88GMCtruck's non-projector HID conversion

[rdlyn13000]

Nice write up man! I currently only have HID's in the lowbeams but want to ad the highs as well as the 4-hi mod and some fogs for sure but I like the way you did yours!

 

[97PROSHOZ71]

It would be a ***** to come driving towards you at night! Nice setup, I like a lot of lights and factory look too, your truck is awesome man!

 

[shovelbill]

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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now that takes "mad scientist" to a new high......VERY inspiring.

 

[92silverado1500]

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.

That whole set up is amazing, great work