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Halogen to HID/HIR Headlight Upgrade

Hey, sorry I haven't been able to finish the write-up...we just had our first baby so there's not much free time for me at the moment. You only need to buy a single beam 9005/HB3 kit. The high/low beams on the Explorer use the same bulb. When you activate your high beams there is just a shield in your headlight housing that folds down. You DON'T need a hi/lo kit. The kit you mentioned is the kit I ordered. The 5000K will give you a slight blue tint. I have the 5000K as well, personally it's not that blue, but it's too blue for my taste. When the lights reflect back from street signs the bluish tint is somewhat annoying to me. If I had to do it all again, I would order a 4500K or 4700K kit. The only permanent modification required would be to the rubber moisture/dust cap that's on the back of the headlight housing. You need to cut a hole in this (GregV8 already put pictures of this in thread). I suggest taking the cap off and ordering 2 new ones. That way if you ever needed to go back to the OEM headlights for any reason, you can put a stock cap back on and keep dust/moisture out.

Congrats on the first baby! That is awesome. Thanks for taking the time to reply even with your new schedule. I think I will give the HID's a shot then, and will try to get the 4500/4700 as you suggested.

If I can ask a couple more questions...

1. In the pictures on the site there are a couple extra boxes and that I see, looks like one for each bulb, where did you mount those?

2. Someone asked in another thread, and while I didn't really see it brought up here, thought I would ask anyway. Did the kit you got have any issues with the auto headlamps?

Thank you and congratulations again!

Edit: For 1., it looks like those may not come with the 9005/HB3 kit, maybe they are for another set that uses a relay or something. If that is the case then nevermind on the mounting.
 



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Congrats on the first baby! That is awesome. Thanks for taking the time to reply even with your new schedule. I think I will give the HID's a shot then, and will try to get the 4500/4700 as you suggested.

If I can ask a couple more questions...

1. In the pictures on the site there are a couple extra boxes and that I see, looks like one for each bulb, where did you mount those?

2. Someone asked in another thread, and while I didn't really see it brought up here, thought I would ask anyway. Did the kit you got have any issues with the auto headlamps?

Thank you and congratulations again!

Edit: For 1., it looks like those may not come with the 9005/HB3 kit, maybe they are for another set that uses a relay or something. If that is the case then nevermind on the mounting.

1. I'm still looking for a good spot to put these, i have them wedged and ziptied in place until I find a permanent solution. The boxes themselves generate a good deal of heat, but I don't think they get hot enough to melt plastic....nonetheless you should take that into account when mounting them. I have a couple spots in mind that I want to use, but ideally I want to use double sided tape and zipties to secure them b/c I don't know how long the double sided tape will last b/c of the heat.

2. No issues with the auto headlamps...not with functionality anyway. But if you know you're going to be in a situation where you're going in and out of a parking garage for example, you may not want to enable auto mode. If you turn HIDs off and then back on again without letting them cool, I've heard it can shorten their life. Keep that in mind before you decide to flash someone on the highway when they're camping out in the left lane....just bump them instead ;)

Sorry for not responding sooner - I've been out for some job training, hopefully you got your kit and you're all setup but let me know if you have any more questions.
 






UPDATE: After getting replacement dust/moisture caps that I could hack up with no worries, and trying the install again, my cutoff issue is resolved. For some reason, the bulb gave me some resistance going into the left housing and wasn't seated properly - this was causing the V shaped cutoff, not the metal strip. When you install the HID bulbs, that metal strip should be facing down towards the ground, so you shouldn't see a shadow from that unless you're using your high beams.


Cryptiq, you said that the metal strip should face down. When I line up the tabs the same as the factory bulbs, my metal strips are on top.....side note, I noticed that the orange rubber o-ring on the HID bulbs was a lot thicker than the stock bulbs, the bulb would not seat because of this, I had to swap the orange rubber o-rings with the stock before they would seat into place......
 






I just installed my kit and one side has a beam pattern problem. Did we ever find out if the metal strip is to face up or down?

I just installed the bulbs in the same way the stock bulbs came out. I didn't bother to look at the metal strip. I'll do that tomorrow in the day to check it out.

Cryptiq, you said that the metal strip should face down. When I line up the tabs the same as the factory bulbs, my metal strips are on top.....side note, I noticed that the orange rubber o-ring on the HID bulbs was a lot thicker than the stock bulbs, the bulb would not seat because of this, I had to swap the orange rubber o-rings with the stock before they would seat into place......
 






I just installed my kit and one side has a beam pattern problem. Did we ever find out if the metal strip is to face up or down?

I just installed the bulbs in the same way the stock bulbs came out. I didn't bother to look at the metal strip. I'll do that tomorrow in the day to check it out.

Any update?
I am following your posts
 












The metal strip inside the bulb is the igniter bar, it should be facing down .

Sorry, been pretty tied up with work/family....russell is correct, the metal strip should be facing down.

If anyone is having a beam pattern, the bulb is likely not seated correctly...or perhaps the bulb is bad, but chances are it's installer error.
 






I bought this system
1 x H11: Morimoto Elite HID System
Ballasts: Morimoto 3Five (35w)
Kelvin: 6000K
Wire Harness: 9005
Wire Harness Type: Standalone Can-Bus (see descript

http://www.theretrofitsource.com/product_info.php?cPath=32&products_id=3956


My dealer could not get them to work at first but I let them know for Canadian Vehicles you had to change the DRL's to the yellow parking lights and as well change all of the headlight fuses to 20amp as per someone elses suggestions on this site. I have a before and after picture but they were taken in different places so i will update my after picture at a later time. I am at work right now...

I have noticed they are alot brighter but my cut off line is horrendous now compared to before and the right bulb seems brighter then the left. The rigth has a hot spot and the left does not were as in the before picture they both had hotspots.

Before, on flat ground.
photostream




After. This was on a slant going up.

photostream
 












Any update?
I am following your posts

Sorry for the delay.

I installed the kit and removed it a few days later. The beam pattern was horrible as noted by pictures posted by mishtar. I had the same problem.

When I put the halogen bulbs back in, I noticed hot spots even with the halogen bulbs in but they weren't as noticeable. The HID lights just amplified the hot spots.. meaning the optics in the projectors aren't very good to begin with.

I decided to just keep the halogen lights in and gave away the HID kit to a friend who wanted it.
 












It looks like your driver side bulb isn't seated properly

So since I had to pay Ford to do this, I should be able to go in and see them and say that and they need to remount them properly?

Was freaking expensive. $30 to use the computer to change the DRL's from my headlamps to the Parking lights. $80 for labour, then $11.00 each for the 3 20amp fuses plus tax. Came to $180..........I would think for that price they should be making sure they are seated properly
 






So I took it back into the dealer and they actually looked at what they were doing this time lol and it came out much better. I am quite happy now with the results. The cut off lines still have a little spillage over the two brightest points but it looks 100% better then it did yesterday.

6469363731


http://www.flickr.com/photos/60501500@N08/6469363731/
 






Thread Bump.

So I have read through this thread front to back. Its been a while (since 2011) since there were any updates to this information.

I wanted to know at this point how anyone with aftermarket HID's is enjoying them? What kit did you use? Have you had to replace anything yet (bulbs or ballast)? How is the light output etc..

I have a 13 XSport and really want HID's on her soon. Looking for the best suggestions you can make aside from the OEM set up from the limited. Thanks for your time!
 






I ended up going back to my HIR bulbs. The problem I had with the HIDs was that I had hot spots and was getting flashed all the time at night. The only way to avoid getting flashed was to angle my lights down so far that they were no longer effective for seeing anything at a reasonable distance.

I almost think we need a bulb that has a black tip (like standard halogens) to help reduce the hot spots. Either that or maybe it was just something to do with the physical dimensions of my bulbs...perhaps other bulbs don't lead to hot spots? I would like to see pics of them beam patterns from people using them with success to see if it's any different from what I had.

Good luck. Missing my HIDs, but removing them was the responsible thing to do.
 












I ended up going back to my HIR bulbs. The problem I had with the HIDs was that I had hot spots and was getting flashed all the time at night. The only way to avoid getting flashed was to angle my lights down so far that they were no longer effective for seeing anything at a reasonable distance.

I almost think we need a bulb that has a black tip (like standard halogens) to help reduce the hot spots. Either that or maybe it was just something to do with the physical dimensions of my bulbs...perhaps other bulbs don't lead to hot spots? I would like to see pics of them beam patterns from people using them with success to see if it's any different from what I had.

Good luck. Missing my HIDs, but removing them was the responsible thing to do.

After removing my HID kit and back to halogens...I missed HID's too much. I went to my friends shop who specializes in aftermarket items.

As noted in my prior posts, the projectors on the explorer are horrible. I had hot spotting even with the halogen lights and HID's just amplified it.

I think it just depends on the optics of your projectors as I've seen some explorers on the road with perfect halogen light beams while others I have seen major spotting as well.

I just learned to live with the hot spotting and luckily it doesn't cause beams which shoot high up into the air blinding oncoming traffic.
 






Internal Reflectors

Does anyone know for sure if the halogen and HID use the same or different reflector housings? Perhaps this may be part of the problem. :dunno:

Peter
 









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