New "setup" for Firebirds

[bigairboarder44]

All right so anyone who owns a firebird knows how bad the stock lights are. They plain suck. However, with the help of some guys over on LS1Tech, I have changed the setup to much better. Right now, the lights are still halogens, but I ordered a pair of 6000K low and a pair of 6000K fog HIDs (from DDM Tuning), which will brighten the road drastically.

The stock headlight cutoff, well there wasn’t one. You might have heard of the eurolight conversion lamps, but lots of guys said that those lamps were lacking the rigidity they liked to have seen. So finally, a new housing that is totally plug and play, relatively cheap, and with a nice, sharp cutoff was found: http://www.lmctruck.com/icatalog/cd/full.aspx?Page=65. Just $34.95 for one light.

Part #36-0302 for the low beam housing and 36-0303 for the high beam housing. They come with the housing, bulb, and an "adapter" to hook them into the stock wiring. AND they’re DOT approved.

Anywho, onto some pictures! This first one is to show the stock lights. The next one is the LMC Truck lights. HUGE improvement cosmetically, in my opinion.

EDIT: Pictures of HIDs are on next page.






Now, these are to show the change in cutoffs. First one is stock, second one is the LMC lights.








Once I get my HIDs, I'll take some more pictures installing them and add that to this thread. And yes, I'm aware that HIDs aren't supposed to go into anything but projectors, but a member on ‘Tech said there was virtually no glare with the same setup.

[TheGr8Schlotzky]

Re: New "setup" for Firebirds

Certainly a nice upgrade in appearance and overall beam pattern. And quite a nice cutoff for a free-form as well.


You should be relatively safe with HIDs in this case because of the design of the housing. You can see the housing has a built-in cap over the bulb. A lack of a cap like that is the main reason the HIDs are not safe in free forms. It's the light loss from the un-capped end of the bulb. So, while they are still no projectors, it's one of the better routes to go if you want HIDs without projectors.

Also, your link is broken.

[bigairboarder44]

Re: New "setup" for Firebirds

Hm, that's weird. The link works perfectly fine for me, works in Chrome and IE.

[Heywood]

Re: New "setup" for Firebirds

Link doesn't work for me either.

Server Error in '/icatalog/cd' Application.

Runtime Error

Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons). It could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server machine.

Details: To enable the details of this specific error message to be viewable on remote machines, please create a <customErrors> tag within a "web.config" configuration file located in the root directory of the current web application. This <customErrors> tag should then have its "mode" attribute set to "Off".

[TheGr8Schlotzky]

Re: New &quot;setup&quot; for Firebirds

I get the same error as above in Chrome and IE.

[Fondle]

Re: New &quot;setup&quot; for Firebirds

link worked for me, mozilla ftw

[Mark42]

Re: New &quot;setup&quot; for Firebirds

This is great info. Any update on the thread, especially with going HID?

[bigairboarder44]

Re: New &quot;setup&quot; for Firebirds

Sorry for the delay Mark. I put the HID's in once I got them and there was a more-than-significant improvement in light. I'll definitely never have another car without HID's again. I can't take any pictures at the moment, but when I get the car back (finally getting an exhaust put on it), I will take pictures and post them.

[Mark42]

Re: New &quot;setup&quot; for Firebirds

Sorry for the delay Mark. I put the HID's in once I got them and there was a more-than-significant improvement in light. I'll definitely never have another car without HID's again. I can't take any pictures at the moment, but when I get the car back (finally getting an exhaust put on it), I will take pictures and post them.

Ooooh, that sounds nice. What wattage kits did you use in the low beam and fog lights?

UPS says my LMC housings will be here on the 29th. Can't wait!

[bigairboarder44]

Re: New &quot;setup&quot; for Firebirds

Ooooh, that sounds nice. What wattage kits did you use in the low beam and fog lights?

UPS says my LMC housings will be here on the 29th. Can't wait!

Both 35w 6000K. I love em.

[joesperformance]

Re: New &quot;setup&quot; for Firebirds

the lights are on page 63, the link above takes u to page 65, so u need to go back 2 pages to get to the part numbers listed above.

http://www.lmctruck.com/icatalog/cd/full.aspx?Page=63
part # 36-0302 low beam
part # 36-0303 high beam

[bigairboarder44]

Re: New &quot;setup&quot; for Firebirds

Finally took some pictures of the cutoff with HIDs. Yeah, there is excess light above the cutoff, but it is much better than stock lighting and I have my headlights pointed down so I don't blind people. The first picture is standing just outside the car and the second is a picture from the driver's seat. It looks slanted because the ground wasn't level where I took the pictures. The HIDs are 6000K from DDMTuning.

[flamingchicken]

Re: New &quot;setup&quot; for Firebirds

wow, im super stoked to get these...i tried everything, i even bought the silverstar replacement...to no avail.

[Mark42]

Re: New &quot;setup&quot; for Firebirds

I put HID's in both low and high beam LMC housings tonight. Ordered the LMC light housings a few months ago, and they are a really nice upgrade from the stock sealed beam just on their own. Then like Bigairboarder44, I installed DDM hids. Went with the 45000K lights to get the most "factory" white look.

They went in fairly easily. To mount them, I made a pair of L shaped brackets (about 3x4 - just a little larger than the ballast) and mounted them to the front hood bump stops in the front left and right corners of the engine bay. This puts them behind the lights, where they will stay dry, and the the wires will reach. The driver side has a convenient hole in the sheet metal to pass the wires through, but I found the passenger side by the battery is different. Ended up removing the battery, and threading the wires through a factory wire harness hole.

The brackets are made from thick gauge aluminum, so they help keep the ballast cool by acting as a heat sink. The ballasts were attached with nylon wire tires through holes drilled in the brackets.

Here are some pics of the ballast mounts. Its hard to see, but there are two ballasts on each bracket, one on each side of the bracket.





The lights look the same as the photos earlier in the thread.

They are brighter than the halogens, and have much farther depth, even on low beam. In fact, the low beam is equivalent to the high beams with the LMC housings and halogen bulbs.

The highs are very good. But I did notice they take about 10-20 seconds to reach full brightness. During that time, they appear blueish, and fade to white.

I don't like the way the aluminum brackets look with the white nylon tie wraps now that they are installed. When the fog light HID's are installed, the plan is to remove the aluminum brackets, paint them black, and replace the white tie wraps with black ones. That should make them less conspicuous.

[bigairboarder44]

Re: New &quot;setup&quot; for Firebirds

Nice install Mark :tup: