George here from Sharp Light Innovations. Here's my take on these topics after being in the Corvette lighting industry since 2008.

Headlights -
The factory headlights are horrible for output (1000 lumens low beam) pattern and throw. Putting different bulbs in the factory housing will not improve the pattern and may cause excessive foreground glare which not only inhibits down-road vision, but may also blind other drivers. The ONLY way to truly improve headlight performance is replacing the factory housing. Projector optics have been developed as a modular way to effectively focus output from HID (now LED) light sources to provide effective throw (down road projection); width (to see off the edges of the road; and a cutoff shield which both limits glare to oncoming traffic and allows the maximum output of the pattern to be just below this level. Many modern cars use purpose-designed reflector optics or TIR (total internal reflector) optics for headlights, but because of the comparative inferiority to projectors, these are not as common in the aftermarket.

Modern Projector-based LED headlights provide the most amount of usable light where you need it most making night driving not only much safer, but also reducing eye strain for longer night drives.


Sharp Light Innovations ACA headlights with Nova series LED Projectors)



Bi Led ACA low beam (Sharp Light Innovations)


Fog lights - The purpose of fog lights is to provide additional foreground illumination and illuminate the road edges to allow safe slow-speed driving through poor visibility conditions. The C5 factory fog light housing is pretty good for this, but the low-wattage bulb is completely inferior. A high-output LED bulb really helps the factory fog lights do their job. The only problem is that the glass lens tends to get sandblasted from road debris over tens of thousands of driving miles (reducing lens transparency and killng output). Aftermarket options do exist and perform the same function.

Morimoto LED fog lights (Sharp Light Innovations)


Reverse lights -
These have the least stringent lighting requirements. Reverse lights have two purposes: 1) illuminate objects behind the car at night; and 2) signal to other drivers and pedestrians that the vehicle is in reverse. Generally the brightest is best with minimal regard to pattern.


LED reverse lights (Sharp Light Innovations)

 

So, I got my new headlight bulbs in the other day and got them installed.
Learned a couple of things.
This is another job on something for these cars that some engineer designed, but never had to work on himself.
If I had smaller hands, and a couple more wrist joints at the end of my arms, I might not have had such a hard time, either that or I would have needed to take more of the front end of the car apart to get more room to work.
The other thing is that I should have tested the bulbs before putting them in completely, after getting it all put together I turned them on and as I was standing in front of the car admiring the new headlights, suddenly the driver side housing started filling with smoke, and there was a faint "pop" and before I could turn them off the low beam bulb went out. PEACHY...
So, contacted Daniel Stern Lighting, he was super nice and apologetic, immediately sent me out TWO new bulbs for my trouble, sent them express mail saturday and they showed up yesterday.
Just finished replacing the burned out bulb, all is well this time.
Going to see tonight how well they work, and what kind of adjustments they need.
But, I'm happy to have them in and working, and have four correct lights, instead of two super bright cheapo LED's in the low beams and two very dim high beam regular bulbs. Now my high beams are actually brighter than the low beams, and the low beams shouldn't be blinding oncoming drivers and pissing them off.

 

So, the headlights were aimed way high, and the passenger side was turned in. I don't know if the adjusters are some special GM spec size, but none of my external torx sockets were right, and the internal T-15 torx inside the end of the adjusters were stripped out. I finally found a 1/4" combo wrench with a 12-point end would turn the adjusters, but it was hell trying to turn it in the confined space with the little wrench. Searched all my tools trying to find a 1/4 12-point socket, and of course, I didn't have one. Out of desperation I stuck a 6-point socket on it, was afraid it would strip, but it worked okay, allowed me to use a ratchet to crank the adjusters.

Next thing is, my driveway is not what you'd call level, and slopes up at the head into the garage, so I didn't have a good level space and wall to use to gauge the adjustments, so I had to do the trial, drive, error, reset method. Took me over and hour to get the light out where I wanted it. Then the passenger high beam was at a strange angle, after looking it over, I didn't have the bulbe completely seated in the housing, kept messing and messing with it, it was like the o-ring on the bulb base was too big for the opening in the housing. I finally lubed it up super lightly, making sure not to get anything on the bulb, cleaned it off with alcohol, and finally got it to go in. That solved the strange angle of the high beam.

And, so I am happy with how the bulbs turned out, happy with the light output, and finally the aim of the light.

 

I ran his bulbs for both low and high beams. I also added the harness where the lows stay on with the highs

This combination has let me drive at night with out zero hesitation compared to not driving at all before. I would say it doubled the light output from the stock bulbs.

 

Any time installing bulbs aim should be checked. Same on suspension changes.

I had to lower mine as the cut off was too high. Now it is spot on.

As for install I had no issues. Some bulbs are tougher due to over sized cooling. The cheap bulbs can have larger fans while high buck units can have smaller heat sinks. I went smaller due yo the pop up lights and limited space.

Some run fans, some heat sinks and others metal strips. The better the tech the better the cooling.

 

No idea what you're talking about.
No fans, no heat sinks, no metal strips, no cooling needed.

 

Some of the latest have good internal cooling as every LED emits heat.

Might dig into LED headlamps and learn where they were and how they are advancing. Many early ones had large fans in them which made them hard to install in some vehicles. They scaled down the fans and then some used strips of metal. Now like my Oracles they use internal cooling and more efficient electronics to control the heat.

Some units would never fit a C5 lamp.

Now on you having a hard time installing. My hands are far from small and it was no issue. At least I did not have to remove the bumper cover like on many cars today.

 

This thread was not about LED lights.

And, since you are so proficient at installing headlight bulbs in the C5, and have such an easy time of it, next time you can come and install them for me.

 

Congratulations. You went full Larson.

Never go full Larson.











You asked about lighting. You ignored every suggestion and education related to the last twenty-five years of advancement and expertise in lighting and this model of vehicle from manufacturers, specialists, and those with extensive experience and ended up doing the same as simply going to a box store and installing Sylvania bulbs. Congratulations. Your car has the equivalent of the best 1991 has to offer. Take your five minutes and go sit in the corner with your non X-piped motorboat exhaust, itself replicating the SLP Loudmouth experience going back to 1999.

We require one hellacious burnout video or even a chirp at a stoplight to regain access.

All is fair my friend. I hope this humor helps illuminate the path.

Asking for help and going your own way. Is the way. Totally fine. But crapping on people who took the time to invest in helping you out of your ignorance of twenty years of advancement. Nah. We ain't that culture in here.

 

I am speaking LED. This thread has covered LED, Halogen and HID. Halogen is he easiest to install. Sorry, My mistake that since you had issues on the install that it was one of the harder bulbs. Just trying to help and be civil.

If you are having a hard time installing I would be glad to install them for you. Just bring it to Ohio and I would be glad to help you any time.