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Mod - HIDs added


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Holy CRAP! Getting to the headlight bulbs on the these Gen 5 Legacys is probably one of the hardest things ever! Thank God we shouldn't have to get at these all the time, what a PITA that is.

 

OK, that's over... but I'm still bleeding from doing this mod...

 

I've had a set of HID ballasts and connectors with H1 bulbs sitting in my tool box since Sept. 2007. That's when my VW Passat got crushed in a highway accident. Before the car was taken off to the auction to be sold as a parts car, I pulled a few things out and stashed them away.

 

One of them was my expensive HID conversion kit. It's been sitting in wait for too long and finally I had a car that need them again. Our Gen 5 Legacys have projector style headlamps with basic halogen H7 bulbs. Blah!

 

The price of these kits has dropped dramatically over the past few years and so has the price of the replacement bulbs. I found a set of 6000K H7 HID bulbs for cheap and set to installing them in my car.

 

While I had my car torn appart for my grill mod,

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/mods-blacked-out-grill-156420.html

 

I took the opportunity to also dig into the headlamps.

 

Again, ikonosin to the rescue. He supplied me with some directions for getting to the headlamp bulbs.

 

The factory suggests going at it through the wheel well liner. OK... that's a new one for me. Generally you pop the hood and the back of the headlamps is just right there. Not with these cars.

 

Here's what I ended up doing just to get the bulbs out and back in with all the wires that need to be connected. Notice the air box on the engine cover. That helped a ton!

 

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5052/5475120676_ff27ed7b92_z.jpg

 

The old

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5218/5475120156_c49c48eb13_z.jpg

 

The New

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5216/5474523569_850ac2af74_z.jpg

 

The right side ballast.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5018/5475121988_29e6f362b5_z.jpg

 

The left side ballast.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5213/5474526009_0f8afe8394_z.jpg

 

Right side headlamp with ballast in the back ground. When I took this shot I still hadn't locked down the ballast.

 

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5137/5474524251_a8a32761d6_z.jpg

 

And the results!

 

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5260/5474357765_7fe7f585b6_b.jpg

 

Me likey!

 

A couple of things I learned doing this:

 

1) there are lots of sharp bits and pieces under the hood of these cars. Get lots of bandaides before starting any work.

 

2) Don't play the cars radio while trying to work on the lights for too long. The battery doesn't like it and then once you jump the car, the ECU throws a CEL and things on the dash flash for a while. Or until you restart the enge about 4 or 5 times and then the CEL goes away.

 

3) These cars should have at least has the HIDs as an option. The projector lenses just scream for HIDs.

 

And a final shot of the removed airbox from a 3.6R, just for grins! Weird, huh?

 

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5175/5474525683_54e93975b9_z.jpg

 

With that thing out of the way, there was a ton of room on that side of the engine bay. Someone could easily fab up a CAI or aftermarket airbox and have lots of room to do so. It would be too easy to do.

 

Just saying...

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Once the wheel well cover is pulled down and out, you just reach up there to the that bulb/housing cover and spin it counter-clock wise and it releases.

 

To install the HIDs with all the wires I had to drill a 1" hole in the back of those covers. the bulbs came with a rubber grommet that reseals the back of that cover. There isn't a lot of room up under then and there are all sorts of brackets and bracing with sharp bits of metal at the welds. OUCH!

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These two mods of yours look great Chas, I wish I had the extra dough at the moment to spring for HIDs. That's something I really miss from my STI.

 

One (cheap) thing I did do though was the front position lights, you can replace them with LEDs to give them a 6000k look to match your low beams, you might like it. For the money it was a nice little aesthetic change I thought. You can find some info on it in this old thread: http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/city-lights-138077p2.html

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Chas, how about some Fogs? :p

 

I'm still working on that one. I've heard some not great things about the factory fog kit. The bulbs burn out too soon if you use the fogs too much.

 

But the factory kit is really a set of Driving lights in that possition. Fogs really need to be mounted more inward to be true fogs. Driving lights are mounted outward.

 

I'd love to get ahold of the factory bezel and then just get my own lamps. While the whole front end and wheel well was torn appart I looked at that area too. Maybe cutting the black covers and putting my own lamps in there. the factory brackets and power is all right there to be used. It wouldn't be that hard to do.

 

I was looking at that city light bulb and was thinking the same thing as Kad said. Maybe pull that bulb and install some of those LED strips in the curve of that hi beam area. At leaset adding some blue bulbs to help match the 6000K color temp of the headlamps.

 

Night pictures coming soon! I did this all today and it is just now getting dark here. The avatar image is of the halogen bulbs.

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ic, maybe I need to jack up the car so I can stick my arm in from the bottom and reach up. It's doable without removing the tires right?

 

I just pulled the wheel to get the most room possible. I'm a bigger guy and I needed the extra room. It just made everything easier and wasn't that hard.

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i wanna add these but dont know if they will pass the yearly Virginia state safety inspection, it would really suck if i have to uninstall and then reinstall every year and in december!!!

 

you have any pics of what jacking points you used? where did you put the jack stands?

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Jack Stands? What jack stands? We don't need no stinking Jack Stands!

 

Of course you need jack stands! And while they may not be seen in the above image, there is a reason for that...

 

I didn't use any...

OK! So I didn't use any jack stands, I'm a bad bad boy and should have died in a horrible firery death, but I didn't. I used a hydralic jack and left it lifted. I set the jack pad under one of the very large suspension mounting points. The rear one I think. It's a large bolt with a nut on it. So the car wasn't going to slip off the jack and I set the park brake to make sure.

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Yeah, I took Auto Mechanics for two years in HS. We had a great program. I should know better. :rolleyes:

 

Why wouldn't you be able to pass the inspection in your state with HIDs? Don't some car come installed with HIDs from the factory in VA?

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I used some industial velcroe, but I'm thinking I want to figure something else, maybe a custom bracket. But they are held fast right now. There are a lot of holes in the bracketry behind the headlamps that could be used for mounting points.
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The cut off looks pretty much like the halogen, except with the HID the cuts are sharper and cleaner. I'll get some cut off shots tomorrow.

 

The paint on the grill is a product called Plasti-Dip and its sold at Home Depot. Its in spray can form.

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I have been debating what brands to get for HID's (but I won't bring this up)! Whatever I decide to get, I would like to secure the ballast down. As a mechanical engineer, when things aren't secured well, shock, esp ballistic shock in my sort of work, scares the crap out of me. Now I know the car would never see that sort of environment, but just want to make sure I would have no issue.

 

Please do update if you ever decide to secure them in a different manner.

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Oh, I'll be working on something here real quick. I was thinking about this a lot last night. The heat of the engine bay and possible water intrusion.

The gears are spinning...

 

I'll update this real quick. Maybe by this evening I'll have something different.

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Here are the shots of the headlight cutoff using 6000K 35watt HIDs as requested.

 

From inside the car.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5020/5484891796_39cebf6122_b.jpg

 

From outside the car.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5171/5484891492_42df96b927_b.jpg

 

I was wondering if anyone else thinks that their headlights are aimed a little too high? I haven't been flashed back while driving at night, but they seem to be aiming pretty high up and pretty far down the road. Obviously the reach is great, I'm just concerned that I'm blinding on coming drivers.

 

I'm not a big fan of the shadow on the lower left from the ground wire running on te outside of the bulb.

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