Part 1

This thread is for those of you who may have purchased the bulb and ballast type HID setup. A lot of folks experienced issues with the headlights, where they would come on but not raise when you turned the stalk the first time. Most folks had to turn the stalk twice in order to get the headlights to raise. Some folks had an opposite situation where the headlights would raise, but not always go down (that was my situation after adding a after-market powered wiring harness to eliminate the raising issue). Anyway, all of those issues have been resolved and I wanted to share this information for those who are still having these issues, or those who have wanted to get this type of HID setup but was turned off by those quirky issues.

I wanted to give a supporting vendor a plug but none of them sell this type of setup (at least according to their website that I can find). Corvette Garage (http://www.corvettegarage.com/product/cg-hid-headlamp-light-kit-for-c5-and-z06-corvette.html) does sell the true and legal HID setup which consist of HID bulbs in a HID housing. Right now on a stock C5 Corvette, only the fog lamp housing is a true HID housing. The headlight housings are not technically made for HID bulbs and you may be breaking the law by putting HID bulbs in them (they will fit with no physical issues). I have never heard of anyone getting dinged for doing so but I want to bring that up for those who follow the letter of the law. I guess you can say that it is like a loud exhaust setup: there are laws against changing your exhaust but you practically have to be doing burn outs past the chief of police's house at 3:00 AM to get in trouble for it, as well you should. If your HID's are aimed all crazy and blinding everyone on the road, you're probably going to get a ticket, as well you should.

With that said, my kit was substantially less expensive than the legal HID kit. I got mine off the Bay (http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/HID-KIT-CHEVY-CORVETTE-C5-Z06-6000k-XENON-CONVERSION_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742Q2em153Q 2el1262QQcategoryZ36476QQihZ023QQitemZ360055027491 QQtcZphoto) and from what I have seen, if you deal with this guy you'll have no issues at all. There are a lot of folks selling these kits and a lot of them are totally garbage. So if you hunt down a cheaper price, you'll get what you pay for. If a supporting vendor sells these kits, please let me know so that I can shoot you the business through this thread as every vendor I have seen with this type of kit has had a quality kit to offer. I appreciate what supporting vendors do for us in allowing this forum to remain free. :thumbsup:

With that said, here's the info you need. Two very good tips that I can give you before you start. DO NOT take both headlight assembly's apart at the same time. Only work on one side at a time, and start with the driver's side first. It is the quicker of the 2 to remove. Secondly, remove the ENTIRE headlight assembly! It's only 3 10mm nuts and 3 13mm bolts and you can easily get at everything including the area where you will mount the ballast. Some folks will scoff at that idea but I stand behind that suggestion 100%!

You will find post that will have you get at the headlights using different methods but the only thing I don't like about some of the methods that I have seen is that it can open you up to alignment issues with your headlight covers and headlights. Their way may be quicker, but I'm all for the least amount of issues that I can run into. Besides, I can pop that headlight assembly out of the car in 10 minutes now. Once you've done it once, it's real easy with the right tools. A 10mm deep socket is a must. You'll also need a 13mm socket.

If you have any questions or issues, ask away. Like I said, these pictures will probably answer every question us rookies could have who bought these kits but were reluctant to do the install because it looked kinda confusing or intimidating. If you do the fog lamps, you will need to change your 10 amp fog light fuse to a 20 amp fuse. I haven't blown my headlight fuse yet so I personally haven't changed it although my kit states to do so. I will probably end up doing it.

Happy HID'ing!


This first picture shows the entire low beam HID connected. It is now ready to put back into the car.

http://pc-surgeon.net/images/cforum/hid1.jpg

http://pc-surgeon.net/images/cforum/hid2.jpg

http://pc-surgeon.net/images/cforum/hid3.jpg

http://pc-surgeon.net/images/cforum/hid4.jpg

http://pc-surgeon.net/images/cforum/hid5.jpg

Because I didn't screw around with any adjustment screws, my lights were dead on and required no adjusting. I also didn't have any bouncing light issues while driving because I ensured that the headlight assembly bolts were tight. Do not over tighten them and strip that hole or round off the bolt!

Now I went a little further than most and purchased an additional harness that replaced my stock wiring harness. I did this to eliminate the issue where my headlights would come on, but not raise on the first turn of the stalk. I like others with this modification, had to turn the stalk on twice in order to get my headlights to raise. This harness totally eliminated that problem, although something else showed up later which I will address further on in this post.

I got my harness off the Bay also. If you do a search for a 9005 9006 WIRING HARNESS RELAYS HID UNIVERSAL FITS, you'll find multiple folks offering it. It is a inexpensive purchase (less than $15), and the guy who has the HID kits also has these cables. To clarify something that always confuses people, this is a dual harness. It is made to replace your low beam harness (9006), and your high beam harness (9005), thus the name 9005 9006 WIRING HARNESS. I used the part of the harness that was supposed to replace my high beam harness, to replace my fog light harness. I did NOT do anything to my high beam bulbs, harness, or circuit at all. I only replaced my low beams and fogs with HID lighting. Thus, if you are only doing your low beams because your car has no fog lights, you only need a cable called 9006 WIRING HARNESS RELAYS HID UNIVERSAL FITS which is a single harness.

Here's a picture of the harness with the connectors labeled so that you'll know where they go (LBC stands for low beam connector). If you don't have HID's this cable is totally useless to you.:

http://pc-surgeon.net/images/cforum/hpharness.jpg

What I ended up doing was hooking the harness up WITHOUT actually mounting it. This gave me the opportunity to trouble-shoot it and trouble-shooting I did. Now that I have it hooked up and everything works, I can say this: it totally eliminated having to turn the lights on twice. One thing that I did experience was my lights wouldn't go down on a few occasions. They would come on and go off properly, but a few times they stayed in the up position.

Harness laid out but not installed:

http://pc-surgeon.net/images/cforum/harnessinstall.jpg

I tested my twilight operation as well and everything worked as it should have. One thing that I did was change the connector that I plugged into the fog HID harness. If you look inside of your high and low beam connectors, you'll notice that GM made them so that you can't accidentally plug the wrong connector into the wrong bulb.

The high beam connector has 2 slits. The low beam and fog connectors have 1 slit. I'll need to change the 2 slit connector (9005) to a 1 slit connector (9006) so that it will couple snuggly. As it was, it went in so far and stopped. I saw them in the parts store for a couple of bucks so it's no big deal to change.

If you do as I did and just lay the harness out before actually installing it, make sure that it is clear of ALL MOVING PARTS! That includes the headlight area as well as the motor!


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Update: For those who will be adding the upgraded harness, I have 3 words for you: get grounded baby!

As I'm working on installing this harness, I'm running into issues where all the spots that I'm picking to place the ground wires are flaky. I may end up extending the ground wires so that they reach the ground points near the front of the car. This is why I had weird issues earlier.

Oh well, I'll keep you all posted.

UPDATE: I ended up grounding my harness here:

http://pc-surgeon.net/images/cforum/harnessground.jpg

You'll probably need to change the ground connectors on the harness as the original eyelet holes will probably be too small to fit on these bolts.

If you have any issues with the lights coming on, it is most likely the grounds!

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Okay!

This is what you've been waiting for, confirmation of whether or not the powered harness will resolve headlight issues for those of us with bulb type HID's. The answer is a resounding yes!

I have a bunch of pictures that I'm going to post when I wake up. I've been in the garage all night and its 1:30PM now...

Geesh! Half the day is gone and I'm headed to bed! Man did I loose track of time!

Part 2 of this DIY is located here (http://www.smokinvette.com/corvetteforum/showthread.php?t=8255).