, which has 2 xenon bulbs at each socket. NOw that's where craziness starts. YOu can have them light up one at a time or both at the same time. If you go with both at the same time, you would need either special ballast(generators) or 2 for each headlight. NOw, few of my customers ordered those type of bulbs with different color bulbs. For example: one owner of custom honda civic wanted low beam white, but then high beam purple and wanted to use only one color at a time. Another customer wanted blue for low beam and yellow for high beam and wanted those to work at the same time.
Usually HIDs/xenon comes in 35watt kit(standard) and 50/55 watt kits. Some aftermarket headlights are not compartable with HIDs, but in reality, they don't want you to use anything over 45watt or bulb openning and spring that locks the bulb in place would not hold HID bulb. But 35 watt is usually safe(from my experience) and any headlight can be slightly modified for HIDs.
And another thing. DOn't buy cheap as crap HID kits, that sometimes you find on ebay. Some of them use very old technology. Some of those kits don't have any safety relays and stuff, and from what I've seen sometimes to repair your car's electrical system cost over 100 times more expensive than some of those HID kits.
Unfortunately you're not 100% garanteed that something in your , not cheap, hid kit will not break. It's a nature of that, because only original made hella and phillips kits are tested at the factory, before being shipped to their distributor. Just make sure you have good warranty with your purchase.

Wow, I may have missed something, so just ask me from here...

 

[fdogg96]

I have HIDs. You can get kits that are single beams or both hi/low. Import looks are usually, white, white-blue, or bluish. 6000K is Diamond White. 8000K is blush. It's plug and play. You can choose between 35W to 55W. If your stock wiring is old, you may need to get a harness from SUVlights.com

 

[KyngofPop]

I have the dual beam 8k HID's in my stock SHO housings and I can see a helluva lot better than the stockers. I'm sure they'd rather have me blinding them instead of running them all over the road because I can't see anyting at all.

 

[frosho]

An expert would tell you that unless you retrofit proper projectors into your headlights,don't install HID's.
retrofit,OEM or stay home.

This ^. Don't put them in the SHO, unless you can fab up some kind of retrofit. HIDs in stock headlight housings will blind oncoming traffic (and are probably illegal). I flash my high beams at ******** with blinding HIDs all the time. They do not belong in halogen bulb housings, period.

 

[frosho]

I have the dual beam 8k HID's in my stock SHO housings and I can see a helluva lot better than the stockers. I'm sure they'd rather have me blinding them instead of running them all over the road because I can't see anyting at all.

Absolutely not. If that's your way of rationalizing them, then fine, but you're wrong. All you're doing is trading off who is blind.

You can't see --> you install blinding HIDs --> everyone else can't see

Sounds rather selfish to me. If your stock lights are that bad, get new ones, get them aimed properly, and throw in some Silverstars for good measure. Somehow, 100,000 SHO owners did just fine with halogen lights throughout the 90's and into the 2000's before this HID craze started.

 

[zach44102]

I run HID's in my stock housing and in fact they are not brighter then my silverstars BECAUSE, I aim them lower to keep from blinding people, One of my ballast just took a crap and im getting 12000k HID's which are purple. im sorry purple is my new thing.

 

[frosho]

So, you have to improperly aim them in order to (supposedly) keep from blinding oncoming traffic. Congrats, you still have suboptimal lighting. I bet the reflection off the road is still blinding the oncoming traffic anyway.

HIDs in stock housings is the WRONG way to do it. You're not going to convince me otherwise.

 

[zach44102]

Im not trying to convince you otherwise, And i have ridden infront of my own car and they are not bright at all. Quit being a buzz ****. We all know the HID argument. The HID argument is like fat women, Some like em big others dont.

 

[frosho]

i have ridden infront of my own car and they are not bright at all.

...because they're not aimed properly. What you're saying is, you have them aimed low to reduce glare for oncoming drivers, but they are still bright enough to light your way at night. What that tells me is that the light scatter that your HIDs put out is stupid bright. Remember, the vast majority of people who do this aren't going to give a shit about the glare, and that's why people like me get riled up about it. I applaud you for actually doing something to reduce the glare, but it's still not the right way to do it.

Quit being a buzz ****.

I'm not being a buzz ****, I'm being logical.

The HID argument is like fat women, Some like em big others dont.

Wrong. You're saying it's just a matter of personal preference, which it is not. It's a matter of safety, first and foremost. I actually LIKE HIDs if you can believe that, but only when they're done right (OEM or a proper retrofit).

Also...

One of my ballast just took a crap and im getting 12000k HID's which are purple. im sorry purple is my new thing.

Ricer.

 

[Bob Gervais]

log·i·cal   /ˈlɒdʒɪkəl/ Show Spelled
[loj-i-kuhl] Show IPA

–adjective
1. according to or agreeing with the principles of logic: a logical inference.
2. reasoning in accordance with the principles of logic, as a person or the mind: logical thinking.
3. reasonable; to be expected: War was the logical consequence of such threats.


And...

log·ic   /ˈlɒdʒɪk/ Show Spelled
[loj-ik] Show IPA

–noun
1. the science that investigates the principles governing correct or reliable inference.
2. a particular method of reasoning or argumentation: We were unable to follow his logic.
3. the system or principles of reasoning applicable to any branch of knowledge or study.




You're welcome, Zach.

 

[Art5]

FIrst HIDs came in a regular housings. The only difference was it that there had sort of shields in on thier capsules and design of regular metal shield was a little different. I also agree, that most of the time nobody cares about adjusting their headlights. People with halogen bulbs don't always adjust their headlights.In fact , some people have their high beams on , because they can't see with their lows.

 

[frosho]

FIrst HIDs came in a regular housings.

I don't know for sure, but I bet that's because they didn't know any better. Why would they switch to a new design if there was no problem with the old fluted lenses?

I also agree, that most of the time nobody cares about adjusting their headlights. People with halogen bulbs don't always adjust their headlights.In fact , some people have their high beams on , because they can't see with their lows.

Are you saying that because other people use blinding headlights, it's OK for you to do it too? Real strong argument ya got there.

 

[Art5]

The reason why they switched from regular housing to projectors is because projectors are more advanced, just like simple conventional bulb was , halogen and now xenon bulb. There is no blinding effect in cars that originally came with HIDs and without projectors. And I"m not giving you excuses about blinding anyone. I used to work for this one limousine company and 12 pax lincoln town car that me and 2 other driver's were driving, had terrible headlights. One of the drivers was constantly using high beams, because you could only see 10ft in front of the car. So, when everyone just couldn't stop complaining about it, they paid me to put HIDs in it. LIghts were adjusted and everything was fine.
I do agree that sometimes HIDs blind people but so do halogen bulbs.
High beams blind you a lot more. Try driving in New York in the rain. Even during the day people use high beams.

I bet you use your fog lights in your car, right?

 

[Art5]

sorry, but I'm also not trying to convince anybody about anything, because in reality this is the same thing as convincing my step-father that car's should not come only with automatic transmissions.

 

[frosho]

I bet you use your fog lights in your car, right?

Yes, stock fogs with stock replacement bulbs. Whenever I'm driving, whether it's dark out or not, I have my parking lights on along with the fogs. Makes me more visible, although I'll admit that the fogs are pretty much just for show. They don't put out enough light to be useful for anything else.

 

[frosho]

sorry, but I'm also not trying to convince anybody about anything, because in reality this is the same thing as convincing my step-father that car's should not come only with automatic transmissions.

Yeah, I realize it's a futile effort for the most part, but that won't stop me from saying my piece. :angelnot:

 

[Bob Gervais]

Yes, stock fogs with stock replacement bulbs.

You are so not a baller.