HIDs in my 87 TC (pic heavy)

These cars have miserable lighting output from the stock halogens in the headlights, even with housings that have clear lenses and mint chrome.  I tried some high end LEDs lights and while they were a substantial improvement over the stock look & lighting output (yes, I'm both a look & function kind of guy), the amount of scatter was ridiculous.  I'm not really much into blinding oncoming traffic - it can be both dangerous for you and others on the road, plus your local law enforcement might pull you over and offer a citation, depending on how strict they are.

Anyways, BJL is local to me and has been working on my various TCs since 2006 and I knew he had been working on an HID conversion on his turbo coupe so I wanted him to work on a set for me. First to be clear, your headlight lenses need to be as clear as possible. The mirroring inside the housing is irrelevant as the projectors have their own mirroring system:



Here's what my lenses looked like that I used for this project:


I'm using the following system from the retrofit source:
https://www.theretrofitsource.com/bi-xen...RK-ACME-H1

I have a few of the upgraded options for that kit:
- Bi-Xenon : ACME Super (H1) +$25
- H1: ACME HID (5000K)

I believe I'm using this wire harness:
https://www.theretrofitsource.com/motoco...quantity=1

do note, that wire harness needs to be repinned as it's set up for a 9007 bulb, if I recall correctly. if you don't repin it, your low beams will be your high beams and your high beams will be your low beams. not a huge deal, just keep that in mind...

here's some photos of the housings painted grey so they look good with the projectors and shrouds installed:





pattern testing:

low beam top, high beam bottom





here's how things look after the lenses were reattached to the housings and sealed up. I used clear waterproof silicone from home depot. 1 tube is more than enough to do both headlights:



I wrapped the housings in saran wrap for 24 hours after putting the lenses on to keep things held together tightly:









installed in my car:












now some testing photos at night against my garage door. these photos are approximately 20ft away from the door. if you notice, we forgot to repin the wiring harness as noted above. we also need to make some minor tweaks to the projector so it projects higher out without needing to adjust the housing...

low beam:





high beam:





low beam, facing the road:



these have substantially better light output than the stock halogens and I did not notice any scatter whatsoever. the only downside to doing this is you need to cut the rear of the housings off so you can fit the projectors inside.

here's some photos BJL wanted me to post of his car:

Nice man, does it matter how far from the lens the LED's are mounted? Meaning, does it effect the pattern at all based on the difference in spacing? Also, how do you make the adjustments that you talked about? Nice write up.

Nice man, does it matter how far from the lens the LED's are mounted? Meaning, does it effect the pattern at all based on the difference in spacing? Also, how do you make the adjustments that you talked about? Nice write up.

this tutorial talks about HIDs, not LEDs. I don't think you can adjust where the HID bulbs are placed - they clip into place in the projectors, iirc. as far as making adjustments, I think things get locked down with epoxy once you get the positioning and such set.

Your right on that, I think I got LED's in my head changing bulbs lately.

Your right on that, I think I got LED's in my head changing bulbs lately.

I don't think you can adjust how an LED is positioned in our housings...if you buy a 9004 LED, it should lock into the existing bulb socket.

What do they look like at night as facing the car when the lights are on?

ill post pictures shortly, they are to big to attach

ill post pictures shortly, they are to big to attach

https://imgur.com

the forum will automatically resize them to fit the page.

Here are some pictures of what mine looks like a night