88GMCtruck's non-projector HID conversion

[88GMCtruck]

So, here is the deal; I'm converting all 8 of the forward lighting on my 88 to HIDs. I know, it's a bit overkill but I like having lots of light. The goal is to have all HID forward lighting, installed into non-projector housings. The hardest part of this will be having minimal glare and a defined cutoff line, similar to a projector. This is only possible with the proper optics and shielding.

Part of this plan was set in motion when I converted my headlights to the Bosch E-code headlights for export models (more information here: http://www.gmt400.com/forum/showthr...d-Beam-upgrades-(Bosch-T84-E-code-headlights)). They use an H4 bulbs and have a much more controlled pattern to them over anything I've seen for a GMT400 light. They actually have an appropriate cutoff line due to the E-code compliance and the optical qualities of the H4 bulb. Plus they are H4, so the lows actually act as a high beam as well. I've done alot of research on using shielded H4 based HIDs and have seen very good results with very minimal glare.

All the lights are 4,300k color.

The plan:
- Lows: Bosch H4 ECE low housing, shielded H4 Bi-xenon HID
- Highs: Bosch H4 ECE high housing, modified H4 unshielded HID
- Fogs: KC LX2 Wide beam foglights, modified reflector, possible custom sheild, H3 HID
- Spotlights: Eurolights H7 Conversion reflector, clear lenses from GE sealed spotlight, H7 HID
- Completely re-wire the lighting system in the truck, and mount all the ballasts in a hidden location

Fogs
So, I got a little anxious and did some work before taking pictures. I already have the KC fogs done. I separated the lense from the reflector and painted the bottom high-temp black. This limits the light that can shine upward and cause glare to oncoming drivers. Few picts with them sealed and the HID installed.

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Spots
Now, onto something bigger. Currently, I have 50w, 100,000 candlepower spotlamps in my bumper. They are sealed beam made by GE. They are unfortunately all glass and trying to retrofit an HID in there accurately isn't going to work so well. Instead, I'm essentially building a light from my old Eurolight H7 conversion lowbeams with different lenses.

The Eurolight lowbeams, while better than the stock sealed beam lights, are utter garbage compared to my bosch lights. Since the lenses are what focused the lights, the reflector simply directs it through the lense. After comparing the curvature of the eurolight bucket to my sealed spotlights, it looked like these would work just fine for the task. So, I pried off the cut lense and cleaned the reflector. The clear lenses are identical to my GE sealed beam spots, however these were never epoxied on a reflector; they were used as a shield for the fog lights on my dad's Kenworth T800 ironically..... The best part is the lights are going to say "Sealed Beam Halogen" and are DOT/SAE approved.

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After getting them together, I tested one out. They are obviously brighter than the spots they are replacing, but the reflectors are just a little different in a good way; they are even more of a pencil beam spotlight than before. Just with my initial test, I was able to light up houses like daylight a few streets down.

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Highs
And getting started on the Highbeams. H4 halogen bulbs use two filaments, once shielded (lowbeam) and one unshielded (highbeam) in different positions. Since most HIDs aren't used as highbeams, they are made to reflect the lowbeam position. So, I'm modifying the focal length of the HID to mimic that position. I haven't quite gotten there yet, but on the left you can see the standard H4 HID (with shield and halogen highbeam) compared to the modified position on the right. There will be more work with this later.

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Lows
Out of the other 3 sets of lights, these will be the easiest to install. They are H4 Bi-Xenon HIDs with shields. the shields mimic the standard H4 very well, so they shouldn't need much modification, if any.

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[88GMCtruck]

I spent a good 4 hours tonight working on the fogs. There was still too much glare with just painting the bottom reflector black, so I pulled the lenses back off and studied them more in depth. The biggest problem with using a HID in an H3 equipped light is the focal point. The H3 filament is oriented side to side, while the HID arc is oriented front to back. While the focal point is centered in the correct place, the length of the focal point is oriented different. What this means is the origin of light is in a different place than originally intended, and thus stray light develops.

Here is a shot of the un-shielded HID. See the hot spot in the center, and the light flaring out away from it? That flare out along with some other stray light not evident in the pictures is glare.

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So, after numerous trial shields and trip outside to the truck, I finally figured out what parts of the reflector needs to be black and what portions of the bulb need shielded. What also helped me here was shining a laser pointer into the HID to see where it hits the reflector with the shield on. You have to be careful to hit yourself in the eye with it though.

As it turns out, the shield needed to be located over the top half & end of the bulb. This was almost counter intuitive to me, as typically bulb shields cover the bottom portion of the reflector to stop light from hitting it and shining upwards. I'm not 100% sure, but I think the reason this light is backwards is due to the very wide cut in the lens. To stop additional glare from developing upward the bottom horizontal portion of reflector needed to be painted black as well. So, Once I had this all figured out, I made a more substantial shield from aluminum. I made it from an energy drink can, called Venom. They are really thick aluminum, about 4-5x the thickness of a soda can. It really made for a nice, sturdy yet easy to bend and cut material.

The makings of the shield

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Shield installed in the reflector

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And output with the shield installed. It's not quite the cutoff line I want, but it is so much better than it was before. The shield really eliminates a ton of glare from this setup.

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I spent quite a few hours trying to modify the original base of the H4 for the highbeam with no avail. So, with a little pondering I decided to build my own base for them. After a trip to the hardware store and numerous tests I came up with a base design. Basically I made a thin plate with the alignment tabs on it, a small shim to angle the HID down a hair, and a large washer for the correct spacing. What I ended up with mimics the highbeam H4 halogen almost exactly. So, everything was bolted together and the HIDs were siliconed in with ultrablack high-temp silicone. The silicone pretty much seals the light up to the base, as it is a very snug fit otherwise.

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While the highbeam H4s were drying. I did go and get a few output shots for ya. All the shots were taken from about 6ft from the wall. There is a flash and non flash version of each. Ignore color differences, it's the camera playing a trick on you.

Lowbeam H4 - the shield on the Bi-Xenon bocks the light correctly for this housing, as close to the halogen as I think it will ever get.

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Fogs - These are the most stubborn lights honestly. They aren't bad, but aren't perfect either. It's more evident in person, but there is a much more defined distinction between the upper and lower portions of the light pattern... it's almost a cutoff line but not quite. however, the shield basically eliminated upwards glare. The good thing is these lights are a very wide, short pattern as evident by comparing them with the lowbeams (taken at the same distance). They don't throw light very far, and the light doesn't appear blinding when looking straight on at it. We'll have to see how this one acts in the truck tomorrow night.

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Spots - All I can say is wow. These are bright. There is glare but honestly, I don't care. They are made for lighting up everything and anything. The beam is VERY small, and very intense. I'm VERY excited to try these ones out.

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[88GMCtruck]

Let there be light! Well, after tons of work today, everything is done.

I started the day off with taking the truck apart for some wiring fun. I got the grille and bumper out of the way, and entirely re-wired the lighting harness.

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Fogs together

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Fogs and spots mounted in the bumper, and ballasts mounted.

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Mounting the ballasts and figuring out where to run some wires. I choose to mount my ballasts in a place I've never seen them before; on the bottom of the core support. I did this because they are very well hidden, and nice and close to the wire loom. I also wired the ballast plug directly to the harness; partly because I didn't want to use the adapters that came with the HIDs and it's cleaner this way.

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Also put the outside temp sensor closer to where it should be (was behind the bumper before and wasn't accurate because of it)

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And the adjusters with HIDs in them. They are a tight fit, and the Bi-Xenon has to be taken out of the back first before the housing can be removed. Not a huge deal really since they stick through the core support.

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[88GMCtruck]

And here is the output shots!

On the road shots.

Fogs

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Lows

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Lows & Fogs

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8-hi

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Garage door picts from about 10'

Fogs

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Lows

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Lows and Fogs

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8-Hi

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Head on Shots from about 10'

Fogs

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Lows

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Lows & Fogs

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8-Hi

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Misc shots

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Videos

Driving. Starts out with 8-Hi, then Lows & fogs, Lows and then Fogs.

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Walking around the truck.

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Well, of course you have to take the output shots with a grain of salt. My camera is just a point and shoot and I didn't try to change the settings at all, just used the auto mode. The garage door picts are pretty close to what they looks like. Honestly I'm more than happy with the lights.

Lowbeam Bi-Xenon H4
The lows are identical to how they were as halogens. They have a nice even light pattern, and a decent cutoff line. As a highbeam, they are great as well. I'm very glad I decided to go with Bi-xenon H4s for the lowbeams; having the instant highbeam was worth it as the other lights take some time to heat up.

Foglight H3
The fogs are awesome. The pattern is low, wide and bright. Honestly, they not only are brighter on the road, but have much less glare than they did as halogens. I'm very pleased with how they turned out.

Highbeam H4
Just great. After correcting the focal point of the stationary/unshielded H4 they are also very similar to how they were as halogens. They are damn bright.

Spotlight H7
Well, these are the actually the most disappointing of all the lights. First off, the HIDs are more of a 5000k than 4300k like the rest and the blue really shows. Second, while they are bright, the reflector bowl isn't correct for a spot light and the light pattern isn't quite what I wanted. They are going to stay for now, but I'll probably re-build them in the future.

After having them in the truck for over a month, nobody has flashed me and haven't had any problems. I'm very happy with how they turned out.

I had the pleasure of driving behind a friend of mine who was skeptical of the whole non-projector HID thing. I followed him awhile, we stopped and right when he got out of his truck he said "wow, I'm impressed. You did a good job." We then switched vehicles and he followed me in my truck. I can honestly say, there isn't any glare when your infront of the truck. They really just look like nice, crisp white lights and aren't and noticeably brighter than they were before.

So, needless to say, I'm very pleased with the conversion.

 

[Crash]

Very cool, I like it.

 

[tattooed4life]

Damn your truck has slot of lights!!! Looks good, you spent alot of time on that install and it shows.

 

[88GMCtruck]

Thanks man. I'm still trying to figure out a way to add a few more lights..... but yeah, not sure where. I like keeping a factory look to things so that makes things difficult.

 

[88GMC]

Holy lights batman! I'm digging how it all looks like it should be there from factory.

 

[///RAGMC]

Nice write up I always like the tech stuff youve done on fullsize chevy

 

[88GMCtruck]

Thanks guys, I really do enjoy the writeups. And as far as installing things on my truck, I've learned over the years that taking my time and making things like factory really pays off in the end.