jthiesen1169

I bought a set of the HID headlights from Corvette Mods recently. Installation was not too bad, getting my hands in there to put the new bulb in and get it to lock in place was the hardest part.

After installation (which I did during the day), everything looked ok. The ballasts require a lot of voltage to fire the headlights, so turning them on without the engine running resulted in the driver side bulb either flickering or not coming on at all. I had put a Die Hard silver in it about 2 years ago. Corvette Mods said that if you don't have a strong battery, there could be issues with the lights. Looks like a new Exide gel cell is in order.

Upon nightfall when I could get a good look at them, the issues started. First off, it takes about 20 seconds for them to heat up and become fully bright. I've never had HID's before, so I don't know if this is the way they work. It doesn't seem like that on cars that have them stock.

Second, the headlights were totally aimed wrong when I had done nothing with them other then R & R the bulbs.

Third, the pattern of the headlight on the drivers side was spread out while the passenger side was more of a focused beam like the stock ones were.

Last issue that started the next day was that the headlights won't even open upon the first try. You have to install a voltage inducer on one side (doesn't matter which) for the headlight doors to open, otherwise they won't. I bought another inducer to install on the other side to see if this will help. Also, the passenger side has the inducer and that's the headlight that doesn't flicker when the voltage is low. Not sure if the inducer has anything to do with that. The drivers side light flickers if the engine isn't above idle at first. The volt meter on the car is about 12.8 initially when I turn them on, then goes to about 13.9 once I get going.

If any of you have installed these from Corvette Mods or another vendor and have had issues (or no issues), let me know.

I also bought the high beams. I am totally dissatisfied with them. Again, they take 20 seconds to warm up, totally negating the reason to even have high beams. Good luck flashing anyone if their brights are on coming towards you or flashing some jackass doing 50mph in the fast lane. You actually have to anticipate when you will need to use them so you can turn them on and let them warm up to full brightness. The lights are a totally different color. There was no option for the heat range. The low beams are 6500K. I like the bright white without the blue. Blue to me looks ghetto, Pep Boys special. They are also totally out of whack with they way they are aimed. The drivers side is in the air while the passenger side is somewhat normal.

Anyway, the pro's are that they are bright as hell and light up stop signs 4 blocks away. I'm pretty happy with the low beams, how they look anyway. People still flash their brights at me, even after aiming them. Kind of annoying.

tak06

I don't believe it should take 20 seconds to brighten up, mine does in a split second, perhaps your ballasts are faulty. It's always a good idea to purchase good quality units. I find that low beams Hid's are sufficient to light up the road without the need for the highs, matter of fact I find that the Hid fogs are more than sufficent without the low beam Hid's. You may want to replace the stock headlights with projectors to avoid blinding on coming traffic, the OEM headlight are not recommended for Hid's as they scatter light everywhere. If you want a great tutorial by PATCHES on replacing the OEM headlights to an ACA projector go to "search" type in " ACA HID INSTALL - LOTSA PICS" that should guide you on the proper way to Re & Re the headlights. Good Luck!

FourG63 97GST

1) the warm up is normal, thats just how they work
2) Hid's arent designed for halogen style housing
3) see above

For the flashing high beams, the correct way to have this is with bixenon projectors, basically, the "high beams" are always on, and a shield covers the light partially making them "low beams", so when you want highs or to flash, an actuator removes the shield.

the color is personal preference, the "blue" hids is made to imitate high end HID systems which seem to "flicker" the blue light, in reality, the blue flicker on high end setups are from the cutoff from the projector lens and not the light itself, OEM Hid setups are all 4300K

and I like this pic for reference of a correct HID setup vs plug n play kit

crazystevex

I put a after market HID kit on my motorcycle and they do take about 20sec to full warm up, as is with all HID kits. I didn't think about it with the brights before I ordered them so flashing my high beams at someone is not really an option any more.

Never had any of the other issues like flickering, but I have heard the pop up problems before so that's not uncommon.

MSG C5

That's a great pic describing the correct and incorrect HID conversion. We have a lot of rural roads near our home and many of the ranchers rig up their pickup trucks with aftermarket HID bulbs in halogen housings. In their effort to see better, they literally blast light and blind anyone driving towards them. Plus it's no fun when these guys are driving behind you.

The warm up is normal, but the flickering is not. The ACA housings and bulbs/ballasts/harnesses I purchased don't require the engine to be running in order for them to fire up with no flickering, so the quality of those components are just as important as the bulbs.

I have 4300 temp lows and fogs and kept my halogen highs so that I can flash-to-pass when needed. I rarely need to use the highs for an extended period, however when I do, they are on in addition to the HID lows.

JW Motorsports

I would toss those and upgrade to our projectors that Al has (MSG C5). That's the proper way to do it. No splicing or anything needed.

Toque

All HID's take a little to "warm" up. That's normal.
Excessive Flickering is not normal.
The stock housing is a huge improvement over stock, but the stock housing is really not designed for HID. I had this setup for a while. I had to aim my lights down a bit from stock because they were bright for oncoming cars.

Having high beam HID's in the stock housing is really not a good idea because of the "warm up" time. For a few seconds you have no light at all. Best to leave the high beam as a regular bulb, or a slight improvement put in SilverStars.

I have since upgraded to a full HID projector setup (ACA modified). I have a bulb in the High beam but its not plugged into anything. The Bi-xenon HID uses one HID bulb. There is a plate in the Bi-xenon setup which retracts to give me high beams, and extends to cover some of the light output which gives me low beams.






If you get actual "HID PROJECTORS" they really work well and project the light exactly where you want it too.

I love mine !





Toque

jrprich

Spend about $20 and install a Battery based dedicated relay wiring harness to feed your HIDs! Problem solved.

alxltd1

As all have stated, the HID's will take some time to warm up, you really need to have a projector lense to take full advantage of the HID bulbs and not blind oncoming drivers. I have the ACA units with HID bulbs from Corvette Mods installed in the low beams and HIR bulbs in my highs. My fogs are also HID. I did not convert to the BiXeon so my highs are still independent from the lows. But as the picture below shows, when needed I can keep my lows, highs, and fogs on. However, be aware that having them all on may in fact be illegal and you must be careful not to blind oncoming traffic with them. I only use them all in very rural unlighted roads and turn them down well before any oncoming traffic approaches. I also installed the resistor sold by JW Motorsport and have had no issues with my lights opening and closing as they should. In addition if you did not install dedicated relay harnesses to power your lights, it may be the reason you are having the flickering upon start up. But more experienced electrical guys here will chime in.