Hi All
As we all know the standard lights are crap on C5. However, can anyone give me some guidance in making them at half descent. Not looking to spend a bucket on money, however there must be a reasonably easy update to HID that doesn't cost the earth. I am in Australia so there may be some limitations on availability. I would like to do install myself, and again not overly mechanically minded. Cheers.

 

I did the mod in this article and it was a very worthwhile one. For the money it cost it was well worth it to me. I did have to raise the aim on my headlights up a bit also. Hope this helps.
Here is the link:

http://blog.brianmoses.net/2013/11/a...-corvette.html

 

You can make a substantial improvement by using 9011/9012 HIR bulbs in place of the stock ones, and adding the 4-HI harness that lights all four bulbs on high beams. Total cost would be around $100.

 

Best bang for the buck will probably be to change your HIDs for some HIRs. Do a Google search for HIR C5 Corvette and you'll find plenty of links here in Corvette Forum. I've done them myself. You have to notch one of the HIRs so you can mount it in the socket but they're quite an improvement and won't set you back too much (under $100 US for everything).

 

I went the HIR route too with the 4-way mod and at least the lighting is livable now and for approximately $75 for the 2 pair, it was a bargain. I just hope these things last a while. I would say this is the bare minimum you should consider.

 

cheap + worldwide shipping:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1997-2004-Ch...p=mtr#shpCntId

 

There are a lot of HID kits on eBay.
When I installed them on my 2001 I spent about $100.
The kits on eBay that look identical are selling for $29-39.
They were a dramatic improvement.

HID is far superior to HIR

Xenon-HID-Conversion-Slim-KIT-9006-HB4-3k-5k-6k-8k-10k-12k-Headlight-Fog-/331375515925?fits=Year%3A2000%7CModel%3A Corvette&var=&hash=item4d27851915:m:mOZT eW-Vh_B2vrG54uxxH9g&vxp=mtr

 

Did you keep the stock housing or upgrade to projector housings?
And if you kept stock housings do you get flashed by oncoming traffic?

I would think to had HID + Projector housings would be the cat's ***.

 

Been there.

Done that.

First: HID > HIR > Factory
However, now there are some LED units available which will run factory wiring and appear to offer a competitive option. I would talk more about them, but I have yet to try them or do a direct comparison. But I *DO* run some white reverse light CREEs from AutoLumination which are kick-*** even through factory housings.

Back to the topic!

Like many, I identified the need to upgrade the lighting on my C5 for practical night driving purposes. I grabbed a set of LED tails and turned them into HALO versions after a dude rear-ended me (no damage) just two weeks after buying the car. People behind me now had better hope they are not epileptic.

The headlights had to go. I love night driving and I needed better beam direction and also increased lumens. I figured these are simple parts, all kits must be equal, and I grabbed a set of lows, fogs and highs off a popular corvette vendor for mods. Fogs have always worked and still do. Lows would come on slow, but I'd have to cycle them a few times before they would both light sometimes. Highs.... which you typically want "on tap" instantly... would barely barely come to life... you'd be in the dark for 10 seconds. So I got RadioFlyer's Hi-4 wiring conversion which allows lows to remain lit when highs engage. This HELPED... because I wouldn't go blind when the highs took half a minute to hit temps.

Long story short... the ballasts from this common vendor crapped out. All of them. Two died an internal death - just stopped working. One melted an ignitor wire.

Impression when working of these vendor lights through factory lenses (no projectors): "when working" it was a huge, unguided amount of light put out. Colors were pure from the bulb. Light "everywhere" especially the highs. Positive note: you can see the reflectors on a parked state trooper from two miles away. Negative note: they will see YOU first, LOL. I was not a fan of the slow starts and frequent need to cycle the lights on/off to get one to light. This was due to relying on the factory wiring system to the headlights and new ballasts, which, on a '99 is certainly not up to snuff. Still, once you took a minute to get the system lit, incomparable experience driving and having the entire world in front of you lit with daylight. GREAT for solo driving back roads. But not at all appropriate on highways or trafficked roads due to the open and non-projector aimed light.

My second generation involved some fixing / upgrades.

Those first ballasts kept dying. I'd guess the nature of having to let one bulb get up to temp and then cycling the system off and back on is just not good for the bulbs OR the ballasts, but the bulbs never died - just the ballasts.

*** This is the point in our story where I step forward and say, due to the expense of the first round of parts, and knowing that upgrades are necessary.... the expense of two systems FAR outstrips the expense of "doing it right" the first time and spending just a little bit up front on a good unit from RadioFlyer. Shameless plug: RadioFlyerInnovations' C5 Parts + Services. I'm not getting any kickbacks for posting this. George, and we're glad he's back, puts together top quality parts and accessories at a fair price. ***

So really, I advise you to skip the generic kits with bottom dollar chinese parts and just go to George. You get the results you want and a factory finish in terms of reliability, appearance and function. Git 'er done, son!

Back to our parable...

If you must "do it yourself," then here is what I have gone with and what works for me currently.

I did get one of the ACA housing kits online. Again, go to George for this because he mods the angles and uses different lenses. I have the ebay chinese version because the winter when I did the mod I was low on mod money. The outcome for me is fine, BUT you get what you pay for in terms of the lense clearly affects the color of the low beams from their pure white to just slightly dulled/yellowed.

Just as with rifles.... you don't buy chinese glass.

That said, and here we come finally to the end, what has worked best for me since I was bull-headed about it and had to do it myself, was to grab some Morimoto 35 ballasts off TheRetrofitSource, mounted them inside the frame rails next to my BPP intake (may have to move them with the SC install coming up), and some ignition side to make it work. The absolute KEY being that I ran individual power feeds to each ballast off the positive terminal. Only one is powered off the factory wiring.

By running the individual power lines (I used RadioFlyer here), they all get adequate power to light. By using the Morimoto ballasts, they all light quickly and I don't have the slow-to-light issue. It finally works as it should, and as I expect it to.

Caveat: now I want to ditch the ACA housing and go with a Light Cannon type of mount where both sets of bulbs have quality projectors.

Overall expense for me? WAY. TOO. MUCH. FOR. WHAT. IT. IS. WORTH. (just, to me, it's worth it) So I'll refer anyone looking to upgrade lights again to just go with RadioFlyer the first time and be done.

 

HID's

55w in 5k color in stock housings for me and happy with it!

my other cars all have HID so when driving my z06 at night it was like I didnt have any headlights so i swapped it over and now can see at night! i do not get flashed by on coming drivers and there not blindingly bright but I did re-aim my lights after the install (witch most people dont) and these cars the headlight is so low when the lights are aimed correctly its very hard to blind any one

if you do swap to HID make sure to get a 55W kit the 1st kit i installed was a 35w kit and my headlights out not go down when turned off since 35w HID used less current then halogen bulbs

 

Another vote for the RadioFlyer ACA upgrade. No, it is not cheap. But I didn't want to spend time and money going down the hunt-down-the-components-and-assemble-it-yourself road.
I wanted a proven product where I could do it once and move on to other areas.

 

.... what I did a couple years ago & I've been very happy with the setup.

 

Another vote for radio flyer here too.. Got them on order, not cheap but get what you pay for springs to mind.. Great service and help.. Seen loads of posts of people going cheaper but not convinced they're really worth it... Feedback for the ones I've ordered are great.
I've had my rear lights from him, customed for here in the UK ... Had them about 3 or 4 years.. Going great and look great

 

I do a set euro t84 with hid and all the wiring ready to go. The lights are very bright and the housing are still looks brand new. Pm me if you like

 

What I learned.....

3 years ago I purchased my first C5. I love tinkering with the car and am one of those guys whose has yet to find a mechanic who meets my standards. As a result all work is done by me personally.

Like you, I quickly identified the OEM headlights as crap. I looked around at options and found a few including simple bulb replacements, HID kits, projector housings, etc.

At the top of the list was "Radioflyer Innovations Bi-Xenon ACA Projector Headlights" for $650.

I thought that was an amazing amount of money to spend on headlights.
Not that I couldn't afford it, it just seemed like an exorbitant amount, surely there must be a more cost effective way to improve the headlights.

I started with a quality HID kit for around $100. Initially I thought the results were better, but over time I came to realize that it wasn't that large of an improvement.

Next I purchased some ACA projector housings from Ebay for $200. Now we had something, this was definitely an improvement over the stock housings, the light was not as diffused and was more focused in the front of the car.

I still wasn't as comfortable driving at night at speed on a dark road as I wanted to be. All of my other cars seemed to light the road more effectively.

One evening I had the opportunity to ride in a C5 with a Radioflyer Bi-xenon kit installed. The difference was absolutely astonishing. I could not believe how well the road was lit up as well as the definitive demarkation of light about 24" off the ground. From 24" down and extending past the width of the car on both sides, it was like daylight, from 24" up it was almost total darkness, clearly this would not effect oncoming drivers in any way but had substantially increased the C5 driver's night vision.

This is exactly what I had been trying to achieve. I guess the missing part of the puzzle was the Bixenon. I began research Bixeneon kits to add to my housings and quickly discovered that this would be another $200 or so investment, at that point I still wasn't sure I would have the right projector, installed correctly in the housing as far as depth and angle goes, to achieve the same result as the Radioflyer version.

I would be $500 into this experiment with no guarantee of achieving the same results.

Removing and replacing headlight housings on a C5, is not really a difficult job so much as it is time consuming.

I decided to join that group of guys who I thought had spent way to much on headlights and boy am I glad I did.

I just finished driving back and forth to the SEMA show in Las Vegas from Los Angeles late at night. The drive is about 4 hours each way across the desert. Did I mention late at night? You can use your imagination about what happens to a C5 owner late at night on a desert highway, but suffice it to say I thoroughly enjoyed the drive, .

A buddy of mine pulled up in the lane next to me at speed in his C5 with stock headlights and was absolutely amazed at the difference between the two. He actually turned off his lights, the Radioflyer kit was so good it was almost imperceptible that is lights weren't on.

I always ask myself two questions after any mod.
1) Would I recommend this to someone else?
2) Would I spend the money and do it again?

In this case I can answer yes to both questions.

I thought I would never spend that kind of money on headlights, and now I would do it again in a heartbeat!

 

That is a pretty good summary. I am something of a slow learner (and stubborn). I am always looking for a bargain, so the do-it-yourself mods thread is one of my favorites. But somehow after lots of research, I concluded that anything less than the Radio-Flyer bi-xenon kit wasn't going to be good enough. After having these for about a month I am still amazed at how much safer I feel driving at night.

 

Not inexpensive but worth every penny.

 

I feel the same way too, and I've had my RadioFlyer Bi-Zenon lights since April 2014. They really are worth the price.

 

Just got a set used set of real ACA's off the for sale section here last week, this week they are heading to George's for the mod, could have saved a bit ($50) by installing his kit myself according to him, but at this point I figured I've saved a bit by buying the used like new lenses and by letting him mod them I know they will be 100% correct!
I can't wait but do sorta dread the headlight disassemble in order to install them

 

I'll bite. What are "real ACA's"? How do they differ from the ones from RadioFlyer?