Paul L

Try the NAPA Sylvania or Wagner H5001 and H5006 before you go hog-wild. They are more than adequate for street use and do not require mods. Less than $20.00.

battsup

Read the thread entitled awesome headlight upgrade not HID. I'm on my phone so can't look up the link but it'll be near the top when you search in google. Anyhow one of our forum members discovered that united pacific part# 31386 is an all metal and glass assembly with bulbs and conversion harness to use h4 bulbs. The cheapest I found them
For was $24.99 I ordered them last night and they shipped this morning. The website is centraltruckaccessories.com and search for 31386 it'll bring them up. I chose these over the ones the poster indicated above because they look much nicer with the diamond clear glass as opposed to the old sealed beam looking ones for $15.

OzzyTom

the stock lights in my 68 were appalling.
Fitted some Hella replacements for normal/main beam, and installed a pair of 150 watt landing lights for Hi beam units.

I also needed a new alternator....

But whoa!

What a difference.

I used to be concerned driving around my block at night at low speeds due to the poor original lighting.

Now I can just about fry the feathers off an emu at 300 metres!!!

bluegtp

I have some hella housings from rallylights.com. Great housings and opens your options up for some h4 halogens or some hids. I'm running some 100w yellow hella halogens for my hi's and some 55w hids (4300 temp) for my lo's and hi's. The hids put out some light and are nice and white no blue/purple tint to them at all.

My car is up on jack stands now but I have some pictures I'll post up tomorrow with the hids and 55wyellow hi's before I had a chance to align the headlights.

battsup

I found the link, here it is to the original thread I referenced for the H4 conversion.
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c3-t...e-not-hid.html

Skip to this link(post#44 for the pics)
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/1572096993-post44.html



Here is a link to where I purchased mine from yesterday for $24.99 each, total cost shipped was $117 with harness adaptors, bulbs and housings for all 4 headlights.
http://shop.centraltruckaccessories....E.qscstrfrnt04

This link is courtesy of Nassyvette, I looked through various methods and couldnt find them for under $30 until I ran across his post.


My plan will be to modify the wiring so all 4 lights are Low beams and all 4 lights are also high beams.

riverracer au

i found a wiring diagram on another vette site that shows how to make your own harness
uses 2 relays and some heavier wire direct to the alt
headlight switch controls the relays to switch the power
i'm gathering parts to do mine, but without cutting into the existing loom
plug and play, by plugging into an existing socket and using a new sockets on the globes

bluegtp

please keep in mind I have not aligned my HID's this was right after I hooked them up and rebuilt the headlight bezels.

silverstars in hella housing compared to stock sealed beam:


silverstars:



HID's mounted (these are the hi/lo hid's so they have a little solenoid mounted in the back of them to make them tilt up/down for the hi/lo function):



lows:


highs (w/55w yellow halogens in bright housings):



behind the wheel, looks like I need to aim them out a bit.


and 4 tail light modification just because I want to show it off!

eagle275

Got my headlamps here - (also good faq section)

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/p.../products.html



Bulbs here -


http://store.candlepower.com/houpbuthno.html

jb78L-82

Note the beam pattern on blueGTP's lights above which illustrates the importance of beam pattern from a quality automotive lense and lumen color-sealed beams of any sort will not produce the optimal color nor will sealed beam landing lights with a simple reflector/lense! Excellent example! Thanx.

bluegtp

I've been meaning to ask you, shouldn't the cut-off on these HID bulbs be just the opposite. With the nice, clean cut-off on top with the spread of the beam across the bottom when the hid's are on low? Maybe I'm wrong though. The HID bulbs had some large shields on them but they were on the bottom of the bulb when installed (bought an HID kit from ddmtuning.com). There's no way to flip the shield without spending some time working/cutting with either the bulb or the hella housings.

myoriginal77

Put your lights on a separate relay that gives them full battery power, that will help as well.


Frank

70ZZ3 96LT4

I converted the original headlights in my 68 and 70 about 25 years ago with the purchase of GE halogens. These halogens brighten up night time driving enough for me. Really see the difference on the dark highways with no traffic when brights can be used.

MotorHead

I just put in the aircraft landing lights for high beams and ordered these for my low beams, should be able to see OK at night now

http://www.bigrigchromeshop.com/Merc...Category_Code=

7t2vette

Most people don't realize just how much light output is reduced with lower voltages. Put your headlight circuit through relays right off the alternator for a dramatic difference, even with stock sealed beams.

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/t...ys/relays.html

More good reading here:

http://www.madelectrical.com/electri...adlights.shtml

It really does make a big difference when this mod is done.

VetteV8

The shields in the bulbs should be on the bottom for low beam, because in that case the light rays are only going to the top of the reflector, and from there they illuminate the lower portion below the waist line.

Another few observations: if you use the Euro halogen lights as wired from the factory, be prepared for trouble: the headlightswitch has a breaker installed inside, which trips, if you power 4 hi beams @ 60 Watts each, that is together more than 20 Amps and the breaker will do its job.
So for some time you will be in the dark! That is total darkness.
We have many reports over here where Chevy owners added lights wired over the main switch, and experienced this.
That is because, most European and Japanese cars do have all lights separately fused, so each individual hi an lo beam has a separate fuse, 4 in all, and then another 2 for the tails.

You will not have this problem with HID's, because these take LESS power, 35 Watts only, and give much more light as stated above.

There is something else to consider however: over here, it is mandatory, that if you have HID lo-beams, then these MUST remain ON, when the high beam is selected.
The reason for this is, that it takes 'some' time, before the HID comes on, and is at full power. So there will be a very brief period of less light, when you would change back to lo-beam, if it has not remained on with the hi's
And because of this, it is again preferable not to wire this set up all thru' your main lightswitch.

Cor

neuroclast

So are those just normal reflectors with HID bulbs? How do they direct the beam pattern like projector lenses? Just curious because I wanted to convert mine to HID but don't want to blind everyone...

Imo Apita

I think i'm going the same way.
Have to keep this low budget.

bluegtp

I don't think they blind anyone. Haven't had anyone flash me yet since I've gotten the car on the road, I have them adjusted pretty high and I'm running the 55W HID's (most are the 35W). They do have a little shield on them and on top of that the Hella housings are supposed to have a nice beam to them too.

I'll try and get someone to drive my car here soon one night and i'll drive in the other direction to actually see first hand what the beam looks like to others on the road.

Mashman

I updated my lights to use the United Pacific housings with the Silverstar bulbs, and that made a huge difference. But I was still curious about using relays, and getting some higher voltage, and better lighting. So, I decided to give it a shot.

There were 2 main things that bothered me about putting in a relay. 1) there is no way I was going to cut my original harness, and 2) I was worried about safety, I was afraid of a relay going bad while I was driving at night.

So I decided to build a harness (actually 2 seperate ones), that would plug into my existing harness, and would work independant of each other, so worst case, I only lost one side of my headlights.

I used these h4 pigtails - http://autolumination.com/connectors.htm (search for P43t), and these relay sockets http://www.frys.com/product/4191643?...H:MAIN_RSLT_PG. I used 14ga wire, and put in a 30 amp fuse on each.

Basically I cut the connectors, and wired a relay socket between the male and female connectors. The male connector plugs into the original harness, so that it is used to trigger the relay. On the relay on the highbeam both 87's are used, and one is wired to the high beam wire on the high/low's female connector.

With the connectors, and relay sockets, it proved very easy to make. Total cost was about $75, but I didn't have to modify my existing harness, and I don't have to worry about loosing my headlights at night.

With only one of the harnesses in, I could definitely tell the difference.

1nicecorvette

can you post the link or instructions for us? i had the above mentioned lights but couldnt install them due to not having relays nor wanting to cut the factory harness so i havnt used them.