ACA's with H9 bulb
 

I have been struggling :willy: to see at night for three years with my car. I did the silverstars then the plug in HIDS. Nothing worked! I was about to invest big bucks in something new but then I found the ACA's with the halogen bulbs on the famous auction site for just over 200 hundred. I thought my HIDS would plug in to them. Well the HIDS did not fit so I went with the H9 bulbs. They work great! I tore the HIDS out and am using the ACA with H9 with the original wiring. I CAN FINALLY SEE at NIGHT! OMG! :eek:
The light is strong with no hot spots and a clear cut off. I lubricated my golden rod and have adjusted them so no issues. I bet the HIDS would work great in them if they fit but the H9's look great to me too. Anyone wanting to upgrade over stock will love this upgrade plus the housings look great too! :cheers:

yes
 

Those are the housings but with the H9 bulbs. I got them for 215.

I'm curious if the H9-base HID bulb is compatable with them... If you want, i have a 55w slim ballast set I can sell you for $100.

Hmmmmm.....:mad:

damn thats a smoking price! I hardly drive my car at night though so i'm wondering if its worth the upgrade price?

I believe the HIDS I have I got from you a year ago. They just didn't work with the OEM housings.

Sorry didn't read carefully. I don't have the h9 based HID bulb. :ack:

:iagree:...seems eerily similar to kits being sold at $700 - $1000. Wonder how they compare for those not looking to drop a grand on new headlights when these even come with "ACA" stamped lenses and are purportedly made using the molds purchased from ACA.

I agree. I'm not sure if these are the same as the ones I just purchased at a higher price. I know there are two components to these lights; (1) the ACA Housing or ACA-like molded housing and (2) the actual lights, ballasts, wiring, etc. or the guts of the lights.

I bought the same lights and they are amazing. I already had a 35watt 9006 plug and play kit in my stock lights, they were good but no where as good as the projector lights. If you still have the ballasts from your plug and play kit I have an extra set of H9 HID replacement bulbs I'll sell for $15 shipped. They plug right into the new housings just make sure you have 35 watt ballasts, it will say it on the ballast or there will be a sticker on the old 9006 hid bulbs. PM me if you are interested.

the original kit i believe came with Hella Gen 3 ballasts and philips bulbs. (high quality components that add a great deaql to the price)

other than that, i don't see that much of a difference between the ACA projectors and similar designs for other cars that are less expensive.

The original kits came with relay and wiring harnesses as well. This seems to be just the light housings, but its the most important part, the rest can be made to work it seems. I'm going to have to get a set and some H9 bulbs for my existing hid balasts.

I paid a bit more, $279. Because I was so shocked to find them for such a low price. Any thing below $600-1000 sounded like a smoking deal to me... Anywhoo, these lights do come with a wiring harnesses and relays presumably to allow the low beams to stay on while the high beams are lit. I bought a 55w H9 HID kit for $40 from ddm tuning. I still need to install them.

Smoking deal!

:eek:

The auctions I just found on flea bay said they come with H 11 bulbs? :bigears

all the ones i saw were H9. Got links?

link just sent to you. It says no instructions included how hard are these to install by yourself? Where can you get them installed and whats a ballpark range for that?

Those coem with HIDs, though i've never seen an H11 bulb in person. I wonder how they changed the base.

From what i understand the original ACAs required grinding of the headlight frame rienforcements. I'd be interested to hear from someone who'se installed these on their car.

These are a killer price if they actually work and arent really hard to put in. 300 for a set of H.I.D projectors!! Thats cheaper than halo tail lights

Radioflyer, I didn't have to grind the frame during my install but there was not much clearance, there are a couple of post with pictures of installs of the original ACA setups and even if some cars needed more clearance the grinding would be much less than is required with the original ACA's. I also believe the listings that say they use H11 bulbs are typos. I saw one auction that said H11 and H9 in the description. Mine use H9 bulbs and came with harnesses. I paid $235 shipped for mine. I would not hesitate to buy them again.

Since I'm now seeing about a $200 dollar difference in prices among different vendors, could the difference be in the quality of the HID bulbs, temperature, ballasts and wiring?

I know the new version of these lights corrected the HID light jiggle issue the original ACAs had (Patches wrote up a fix) as the lights now twist and lock into the assembly. I guess vendors are now getting these ACA or ACA-like housings and then providing their own HID lighting kits.

Correct. Everyone has their own prices with what they offer. I offer tech. support, full directions, and a full PNP kit (with a warranty). Ebay sellers well you can see they don't offer much. Looks like some of these guys stole my pics too.


We also include directions with our kits.


I doubt any of the ebay sellers own a C5 and can help you when you have a problem. I just had to help a customer the other day who ordered from us.



If any of you are interested in buying from ebay go for it. I have H9 kits if you need some. Our directions for the housings are only sent to those who buy the housings though.

:iagree:...it's hard to put a price on excellent customer service, a warranty, ease and convenience of a true plug-n-play kit, and detailed instructions. JWM's overall value is much higher than the eBay kits, even if it is slightly more expensive.

True true. But the damn 300 dollar HID's is sooo tempting. BUT i would just hate getting them and having something go wrong and then calling JW and spending another 600 on headlights that actually function.

i just ordered a set with the h9 halogen bulbs. if im not satisfied with the output ill buy an hid kit. im pretty handy so im not worried about installation or fixing them if they break. :cheers:

I have one more left :thumbs:

I probably won't stock many more of these since our custom projectors will be out soon. Just enough for parts etc.

An HID kit would probably be your best bet. Halogens just don't have the power to get the most out of projector optics. The more light rays are bounced/bent, the less intensity the total output has.

cool deal, post pics of them on your car.

The point of this thread is the h9 bulbs work really well in a projector housing. The lighting is now as good as most cars I have driven. The OEM setup is so bad on the c5's I had to get out of the car to see if they were on. :rofl: Obviously if you want more light then the h9 based HID would be great just not needed in my opinion. :D I would buy this kit again in a second. Just wish I could have had them earlier...for that price. :lol:

How was the installation of the projectors?

Ons a side note since were talking about HID bulbs does anyone know what bulb the Depo projector headlight take? Is it a H9 scoket? I want to replace my 12K Hid bulb with 10K but I dont know what type of bulb I need.

H7^

Good luck, however what benefit is gained if you're simply swapping light housing and re-installing halogen bulbs?

Installation is easy about two hours since I had to grind down the ribs per patches install post. To respond to the poster on why bother? My OEM headlights were very bad. UNSAFE! The ACA units work very well and now I can see just like any other modern car. Sure you can get more output with hid's but that's my point I don't need it. I now can see. For me it's not about how cool they look or how white the light is. It's about being safe. I was looking for a low cost solution, HIDS in the old housings did not work for me. These housings with halogens are so far superior to what I had its a night and day difference. Just wanted to let you guys know how happy I am with this solution. I finally have a car I can drive at night with confidence! :D HID's I am sure would be even better but I am done at this point cause I can see!

I understand and appreciate the saftey issue and basically just wanting to see the road better, however I was curious why you chose this housing vs. an OEM replacement housing? Would love to see some pics of these installed with the halogen bulbs.

Cool, I will be ordering these come Spring time. For $200, you can't beat it! I'm also going to install HID bulbs for the best possible lighting and looks. Also, do you have a link to the install procedure?

H9 bulbs seem to bee replaceing 9006/9005 bulbs as the standard of halogen-based headlights. They're 65w as opposed to most 55w setups so you'll get more output. Unfortionatly, there aren't any decent high-wattage versions available i know of.

I have a set of the original ACA's and they do require some grinding of the factory assembly before they will fit correctly. I probably have the original instructions laying around somewhere in the garage if needed.

There was nothing wrong physically with the oem housings that I had. They just have bad optics, silverstars did help a little but not enough. I tried HIDs in the oem housings and that was not much better. I got hot spots and no light where I needed it. HID's need to be projector housings I guess. Anyway, the housings I bought are projector on the low beam side and I guess the h9's are the best halogen bulbs out now and they seem to work great together. I was hoping to use my hid's in the new housing but they don't fit in the opening so I went with the H9 bulb provided. I was so happy I ripped the HID's out of the car. Very tasty mod . I can now see just as good as in my 08 suburban.

I will take some pics tomorrow and post them.

If you had HID's all you needed to do was buy the H9 bulbs and you would have been set, since you already have the ballasts. You can get bulbs for like $20 shipped at quite a few places.

I just installed the ACA housings I purchased on Ebay for $236 shipped. I replaced the H9 halogen bulbs supplied with H9 HID bulbs ($15). I already had the ballasts. I did trim the ribs on the housing which may not have been necessary. I did not use the supplied harnesses/relays since I never use the high beams and with these HIDs, really don't need them. Using the stock wiring I can still use the "flash to pass" high beams.It all looks great and I can actually see the road at night. I couldn't be happier with the ACAs and the price was right!

:iagree: The original ACAs used D1S style bulbs that had a much larger square housing for the bulb and I think that is the reason for the trimming. They did come with high quality Phillips HID bulbs and ballasts.

One of the main things I do not like about the ACAs is that you cannot adjust the low beam or high beam separately, and the way they were manufactured, when you got the low beams adjusted correctly, the high beams were MUCH too high.

I actually emailed that seller a few weeks ago about their h11's vs others that use h9. They said that they have been using h11 with no issues since that is what it comes with but to be honest you can even get them cheaper. The H11 aca projectors with hid from ebay are 299 shipped. Well there are a few ebay vendors that have the (with h9 bulbs)for 235 shipped. You can get a hid H9 for 45 shipped for a total of 280!!!! That is for hid's and aca's I will be ordering a set next week. I know a few have ordered the projectors on ebay and love them I hope they step in.

I paid $100 bucks more than that and I am still happy with the deal that I got. The lights are that good. :thumbs:

Good to hear I'm about to pull the trigger car is gonna be down for sway bar and new tune so might as well swap out the lights. Did you use the H9 or the H11?

What exactly does the supplied harnesses / relays do? What's the difference with the stock harness?

Thanks,
Raymond

With the stock wiring, the high beams and low beams can not be on at the same time. I believe the purpose of the harnesses that come with the ACA projector is to enable the low beams to stay on when the high beams are turned on.

DITTO! Just finished my install of ACAs off of Ebay. Could not be happier!:cheers:

Nice mod!!
 

:iagree:

Welcome to the light, brother!! :thumbs:

Nope,
I installed ACAs and the wiring harness is to insure full voltage to your lights. All quality aftermarket light kits usually come with a battery based relay harness.
The original ACA kits had a one way diode that allowed the lows on with the highs.
If what you want is to get the lows on with the highs then take a look
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-g...n-at-once.html

Nope,

The trimming was to clear space for the projector assembly to allow a greater range of adjustment.

While the high and lows cannot be adjusted separtely, on my ACAs when I have the lows where I want them the highs are actually a bit low but actually I find I almost never use my highs as the HID lows are so bright the highs are useless

Anyone who wants a how to install ACAs....Patches wrote a great one

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-g...otsa-pics.html

Hey Ken, glad to see you finally saw the light, LOL! It just kills me to read about guys installing HID kits in the stock light housing, I've seen quite a few and they look ridiculous at night. I call them flying blue bricks, because that's what they look like going down the road, I went with DEPO's, painted black and 6000k lows/fogs, man what a difference!!

I"m curious if there would be that much of a pattern differeence between the D1S version and the H9 version with and HID kit.

:bigears

I don't understand why you think these look ridiculous. I put HID bulbs in my stock housings, using 5000k, which look white to me, and the improvement is astounding. I'm sure true projectors are better, but I for one won't spend $1000 when all I want is better lights. I got those for under $100. IIRC, it was about $65. I was excited about Jonothan's upcoming custom built housings, but I guess they're going to be $800, and won't even be projector HIDs, unless you pay even more $$...:willy:

Because what you did is illegal and the glare is most likely hell on the oncoming traffic. As far as JW's lights, they are projectors, but they come with a halogen bulb. It is very easy to make them HID :yesnod:

The basic reason is that while HIDs are a vast improvement over stock, they are blinding to other drivers....eveen when properly aimed. The idea of projectors is they focus light where it needs to be and augments the beam to improve your long distance vision. It's not all about intensity.

JW, I notice you didnt say anything about this (bolded) phrase.

Which lights are we talking about here that you are offering that arent hid's?

Or does he mean the projectors come with a halogen and your product changes that to HID?

These are the 50MM modules http://www.myhellalights.com/halogen...mp_Module.html

The same 50MM modules that come with HID from hella are probably at least 3x more expensive :yesnod:

almost 4.5x more: of course the xenon version comes with Hella Gen 3 ballasts and philips bulbs...but still dayum!!!

Low beam halogen: $127/ea :ack:
http://www.rallylights.com/detail.aspx?ID=1795

Low beam Xenon: $545/ea :eek:
http://www.rallylights.com/detail.aspx?ID=1796

So the real question....is the D2S bulb and ballast combo $400 better than your average 55W H9 HID bulb and ballast combo?

I would think no. It's simply optical physics that smaller projector cannot perform as well as larger ones. The size of the reflector bowl and focal lens are what determines width and pattern hotspots... two critical factors in projector performance.

For the price, You could buy a complete top-shelf retrofit kit for the pricee of just one 50mm xenon projector:

http://store.theretrofitsource.com/i...a6e7bde03e3dbe

:iagree: He knows of what he speaks!!! :thumbs:

Lame! Still no pics of them installed......
Does it really take over 2 weeks to post up some pics? If you start a thread to share info, a great deal, or other good stuff, follow through with everything needed to do just that. Some pics of what you are talking about would sure help some of the guys who have never seen these lights. We shouldn't have to search to find them and wonder if what we find is actually what the OP is talking about.
Rant over.....
I'm still gonna wait for the Sleepy Eyes!!!!!!

I've used this combo for over a year, and have yet to be flashed by oncoming drivers. As far as legality, about75% of the people that have modded their Vettes on this forum are "illegal".


OK, What about the $150 kits he sells that plug into your stock headlights? What difference are those over what I bought? And another thing... if they're "easy to make them HID", then, why doesn't JW make them so? I can't tell you what so-called HID kit I bought that long ago, or the type of bulb used. For all I know, it's some type of halogen, and not true HID. The result is an large improvement, for very little money. If the kit I bought IS using HID bulbs, why can't JW use the same inexpensive source instead of complaining about the high cost of components? I'm just after better lights for a decent value. Not knocking JW's efforts to design and sell better lighting for our (and his) Corvettes.

FAIL


Awesome thanks for that link I'll be using that when I order my ACA from ebay.

Nothing...they are there for those...like yourself...who want an HID replacement bulb for their stock, Euro-spec housings, or foglight housings.

He does. His ACA kit comes with either 35w or 55w HID's for the low beam.

Again...he does. He utilizes his HID kits for these lights and it's a vast improvement over the original D1S bulbs as the lock-and-turn housing eliminates much of the "slop" or "jiggle" associated with the original ACA design. And, for the record, JW has been exceptionally respectful when it comes to other vendors and manufacturers. He doesn't "complain" about component cost as much as explain why things are priced as they are.


We all are and any step in the right direction is an improvement over stock. It's like exhaust systems. You can go with a set of straight pipes from an exhaust shop. Simple, cheap, and definitely gets you more sound. Sort of like adding Silverstar bulbs or HID's to stock housings. You can get Z06 Ti's or a mid-priced kit. Improvement in looks and sound with OEM fit and finish. Or you can go with a high-priced Corsa, Borla, etc kit and spend big money for the top-of-the-line stainless construction, beautiful tips, and unique sound. Sort of like buying HID outfitted ACA's or a custom kit like Radio Flyer's. It's up to each of us to decide which suits our individual situations and desires best.

For me it was an HID ACA kit from JWM. I couldn't justify another $400 to $500 for the Radio Flyer kit just because I like the "halo ring" but I came close. Whatever path in upgrading your car you choose I hope you do so to your satisfaction as that's the only opinion that counts...:thumbs:

You should just stick to your illegal lights then :lol:

Sorry about the picture situation. We here in Maryland have been hit hard by snow so the car has not moved out of the garage and on top of that I have been hit with the flu. Will post a picture as soon as I can.

We never said our kits will use halogen lows.

Yes the custom pieces for the new headlights do cost a little more. All of the mounting hardware is custom made. We never complained about it. You questioned our price so we explained it to you.

Just snap some pics in the garage. Your not that sick if you can post up on the net :lol:

:lurk: very interested in seeing those pics

Your response totally ignored my comments and concerns, that I believe most Corvette owners that're cost concious have. I'm sure you feel the need to protect your, our your friend's interest, but avoiding genuine concerns isn't helpful to the general membership.

Here are some pics of ACA's on a bunch of c5's. I have a Electron blue 2002 so one of the cars on here is just like mine. I have the black framed ACA's you can also order them in chrome. http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-g...rojectors.html

What friend? There is a difference between being cost conscious and being CHEAP. The lights JW are making are custom lights, they aren't off the shelf. There is a lot of design and time that are going into these and that is why they are going to be priced where they are. I currently have a set of the light cannons, so i know a little bit about the process of making custom lights.

Just because people are selling plug and play kits for the C5 stock housing, doesn't make it right.

Nice post and good catch, Ken!! :rofl::rofl:
Hope you feel better soon and post some pics when your able to get that driveway cleared! :thumbs:
Thanks for sharing your mod details...

We all weigh the cost/benifit when considering whether to mod or not.
For those of us that drive these cars at night a lot, we either accept the OEM output -OR- find an "acceptable" alternative.

:flag:

Thanks, you caught the spirit of the post... nice mod, nice price and safety too! I just was able to aim them before the snow. Can't wait to drive the vette instead of the suburban. :D

It's against the rules to post a link to a non-forum vendor. Just search the auction site for "corvette projector".

just do a search on the great auction site. It's not that friggin hard to find them :rolleyes:

just didnt want to type out all those letters "Corvette projectors" i understand it is hard work. If i had a violin id play it for you right now

What part about WE CAN'T POST THE LINK can't you get through your thick head? :rolleyes: WHy do you have to bold your posts, do you think it will make us take you more seriously? I mean honestly, how hard is it to go to the site and do a search. I'm sure you'll expect these lights for free and then for someone to install them for you.

i'll give you a hand :nopity :rofl::rofl:

"Can't we all just get along?"

OK, here's where I'm confused... There's H9 bulbs that're Halogen, I understand, but also H9 HID bulbs? Or are they HID bulbs that fit the same socket? So, you don't need ballasts if the bulbs are halogen? The ebay ACA style, for us "cheapskates" comes with halogen low beams? I read lots of other posts regarding using HID high beams, and I understand that they're probably not a great idea, for glare reasons.

^ They come with H9 halogen bulbs if you want to get hid's when you order a kit order the H9 Hid bulb. He already had the hid ballast he just needed bulbs. You will need the whole kit. Look for ebay seller hid_xenonwarehouse1818. It's $44 bucks for hid's shipped from Cali and a 2 year warranty.So for about $275 you can get ACA projectors and hid's.

Cool, thanks man. I already have ballasts for my HID low beam plug-ins.

Then just order the bulbs and you are gtg ~20-30 bucks

No because some mustang drivers compare their cars to vettes. :lol:

If anyone needs a set of H9 HID bulbs I have an extra set $15 shipped.

Yeah they keep doing that...:rofl:......but I am always surprised how hostile folks get over HIDs or how people answer their posts :leaving:

Just ordered a set from the auction site..... these threads helped make the decision....

I am about to pull the trigger on a set of the auction site $300 ACAs that include the hid kit. For those of you who have already purchased and installed this kit, did you have any problems with it? Also, did you find the installation to be pretty much a plug and play operation? I am also curious if this kit causes any issues with the proper opening and closing of the headlights.

Thanks for your feedback