I've been trolling around various forums, looking for as much info as I can find on HID kits, and other stuff related to lighting. Over on a ricer forum (well, RSX, they try to set themselves apart from the Mitutoyhondas), there was a lot of discussion on this.

Overall, the general consensus, is that dropping in a 9006, H3, or other HID kit usually doesn't yield very good results. Most of the kits are pretty much junk quality, and that one should look for Phillips and Hella and even McCulloch for quality. (Though, McCulloch is on the lower end of good.) Transplanting HIDs into DOT spec fluted lens, or free-form reflector lights usually yields too much light scatter and glare. I'm going to try a H3 HID kit in my aftermarket projector headlight assemblies on my Jeep. They already have a nice sharp ECE cutoff, but not enough light. Maybe I'll get lucky and like the results.

As an alternative, lots of people are retrofitting their factory headlight units with HID projector units from other vehicles, or just good aftermarket ones. This gives you great optics, with a bright light source, and very good results. Downside. Pretty expensive, and if you do it yourself, lots of time invested.

So, this brings me to a relate for this place. Bonnevilleclub.com has a LOT of members. Seems like as much, or more activity than the RSX forum. There is a guy on there, making, actually, engineering, new headlight modules, with HID projectors. This is a quality project.

But what does this mean for us?

Well, I sent him an email, mentioning this place. He mentioned in his posts that he would eventually like to expand the products. I'm thinking there may be enough bonneville owners out there, that he could justify engineering a set of high quality lights for you guys, too.

Don't really know how many people would drop the cash for a quality set of HID light units for their car. I dont know the price for the headlights hes selling, but a phillips HID kit could go for $350-500 alone. Inexpensive McCulloch kits are about $260-280.

So, I suppose, maybe in the coming years, this guy will start expanding what products he'* producing, and if he suddenly gets requests from hundreds of bonneville owners, who knows, it may result in a new product. Since, really, you don't see anything besides clear corner lenses in the aftermarket for Bonnevilles.

-Jay

CorvetteCrazy is working on the Ballast retrofit in the headlights...and also this poses a problem for the 92-95 Guys because of the glass in the headlights.....the 96-99 and the 00+ have it much easire

Well, if the 92-95 guys can do the 96+ headlight conversion, then the situation has been helped out. Which is also why entirely new assemblies would be great.

Which reminds me... has anyone here done a HID conversion on theirs? How were the results?

yes the 96-99 headlight conversion is possible but that requires a modification of the grille, which is not that hard, but its something to consider

hey,

yes I have been doing a LOT of research on a full HID retrofit into the 96-99 HL.

There are TONS of ways to do the projector retro fit. Right now I am still deep in the Research phase.

I have not started or purchased anything for the HID retro due to being in college, having limited tools and space to work in my dorm room, and the fact that I dont currently have a job.

not to mention I am working on a pretty big LED project

for more info than any brain can handle check out hidplant.com their forum is FILLED with kick a$$ info and people who'* work is down right jaw dropping. Yes there are also people there who are willing to do retrofits (obviously for money but if you didn't want to tackle it yourself)

there is 1 00+ guy here that did a HID retro, but he posted 2 weak pictures and I haven't seen around.

Yea, I saw a blurb about that, too.

I'm basically hoping that my current aluminum/glass projectors will be sufficient for the HID conversion. It'* too bad that nobody makes "JDM" "altezza" or whatever you wanna call it, lights for bonne'*.

Oh, and for LED'*...

www.autolumination.com has probably the best LED'* out there, for those who want to just drop in some LED 1157/3157'*. A bit pricey, but hi-flux LED'* are the next best thing to a Luxeon LED. And the units there have either 18 or 20 of them. Light Tower I or II. They have a sister company (site, or something) that handles McCulloch HID kits. That'* where I'm gonna get my H3 kit for the projectors. And, they'll sell me a 9006 Ballast with H3 bulbs for my unique situation. It'* about $100-200 cheaper than a Phillips Kit, hopefully the quality isn't far behind.

i personally would never put an Altezza on my car...EVER....and CorvetteCrazy is going far beyond a "simple" drop in LED project

why dont you expand more on what projectors you have. by the sound of it, they are halogen projectors. (which is better than a standard halogen housing but HID projectors are really the way to go for best output)

autolumination is good if you want drop in bulbs...but you dont know me well enough so let me give you a taste, the following is my 3rd brake light:





yes it is bright...

no one would ever make a JDM TL for our cars...since they are not japanese.

Yea, I know the anti JDM thing. I like your array of hi-flux LED'*. Nice. I think I want to do something similar for my 3rd brake light on the jeep. Pleanty of room behind it, just sacrifice a dead 168 LED base to use as a plug-in to the socket.

But, as far as the headlights.. yea, they're halogen, H3 projectors. But, here'* the kicker. Most of the H3 projectors I've seen, are pretty short, just a couple of inches. These suckers are like 5-6" long from the base of the bulb to the end of the projector lens. And, inside, there'* tons of room for a long D2S type bulb, between the base, and where the shield is inside. So, I'm thinking, just maybe, they could be already setup for HID. I know, wishful thinking. Sharp cutoff on these, but the few little beams of light scatter kinda worry me, I may have to mod the shield to cut that out. The housing is all aluminum, with a glass ion-coated lens. Shoulda got clear, ohwell. I'm really hoping they'll work. Just waiting on my tax refund before I order them.

well you can get decent cut off lines with halogen projectors and HID bulbs. If you are willing to mod the projectors you can be the stuff to fit D2s bulbs in there.

The LED'* are LumiLED superflux. Cheap and VERY bright.

and for the record, I am not against JDM, but JDM (japanese domestic market for those that dont know) would only make parts for jap cars because that is their domectic. I know there are some sweet JDM parts (and cars) out there. But that is off topic in this thread.