grampi50

I see a lot of threads where people upgrade their headlights, either to LEDs or the Radios. Is this upgrade on the low beams only, and if so, do they then become brighter, or provide better night vision than the OEM high beams? Are there upgrades for the high beams as well?

Fast one

I used four bi xenons so one set is on low for low beam and all go on in high for high beam, more light in both modes especially in hi beams.

GCG

I would suggest Bi-Xenon ACAs (where the lows play double duty as lows and highs, in addition to whatever bulbs you have on the high reflectors) and upgrading the foglights with .

The ACA is a complete headlight housing and with a Bi-Xenon projector the results are really incredible.

BlackHellcat

Looks like the simplest way is putting HIR bulbs in

grampi50

Do you know how much the ACAs sell for?

grampi50

Anyone?

Velocity_Vette

~$700 when it's all said and done for ACAs.

I'd like to point out something that I don't think gets talked about enough when talking about headlights. Headlight bulbs do have a 'life' of sorts. Most non-LED headlight bulbs start seeing serious quality deterioration within roughly six years of use. C5s are a product of the 90s and I'm certain with how low mileage some cars are there are many near and 20+ year old cars rolling around that have never had their headlamps changed out. Lighting technology has also leaped quite a bit since 1997. A lot of times a simple replacement can do wonders, and if that isn't satisfactory a good HIR bulb works wonders (why on Earth 9011s and 9012s are just that slightly different to 9005s and 9006s that they require a tab snip is utterly beyond me. Seems like from a manufacturing stand point you'd WANT HIRs to supersede the old 9005s and 9006s).

grampi50

What are HIRs?...and I don't think I want to spend anywhere near $700 on headlights, I was thinking more like less than $200...I saw Chris' video (the "my corvette life" guy with all of the "how to" you tube videos) on his installation of LED replacement lights, and he said the kit was only like $50...the difference between the LEDs and the stock headlights was incredible!

gimp

The "ACA" variants go from around $280 on the low end, to $700 on the high end, depending on the quality you're looking for. Ebay may have even cheaper ACA setups.

Plug-and-play LEDs are doable but they're generally not nearly as good as a good, properly aligned projector setup. Brighter does not necessarily mean better. The way the light is projected really matters. You may end up spending most of that extra light dazzling the eyes of other drivers, and get relatively little improvement in the distance you can see. You also may well end up with lights pointing wrong, with bad cut-offs. Do your research.

HIRs _were_ basically lights that used a coating on the inside of the light to reflect heat back into the filament, making it brighter (halogen infrared), trading brightness for longevity; they were drop-in replacements. Today, they still are drop-in replacements (you need to slightly trim the plastic, but that's all), but they operate on different principles. Still, they're the same light pattern, just more light. A full replacement of your lights is about $80 on amazon.

I do believe these are the two you'd buy (2x each), but don't quote me:


There are a lot of options. Do your research.

Tsumi

With the amount of time you spend posting and reading and not buying a C5, you should know the answer to all of this already.

grampi50

My goal is to know more than I will ever need to know about the C5 before I buy one...

Tsumi

Gas cars will be outlawed by the time you think you know enough to buy a C5.

runner140*

grantv

LOL!!!

98C5P

The stock headlights are ridiculously dull and do not have the throw of modern headlights....I installed a set of radioflyers Bi-Xenon ACA's on a customers car ( my old Z06)...well!! Low beam is great and the Hi-4 is amazing....
I did have a cheap set of LED's stuffed in the stock housing for low beam before I sold it, it was upgrade over stock, decent light output, just wont be as focused/crisp as a good ACA setup. Stock halogen reflector sort of scatters light a bit.

OP- Have you test driven a stock C5 at night?
You can upgrade bulbs like others have suggested on the cheap, or pay to play and spend some cash on ACA's.

dleibman

BlackHellcat

That's quite silly

grampi50

Nothing silly about knowing as much as possible about a big ticket item before making a purchase...what would be silly is not knowing enough before buying...stupid, actually...

grampi50

I have not, only during the daytime...

grampi50

I highly doubt gas cars will be outlawed by next spring...