Vette Lights HID's
10-27-2019, 08:22 AM
#1
Drifting
Thread Starter
Vette Lights HID's
Who here has run the vette lights HID high and low beam kits? Are they any good? I currently have them in my cart but need some opinions before ordering. Thanks!
10-27-2019, 09:06 AM
#2
Race Director
My opinion is HIDs are generally a bad idea for high beams. The constant on and off causes a lot of wear and tear on the ballasts, which typically leads to premature failure. Just go into it as an informed decision.
10-27-2019, 10:38 AM
#4
Race Director
HIDs should only be used for high beams if you have bixenon projectors. Corvettes do not. I recently replaced my high beams with a set of LEDs, they're small enough to fit inside the dust cover and brighter than stock for sure.
10-27-2019, 10:47 AM
#5
Drifting
Thread Starter
I think I will hold off on the high beams for now since most of my driving is done with low beam anyway. Where did you get the LED lights for the highs?
10-27-2019, 10:58 AM
#6
Race Director
I'm not familiar with the low beam offerings, but really unless it's a 55w upgrade with a new ballast and bulb, it will perform ni better than your factory stuff.
That said, if your car is a little older with a few more miles, replacing the bulbs would be a good start. They're about 10 bucks a pair on amazon or ebay, and the quality for all these aftermarket kits are the same. If you're not getting a Phillip's or osram or similar bulb, it's just some cheap Chinese stuff with varying levels of mark up by resellers.
10-27-2019, 01:52 PM
#7
20 bucks on amazon.
I'm not familiar with the low beam offerings, but really unless it's a 55w upgrade with a new ballast and bulb, it will perform ni better than your factory stuff.
That said, if your car is a little older with a few more miles, replacing the bulbs would be a good start. They're about 10 bucks a pair on amazon or ebay, and the quality for all these aftermarket kits are the same. If you're not getting a Phillip's or osram or similar bulb, it's just some cheap Chinese stuff with varying levels of mark up by resellers.
I'm not familiar with the low beam offerings, but really unless it's a 55w upgrade with a new ballast and bulb, it will perform ni better than your factory stuff.
That said, if your car is a little older with a few more miles, replacing the bulbs would be a good start. They're about 10 bucks a pair on amazon or ebay, and the quality for all these aftermarket kits are the same. If you're not getting a Phillip's or osram or similar bulb, it's just some cheap Chinese stuff with varying levels of mark up by resellers.
It took years for us to get our kits to where they are and that is an almost zero failure rate, great output, and great reliability.
As mentioned above, HID's are optimized best by a projector housing opposed to the stock reflector housings - that said, they are still one heck of an upgrade compared to the current halogen bulbs in the units.
If you grab the high beam HID conversion kit, I would strongly suggest getting our all-4 high beam harness which will keep the low beams on with the high beams (by factory settings, the low beams turn off when the high beams turn on). All HID systems take a few seconds to warm up the xenon gas in the bulb and during this phase, the output gets stronger until warmed up fully (a few seconds). With the harness, this time period is fully covered by the low beams that are held on (not to mention doubling an already doubled output).
10-27-2019, 03:50 PM
#8
Drifting
Thread Starter
I went ahead and held off on the high beam HID's for now but I did order the super bright fogs, license plate and back up lights as well as the low beam upgrade and the switch backs. If I like everything I may go ahead and order the highs and some interior lighting. Cant wait to get these and try them out. I get so nervous driving at night on the interstate because of all the debris out there.
10-27-2019, 04:13 PM
#9
Burning Brakes
I couldn't tell you the last time we had one of our HID ballasts go bad. I understand the concern but with a properly engineered system, it has not been an issue for us.
Ridiculously incorrect. There are different wattages, power systems, qualities, and degrees of engineering to each kit. If you buy a $10 kit, you will likely be buying many more for the foreseeable future. LED's are great for output but HID's perform better as high beams in stock housings as they throw the output further down the road (the whole reason you want to hit the high beams anyways).
It took years for us to get our kits to where they are and that is an almost zero failure rate, great output, and great reliability.
As mentioned above, HID's are optimized best by a projector housing opposed to the stock reflector housings - that said, they are still one heck of an upgrade compared to the current halogen bulbs in the units.
If you grab the high beam HID conversion kit, I would strongly suggest getting our all-4 high beam harness which will keep the low beams on with the high beams (by factory settings, the low beams turn off when the high beams turn on). All HID systems take a few seconds to warm up the xenon gas in the bulb and during this phase, the output gets stronger until warmed up fully (a few seconds). With the harness, this time period is fully covered by the low beams that are held on (not to mention doubling an already doubled output).
Ridiculously incorrect. There are different wattages, power systems, qualities, and degrees of engineering to each kit. If you buy a $10 kit, you will likely be buying many more for the foreseeable future. LED's are great for output but HID's perform better as high beams in stock housings as they throw the output further down the road (the whole reason you want to hit the high beams anyways).
It took years for us to get our kits to where they are and that is an almost zero failure rate, great output, and great reliability.
As mentioned above, HID's are optimized best by a projector housing opposed to the stock reflector housings - that said, they are still one heck of an upgrade compared to the current halogen bulbs in the units.
If you grab the high beam HID conversion kit, I would strongly suggest getting our all-4 high beam harness which will keep the low beams on with the high beams (by factory settings, the low beams turn off when the high beams turn on). All HID systems take a few seconds to warm up the xenon gas in the bulb and during this phase, the output gets stronger until warmed up fully (a few seconds). With the harness, this time period is fully covered by the low beams that are held on (not to mention doubling an already doubled output).
10-27-2019, 07:03 PM
#10
Race Director
I couldn't tell you the last time we had one of our HID ballasts go bad. I understand the concern but with a properly engineered system, it has not been an issue for us.
Ridiculously incorrect. There are different wattages, power systems, qualities, and degrees of engineering to each kit. If you buy a $10 kit, you will likely be buying many more for the foreseeable future. LED's are great for output but HID's perform better as high beams in stock housings as they throw the output further down the road (the whole reason you want to hit the high beams anyways).
It took years for us to get our kits to where they are and that is an almost zero failure rate, great output, and great reliability.
As mentioned above, HID's are optimized best by a projector housing opposed to the stock reflector housings - that said, they are still one heck of an upgrade compared to the current halogen bulbs in the units.
If you grab the high beam HID conversion kit, I would strongly suggest getting our all-4 high beam harness which will keep the low beams on with the high beams (by factory settings, the low beams turn off when the high beams turn on). All HID systems take a few seconds to warm up the xenon gas in the bulb and during this phase, the output gets stronger until warmed up fully (a few seconds). With the harness, this time period is fully covered by the low beams that are held on (not to mention doubling an already doubled output).
Ridiculously incorrect. There are different wattages, power systems, qualities, and degrees of engineering to each kit. If you buy a $10 kit, you will likely be buying many more for the foreseeable future. LED's are great for output but HID's perform better as high beams in stock housings as they throw the output further down the road (the whole reason you want to hit the high beams anyways).
It took years for us to get our kits to where they are and that is an almost zero failure rate, great output, and great reliability.
As mentioned above, HID's are optimized best by a projector housing opposed to the stock reflector housings - that said, they are still one heck of an upgrade compared to the current halogen bulbs in the units.
If you grab the high beam HID conversion kit, I would strongly suggest getting our all-4 high beam harness which will keep the low beams on with the high beams (by factory settings, the low beams turn off when the high beams turn on). All HID systems take a few seconds to warm up the xenon gas in the bulb and during this phase, the output gets stronger until warmed up fully (a few seconds). With the harness, this time period is fully covered by the low beams that are held on (not to mention doubling an already doubled output).
Secondly, as you said, HIDs take seconds to warm up. Like 5 to 10 seconds to be useful, and 15+ seconds to full brightness. Most people wont have high beams on for that long, and so they are not effective for that. And, there is a definite downside to turning them on and off many times, that's why cars with HID low beams either keep the lows on with the highs like the c6, or have projectors with a moveable shield to be "bixenon".
Sure, HIDs come in 35 or 55w. You can get some really cheap **** ones, but for 20 bucks or so you can get slim ballasts with internal igniters and enough quality to last several years. 55w might cost another 10 to 20 bucks. But they're overall very commoditizedproducts, all made in cheap *** Chinese factories.,
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2008 Corvette (10-27-2019)
