Installed HIDs in Black Housings >>>

[DetroitDarin]

Beam pattern? Are they better than the hallogen bulbs? If so - 'how' are they better besides longer life?

 

[tallsville]

You may want to grab a relay harness, when you buy them. Since they draw more energy to start, but use less when operating.

atmasters, what you need is what is called a "relay harness". An example would be:
H1 H3 H7 H8 H9 H10 H11 9005 9006 HID Relay Kit Harness | eBay

You need this for your Ford as the factory wiring harness is not truely designed to handle the starting surge of 35W (not 50W, more on this later) HIDs. This pretty much makes installing the HIDs plug and play except for maybe a crimp here and there. I wish I was close to you as I could get the HIDs in to your truck in no time flat.

As for what HIDs you need, you have to answer 1 question: what color light are you wanting? As for the HIDs that you need, most HID kits are going to do what you are after. As for why I say that you need 35W HIDs. HIDs are a much more efficient light producer than a halogen bulb. A 4300K HID bulbs outputs 3300 lumen of light where a 55W halogen bulb only outputs 1300 lumen (roughly). So, you are getting over 2.5 times the light already. You go with 50W HIDs, now you are looking in the range of 4600 lumen (or over 4 times the light). Imagine someone driving at you with 4 sets of high beams on. Think you might be a little pissed at them. Well, you would be doing that to everyone you pass if you did the 50W HIDs for your low beams. If you want to do the 50W HIDs for your high beams, by all means. You shouldn't have the high beams on when you are passing someone anyways. Also keep in mind that the 35W HIDs are the only ones with the DOT stamp on them. So, they are legal to use (some states have varying laws, so, you need to know your local laws to verify 100% acceptance).

If you do use the 50W HIDs, make sure that the relay harness is rated for a 30 amp draw per bulb. the 35W HIDs only require a 20 amp draw per bulb.

If you have any additional questions, please let me know. As you can see, I know a little bit about HID bulbs and whatnot. Between working with security systems and getting training on various methods of lighting and using that lighting for security camera monitoring and having an extensive background in electronics/electrical, this is right up my alley.

Ok, I am going to give a quick run down of the difference between halogen bulbs and HID bulbs. They have a large (relatively speaking) bulb that is filled with a halogen gas (argon, neon, etc) with a thin wire inside the bulb being surrounded by the gas. As power is applied, the wire converts the power into heat, causing the metal to reach a point just below melting. This heat causes the metal wire to emit a white light. The halogen gas is there only to prevent oxygen from reaching the metal, causing it to corrode at an extreme rate, leading to its failure.

As for HIDs. You have a small glass bulb (sometimes surrounded by a much bigger bulb) with electrodes on each side (with a small gap between the two electrodes). This small bulb is normally filled with xenon gas (another halogen gas). A very high voltage (around the lines of 23,000 volts) is applied to the electrodes and this causes an arc to jump from 1 electrode to the other (miniature lightning in short, can also think of it like your spark plug). Once an arc is started, the voltage can be dropped to around 85 VDC to maintain the arc. As the xenon gas is struck by the arc, the gas gets excited and moves out of the arc. This allows the gas to become stable again, causing it to emit light.

Most people get the idea that HID lights are much brighter than halogen bulbs (true statement). The thing that most people do not understand though is a 55W halogen bulb emits about 1300 lumen of light (a measure of the amount of light) where a 35W HID bulb (using 4300K temp bulb as the light intensity varies with the temperature selected) emits 3300 lumen of light. So, a bulb that is about 60% as powerful, emits 2.5 times the light. It is a much more efficient style of lighting.

So, when you start looking at HID bulbs/kits, you do not need the 50W HID kits like a lot of people make you think you do. You only need the 35W kits. Atleast here in the US, installing the 50W HID kits is actually illegal because you are putting out too much light (in the neighborhood of 4500 lumen, or like driving around with 8 high beam headlights on). Not sure about you, but that would really piss me off. With the headlight housings that you are looking at, you can mount 35W HIDs in your low beam housings for normal driving and then mount 50W HIDs in your high beams for when you are the only one out on the back roads and you need the additional light (this is what I am contemplating doing on my Jaguar).

Now, with all this, HIDs is sounding pretty nice. There is a down side. When HIDs start, they pull some serious power. A halogen bulb pulls 5 amps on start up. A HID bulb pulls about 20 amps. Once up and running the HID bulb will drop to around 3.5 amps (where the halogen bulb remains up at around 4.5 amps). If you do not add additional wiring to the truck, you are going to damage the headlight switch more than likely. The headlight switch will hack it for awhile, but it will cause it to fail in about a year or so. If you get the 50W HIDs, each bulb pulls 30 amps on start up.

If you need more info, let me know. As you can see, I know a thing or two about the HID bulbs and I have only begun to scratch the surface of what I know.

 

[zukman31]

I did all of my HIDs this week. Pretty easy and fast job. I also did my fogs and man i can not believe the difference in how much better I can see at night.

 

[sgtowing]

I like.

 

[Crush]

Just did the Black Lenses and HIDs as well.....new headlight lenses made my fog lenses look horrible...so just ordered new ones before installing HIDs in those

Super easy to do...was truly PnP.....only PITA was adjusting them.....but MAN what a difference in light output!!!