I'm thinking of getting an HID conversion kit for the C4 for all the headlights (lowbeam and highbeam) plus the fog lights and side lights.

I haven't found a good HID conversion kit for the C4 and I'm not sure if it will look right. I'm not doing this to look cool, I'm doing it for safety because my previous car had HID lights and I got used to that, the C4's lights aren't very good at all in the rain or at night sometimes. It's an '89.

If any of you have HID conversion kits in their C4's please suggest a brand or post pics. If there are any retailers on this site please let me know about your products.

 

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...ht-review.html

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...ht-to-led.html

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...-solution.html

 

I had HID on my c4 for around a year, I got tired of replacing the ballast and HID globes. They had a high failure rate, went back to H4
Yes I miss the HID illumination of the roads driving at night , got some pretty good H4 globes now.

I hope the quality is going to improve, my company vehicle has HID from factory and they keep failing too.......

 

I've never had a hid ballast or bulb blow out on me. I have a car that has had them for 8yrs with no problem and another with 6yrs and 140k miles with zero issues.

 

Mind you this is a USED set of take offs I am talking about. Yossi from CorvetteHID (Now gone) sold me a set he took off. I was pretty happy with it but a couple years later, the left was flickering on bumps. Sent him the harness and he redid it and life was good. This time, the right was flickering and I couldn't get ahold of him anymore so I dumped them for the Genssi. So far, pretty decent with LED.

 

This looks like a descent kit?

https://www.moderngenauto.com/C4-Cor...-_p_10790.html

 

Looks a little cheap considering standard ones are $30

 

HID is technology.

people do LED now

 

Or LED headlights instead, no conversion needed ... apparently
GE NIGHTHAWK LED 5" x 7" Rectangular LED Replacement Headlamp. Amazon says they fit the C4.

Is 5"x7" the right size?

 

Seems like it is old technology

 

Yes 5x7 is the correct size and they're a direct drop-in. The nighthawks look to be a copy of the Truck-Lite brand. There are several companies selling this same style light, I don't know if they're all made by the same manufacturer or not. I have the Truck-Lites in mine and absolutely love them. They can be had cheaper than the nighthawks.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Truck-Lite-2...JYNPpD&vxp=mtr

The Genssi lights look to be pretty good too and a little bit cheaper. I know the Truck-Lites are American made if that matters to you, don't know about the Genssis.

 

I've been reading reviews online and the LED lights seem to have mixed reviews, some say they are average at best. The HID kits seem to have more praise and are cheaper to buy, a set would cost around $190 whereas each LED costs $180. I'm thinking of just going ahead with this https://www.moderngenauto.com/C4-Cor...-_p_10790.html

I'll look on Autozone, NAPA and Oreilly's websites to see if they stock something.

 

I installed the CorvetteMODs HID kit. The left ballast failed about the 3rd time I used them. CorvetteMODs replaced the ballast for free. It's been OK since then. Now the right ballast sometimes fails to fire. I have to turn the lights off and then back on but it always fires on the 2nd try.

I took the failed ballast apart and found that the power transistor wasn't installed correctly. It was lifted off the heat sink and that obviously fried it.

Personally, I recommend the LED lights. Avoids all the HID problems.

 

i have the hid s on my 96 from corvette mods and they are quite brite, had a ballast go out and they replaced it free,,for some reason now the low beam and high beam are now opposite, left high right low, hit the high beam left low right high,, any one know what the problem might be,,, did not change any wires around.

 

This thread's a good read on lighting.

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...drivers-4.html

In Post #68 you can see some pics I put up of my Truck-Lites. All I can say is I really like them. With the LED lights it does seem that some are better than others and in general you get what you pay for. The earlier generation of LEDs weren't very good but the JW Speakers and second generation Truck-Lites like mine really are great. There are a lot of Chinese crap lights hitting the market right now and those I'd be very leery of.

 

If your going to get an led remember a 20w cree could be just as bright as a 50w Chinese light.

So don't base your purchase on which has a higher wattage. Also you see claims of 4000 lumen but that is both lights at their maximum ouput.
Usually a led is never driven to its max(as amperage increases efficiency drops "lumens/watt") so you can't always go by that either.
It's usually best to ask what kind of diode is being used and at what amperage is it being driven, from those two things you can figure out actual ouput.

I build grow lights on the side and deal with only cree chips mostly COBS. Before you buy any light make sure you know what kind of chip your getting.

I've been wanting to use a cree 3070 or cree 3590 to build a custom headlight. Just need to figure out a decent reflector.

Also each type of chip has different "bin" ranking which is how efficient a chip will be and how many lumens/watt they are at different amps.

Using a cree cxa3070 you can put out 9000 lumens while still being pretty efficient.
Or you could go with multiple cree xm-l which are very efficient and still put out roughly 1000 lumens per 10watts with a maximum efficiency of 158lm/w

 

Hid normally works well, but in the C4 with its fancy flippy lights, I'd go with led housings. They're lighter, meaning less wear on the lights. There's quite a few inexpensive led headlights out there for us to use now too. No reason to spend over 100 bucks on them.

 

There are always a few cheap ones but as I have learned, good things don't have to be cheap and cheap stuff usually isn't good. For example, it is much cheaper to get the bulb from Wal*Mart that comes in the Osram Salvania box than Mercedes. Weird thing is that the MB ones seem to last longer. It might behoove a person to ask why something is cheaper than others at the average price. Think of ground beef. Could be the same cow but why is some more expensive than others? Some have more fat trimmings than others. Same factory doesn't mean same quality.

 

Sylvania bulbs often fail due to being touched. Skin oils will ruin a bul b like that.

But I agree, Chinese knockoffs are never as good as the real deal. But if they're 90% as good for 40% the price, that's typically good enough for most applications.

I'd buy them on amazon and send them back if the light output isn't good enough. Perks of prime.

 

Saving this thread, pretty useful stuff