mattadams
Moderator Emeritus
- Joined
- September 17, 1999
- Messages
- 8,161
- Reaction score
- 8
- City, State
- Longmont, CO
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 2017 Explorer Sport
HID's were one of the mods I missed the most about my old truck... the ability to actually SEE at night... so with the new Escape, finally decided to bite the bullet and get back into the HID game.
Based on the recommendations of a few others, decided to go with the DDM Tuning H13 kit. I went with the high/low-beam kit, though I'm not really sure I needed it.
I ordered it about two months ago, the first kit took about 2-3 weeks to arrive (from China... bummer... thought they were an american company, oh well...) but they sent me the harness for an H4 bulb, not the H13, that took another 3 weeks to arrive...
I finally had some time and got these installed yesterday. The lighting install itself was pretty straight forward. The DDM kit came with a pre-assembled wiring harness that tapped directly in the stock headlights for "switch" power and into the battery for actual power.
The escape has quite a bit of room in the engine compartment, being it has the 2.5L engine, but not necessarily a ton of places to mount relays, etc. However, I found it was pretty easy to find some good spots, especially compared to my old F-150 and the 5.4L hogging up all the space in there!
I ended up taking out the battery and the battery tray and mounting the drivers side ballast under the battery tray, and the HID relay itself to one of the beams supports the beam that goes across the engine compartment (I'm sure theres a name for it, btu I can't think of it). The other ballast I mounted to the passenger side engine compartment wall. I also grounded my bulbs right near the ballast in each location straight to the body (scratched off as much paint from those spots as I could of course to ensure a good ground)
I haven't had much of a chance to really test them out, but so far pretty impressed with the lighting output of them! It's hard to really tell from any photographs, but it is definitely a whiter, brighter light.
Drivers side ballast (the two big black brackets towards the lower let that seem to angle towards each other are what the battery tray attached to, so with the battery in place you can't even see the ballast)
Passenger side ballast
Before:
After:
Based on the recommendations of a few others, decided to go with the DDM Tuning H13 kit. I went with the high/low-beam kit, though I'm not really sure I needed it.
I ordered it about two months ago, the first kit took about 2-3 weeks to arrive (from China... bummer... thought they were an american company, oh well...) but they sent me the harness for an H4 bulb, not the H13, that took another 3 weeks to arrive...
I finally had some time and got these installed yesterday. The lighting install itself was pretty straight forward. The DDM kit came with a pre-assembled wiring harness that tapped directly in the stock headlights for "switch" power and into the battery for actual power.
The escape has quite a bit of room in the engine compartment, being it has the 2.5L engine, but not necessarily a ton of places to mount relays, etc. However, I found it was pretty easy to find some good spots, especially compared to my old F-150 and the 5.4L hogging up all the space in there!
I ended up taking out the battery and the battery tray and mounting the drivers side ballast under the battery tray, and the HID relay itself to one of the beams supports the beam that goes across the engine compartment (I'm sure theres a name for it, btu I can't think of it). The other ballast I mounted to the passenger side engine compartment wall. I also grounded my bulbs right near the ballast in each location straight to the body (scratched off as much paint from those spots as I could of course to ensure a good ground)
I haven't had much of a chance to really test them out, but so far pretty impressed with the lighting output of them! It's hard to really tell from any photographs, but it is definitely a whiter, brighter light.
Drivers side ballast (the two big black brackets towards the lower let that seem to angle towards each other are what the battery tray attached to, so with the battery in place you can't even see the ballast)
Passenger side ballast
Before:
After:
.
