LED Headlight Install
 

I decided to install LED bulbs in the driving lights, as well as the high and low headlights. I used the 9005 and 9006 LED lights made by SEALIGHT that have the adjustable collars (this is needed as the orientation of the LED lights is to be at the 3 and 6 position to get the correct beam pattern).

As the LED bulbs require a lot less draw, resistors are typically needed to allow the lights to go down. I did not want to go with resistors due to the large amount of heat that results. Instead with the help of this forum, I made a plug and play relay that allows the lights to close properly.

Below are a few pictures.


The relay.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cor...55d30ea19.jpeg


The relay mounted. I used one of the existing studs and just needed to add a nut to tighten it in place.


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cor...2c34d307f.jpeg

And lastly a few pictures of all of the LED bulbs installed. The difference is pretty amazing. The light output is a night and day improvement over the stock bulbs.


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cor...46c625d15.jpeg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cor...87bae66ce.jpeg
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cor...98a162a2a.jpeg


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cor...67c045cc6.jpeg

Very nice installation. I looked at Sealight's web site and it looks like they sell a number of LED assemblies that work for our C5's. Which ones did you purchase. Also, I really like the relays. There have been a number of threads on C5 headlights. Were the directions / parts list from this site?

Thank you. I purchased the parts to make the harness as well as all of the lights from Amazon,

Extension harness


Relay


Headlight LED bulbs


Driving light LED bulbs


I used a pair of scissors to make a lengthwise cut on the 9006 extension. I then cut the extension in half and used some wire connectors to join the extension with the relay. Regarding the relay, only the white and black wires are used. I snipped the remaining 3 wires off of the relay that I had bought. The black wire of the relay gets connected to the black wire of the extension harness, and the white wire of the relay gets connected to the red wires of the extension harness.

The relay can be mounted to an existing bolt under the headlight assembly. I simply bought the correct size nut to secure the relay. The original factory nut stays exactly where it was and serves as a great spacer to secure the relay out just a bit,


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cor...c449097d4.jpeg


Everything then becomes plug and play. No factory wires need to be cut or modified, and this modification is fully reversible should one want to revert back to the factory set up.

The corresponding plug of the relay plugs into the factory low beam headlight plug, and then the remaining plug of the relay plugs into the new LED bulb. The harness is only needed on one side of the car, I chose to mount it on the passenger side.

I want to give credit to the original post, where I got the relay idea from.

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...post1602009723

Good news only 2yrs late for me . My car failed inspection for LED headlines in state of Virginia. State law says if led bulbs are used lens must coincide.

In this case, they are in the right. LEDs or HIDs in a halogen reflector housing just make a bright flood light that messes with oncoming traffic. Projector lenses that have a cut off are what you need and both you and oncoming drivers will be very happy with the difference. Another member posted about failing inspection in VA as well last week. He has projector lenses that are DOT approved, but apparently that inspector still decided they weren't the correct type of projectors for LEDs, which is absolutely ridiculous. Before you spend at least a couple hundred bucks on new housings, might want to ask that fella which inspection shop he went to and avoid that one lol.

I got the wiring mod that allows the high beams and low beams to be on at the same time, along with upgrading to the same modern LED bulbs. That made a significant difference in night time driving for me.

Your DRL mod is pretty impressive as well.

Do you have an updated link for the bulbs? That link is no longer valid. I want to make sure I get a set that can rotate to put the bulb into the correct position.

Congrats on the mods, pretty good additions to the car.

For those who have state inspections, how does the inspection technician determine the mismatch between LED bulbs and lens? Is there a test device they put on the headlight showing that the pattern is not correct?

Proably not. Probably an uneducated guess, especially in the case of the DOT LED's/housings failing......

The rules vary by state.
From my very lazy search Minnesota only appears to have inspections for commercial vehicles.

I don’t know if it’s just me but the OP had some photos which are not visible to me. I’d really like to duplicate this relay idea. I was hoping to see a photo of the relay and the extender cable wired together, just for 100% confirmation of how it should be done.

Simple take the relay and cut the wires off accept for the Black and White wire.

Then take the extension wire and cut it in half.

Splice the black wire to the two black extensions and and the white to the other red color wires.

This puts the relay in line and it has enough resistance to make both head lamps close when shutting off.

I followed what he shows here and was able to avoid resistors in the whole car with just one relay.

Note some extensions can vary in color.

Ground to ground positive to positive.

Note there are now bulbs being designed to replace specific bulbs in a number of vehicles. They are designs to control the light and to provide the safe cut off.

Oracle is one there may be others. But do not expect states to know. Some may most will not.

interesting development for me...

Sealight sent me what they call decoders. I think they are just resistors. I installed them. It did not fix my problem. So I took them out. I then took one and cut it apart to just have the plugs and wires so I can return the thing from Amazon suggested by the original poster. I connected this to the relay per the instructions. Once installed I have one working headlight, both go down, and the car forgot that I had a hyperflash harness installed. On the plus side, I'd previously had an issue where one of the tail lights was not blinking of the 4. It now blinks just as bright as the one next to it.

I've heard that some issues like this could be caused by a bulb somewhere that is installed backwards. I'm going to chase that one down one bulb at a time. This is going to haunt me, I'm going away on business for this whole week. :)

thanks for this thread, this worked for me but do not use the top stud in the second pic, head light will not completely close, don't ask how i know LOL These forums are so helpful and informative.

If anyone is changing their head lights to LED save this thread.

One of the new headlight bulbs was no good. New bulb fixed it partially. Turn signals work fine. Headlights all light up fine. The only issue left is that the hazards are still flashing too fast. But I don’t think this is fixable.

You probably read my thread on the weird issues I had with LED tails and front markers. My issues were indeed caused by a single LED taillight that was plugged in backwards. A standard incandescent bulb would not cause this to happen.

That was me that had the issue failing inspection in VA.

I have the Sharp Light Innovations Bi-LED ACA kit installed https://sharplightinnovations.com/sh...aca-headlights because the SLI Light Cannon kit also failed inspection here in VA (because the lenses on that kit are not DOT approved). The Bi-LED ACA uses LEDs for both low and high beam, the low is a projector with a cutoff which is legal for LED, the high is a reflector and the DOT housing indicates it requires a halogen, this is why mine failed inspection, I argued this point with the inspector but to no avail, the DOT mark is the DOT mark, so he installed cheap halogen bulbs and proceeded to place a new decal on my car.

What really got me about the entire thing was that I replaced a $1200.00 kit on my car to be legal and still wasn't and it took me months and about $2K to get all the parts for the missing pop-up headlights (including the new SLI ACA kit), but anytime I drive at night I am blinded by relector housings with LEDs installed. Somehow these idiots make it through. At least mine were only on the high beams which should not be on when passing oncoming traffic anyway!