Airbagged

I've been recently asked by another member on here about my choice for headlight upgrade, although I went with LEDs for nearly every bulb on the car, when It came to the headlights I prefer to go with HIDs. Not that some of the new High intensity LED headlights being offered aren't bright, but I personally prefer the color emitted by an HID bulb, and the color spectrums that HID headlight bulbs are available in. Most all the high intensity LED bulbs I have done research on require a good deal of ventilation and even come equipped with a cooling fan. The true high intensity LEDs that I have researched also require a ballast like HIDs so in all reality using an LED over an HID isn't going to make the install look any cleaner. Yes, I've heard of guy/ladies stuffing the ballast and all the wiring into the headlight housing, and even some just leaving the cover that seals the headlight housing off all together, but stuffing the ballast and wiring into the housing isn't the best of Ideas, first off they get hot! And they need to be placed in an area where they can dissipate the heat they produce. As for leaving the cover that seals the headlights off, come on people that's just sloppy, it came on the car for a reason, to seal the headlight assembly. If your going to mod your car, take your time to do it right. I'll follow this up with some pics of how I did mine, and how they look.

Hope this helps some of you, For the haters that get mad that I criticize how you may have done your sloppy installs, I apologize but in all reality I just want to show you the correct way to mod your car and keep it safe!

Airbagged

Here is a picture of the grommet that seals the headlight housing cap after drilling a hole in it to pass the wires through for the HID light fixture. This is a key step in doing a proper HID or even high intensity LED light upgrade. You can use a small amount of silicone if you feel the grommet is not making a water tight seal, but if you drill your hole to the proper size this should not be necessary

Airbagged

And here is how they look once you turn them on. I choose a 8500k spectrum HID because I like the color that it puts off. The fog lights are LED and put off nearly the same color, but are nowhere near as bright, the fog lights are not high intensity LED units but since I only use my fog lights for looks I preferred keeping the install simple and cost down vs going with HIDs in the fog lights.

Airbagged

If you are really offended by the way the ballast look under the hood, you can also place them in the space behind the front bumper, but this requires removing the bumper to complete the install. Removing the bumper is not really a big deal only major downfall to this option is that should the ballast fail in the future you would have to remove the bumper again to correct any problems. I had to relocate my passenger side ballast to this location when I did my supercharger install because the new coolant tank was going to interfere with my original ballast placement. With this method of install, the ballast is located where it can get ventilation, and other than the wires and grommet entering the headlight housing, the car looks pretty much stock.

motomatt

Thanks for the post, Nicely done :-)

murphy12345

If I decide to go with HID kit for both headlight and foglight, do I need to remove the bumper? I'm assuming there isn't enough room for 4 ballast in the engine bay?

Airbagged

You do not have to take off the front bumper to install HID ballasts for all four lights, you can install the ballasts under the hood for the headlights, and behind the fender well liners for the fog lights. Now, if you want to do a really clean install and hide as much of the wiring as possible you would benefit from taking off the front bumper, so you can better hide all your wiring and ballasts.