Kentucky Armory Club

Looking to upgrade my headlights on my ford excursion. Im trying to decide the best route. My headlight housings are fogged badly and arent the newer clear style.

Option 1:
Buff headlight housings. Install aftermarket thicker gague wire harness to headlihts. Install phillips extreme vision bulbs.

Option 2:
Modify 2005 clear ford f250 headlight housings to fit. Wire harness upgrade. Phillips extreme vision bulbs.

Option 3:
HID install. Hardest part on this is finding a reputable site to purchase from. Would want hi and lo beams. Would require new housings.

Also looking at installing a "brite box" made to keep low beams on when high beams are on.

Anyone gone down this road already? Any other options?

Option 1 is cheapest and would work

Option 3: theretrofitsource.com


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks ill check them out.

I found a 4th option:
Buff lenses
Install higher wattage hella bulbs. Upgrade wireharness and install relays.

Buffing works but is not permanent. Once the UV protection is gone from a lens, it will always fog over. After buffing, some last several years, others less than a year. I like option 2.
HID in factory housings is a joke. I know because I have used them on several vehicles. Projector housings that work right are big money.
My preferred bulbs now are CREE LEDs from Ebay. Read up: http://www.svtperformance.com/forums/sh ... ator/page7

On the grand am I was buffing the lenses out every few months at the end. Cheap, but a pain.

Definitely need good, correct projectors for HID. The new car has them and I love them...but the bulbs are like $70 each...not looking forward to replacing those...lol

Buffed my Honda lights, been good for over a year. Took like 20 minutes with a drill and adaptor. No biggie. Less work than changing the oil once a year.

Bama wrote:Option 1 is cheapest and would work

Option 3: theretrofitsource.com


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Option 3 is your best and brightest route to go. The guy is awesome to deal with. I've talked with him a lot on another truck forum I'm on.


Sent from the Rocket in my Pocket

Because i like a good project, i have decided to build my own harness. I measured voltage drop and im loosing approximately 3 volts at the headlights on the factory aged wiring. I went to napa and bought a pair of hi temp 9007 headlight sockets and 2 relays for high and low beam for $26.
From my reading i have determined the factory wiring is 18ga. I will be making the harness with either 12 or 10ga. to handle higher wattage bulbs if i choose to go that route.
I Found out that a light rated at 1000 lumens on low beam is rated at 12.8 volts. My bulbs are running at 11.98 volts which brings the output down to 800ish lumens. By bringing the voltage up to 14.0 i can expect 1350 lumens.
Thats 500 additional lumens per bulb on low beam just from a harness upgrade.

LEDs are sweet, but priced out of my range.

Get new housings, it costs more but it is the best option all around. I personally went with new housings and a HID kit. It is literally like day time if I'm running my HID fog lights as well. There is no dull light, everything is a bight white and almost looks like it's in HD.

Before pics. Dull yellow and no hot spot. Fogged lenses.

After pics. Much brighter more intense hot spot. Much whither light. No glare. This upgrade is safer all around, not just for my vision, but for oncoming traffic as well due to less glare. I attribute the less glare and better focus to the buffing of the lenses and the whiter light to the wire harness upgrade. Now that the harness is done i am going to shop for some 100/80 watt bulbs.

Ok. What do you charge? Lol

This was so easy i seriously thought about making kits and selling them with bulbs. I have about $75 into this upgrade with materials left over. The Hella off road bulbs im looking at are $20. So total investment will be $95. Some things i didnt show in the pictures like the the black wireloom for tidying up the wires and the small waterproof camp box i mounted the relays in.

justang1997 wrote:This was so easy i seriously thought about making kits and selling them with bulbs. I have about $75 into this upgrade with materials left over. The Hella off road bulbs im looking at are $20. So total investment will be $95. Some things i didnt show in the pictures like the the black wireloom for tidying up the wires and the small waterproof camp box i mounted the relays in.

That ain't bad. My truck should be the exact same as yours.

What are the downsides?

Marcus wrote:

justang1997 wrote:This was so easy i seriously thought about making kits and selling them with bulbs. I have about $75 into this upgrade with materials left over. The Hella off road bulbs im looking at are $20. So total investment will be $95. Some things i didnt show in the pictures like the the black wireloom for tidying up the wires and the small waterproof camp box i mounted the relays in.

That ain't bad. My truck should be the exact same as yours.

What are the downsides?

I cant think of any downsides. I wired mine in a way that is totally reversable. No cutting of factory harness was requires. I plugged relays into jumpers connected to driverside factory headlight socket. Then from relays i ran all 12ga wire including ground wires on both relays and both headlights and from the battery. I didnt shortcut and run 1 12ga line from battery and splice it into relays. I ran each relay its own 12ga power line and grounds. No shared wires in system. I almost went with 10ga wire, but its a lot stiffer and harder to crimp.
If i decide to ditch the factory 55watt bulbs and go with 100watt i will have to watch the housings for heat related issues but all the wiring i added and new headlight sockets can handle it fine.

Looks good, and my 99 f350 could use this mod. Where do you get the hella bulbs? Are they same watt 55?

richief wrote:Looks good, and my 99 f350 could use this mod. Where do you get the hella bulbs? Are they same watt 55?

I dont have the hella bulbs yet. They are 80 watt low 100 watt hi beam. I can have O'REILLY order them for $20 or order from amazon for 19.99. Probably gonna have O'REILLY order them incase they are damaged during shipping. Easier to let them deal with that.
I wouldnt run 100 watt bulbs in factory wiring.

justang1997 wrote:

Marcus wrote:

justang1997 wrote:This was so easy i seriously thought about making kits and selling them with bulbs. I have about $75 into this upgrade with materials left over. The Hella off road bulbs im looking at are $20. So total investment will be $95. Some things i didnt show in the pictures like the the black wireloom for tidying up the wires and the small waterproof camp box i mounted the relays in.

That ain't bad. My truck should be the exact same as yours.

What are the downsides?

I cant think of any downsides. I wired mine in a way that is totally reversable. No cutting of factory harness was requires. I plugged relays into jumpers connected to driverside factory headlight socket. Then from relays i ran all 12ga wire including ground wires on both relays and both headlights and from the battery. I didnt shortcut and run 1 12ga line from battery and splice it into relays. I ran each relay its own 12ga power line and grounds. No shared wires in system. I almost went with 10ga wire, but its a lot stiffer and harder to crimp.
If i decide to ditch the factory 55watt bulbs and go with 100watt i will have to watch the housings for heat related issues but all the wiring i added and new headlight sockets can handle it fine.

Yea, your lenses will brown and melt over a short period of time if you go to a higher power bulb. The older lenses like in my F150 aren't made for that kind of heat and I have seen pics on the truck forum where they look like they have caught fire. Your harness should be ok