The light output improves 10 fold, compared to stock halogens. And honestly, with the HIDs, you'll never have a need for the high beams. If you have the cabbage to fork over for these, I highly recommend them. They're well worth the money.

 

^^^

Never head money called cabbage before LOL

 

You haven'theard a lot of things Madness. Like when that dome light is coming...

Bwwwaaahahahahhahahahahahahah! I rule you. heheeh.

 

^^^

you must have missed this thread
http://focusfanatics.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=73413

Madnes 1 - Crazymatt 0

 

*jaw drops*

Touche, Madness. Touche.

I will now ride my pig into the sunset.

 

^^
We always hijack the thread LOL.. sorry zx5go

 

Cause that's how we roll! hehe

Gary... DEFINITELY get the HIDS. If you have the money for them, then go out and get them. You will love the light through, love the illumination, and never want to go back to regular bulbs.

I'm jealous you have all that money to spend.

 

back on topic u2. i have rode in a non-HID car, and i dislike it very much. it seem the OEM light throw isnt as smooth as HID's. i love the color difference as well. no more yellow. as far as "seeing farther"? i dont believe that you do. in fact, u may seem to see not as much, only cuz the light drop-off line is immensly apparent. maybe mine are just mis-aligned. but i use my highbeams pretty often. like prolly everyday. if i didnt have HID's, i wouldnt shell out the row of cabbage to buy them. i would def. go for the Ebay halo/projectors that ZX34me has. and install silverstars in them. hope this helps ya out.[thumb]

 

I went from the stock halogens to the HID's, so I can probably give you some insight. Yes, the output is significantly better, and with the brights on, it's utterly ridiculous! You won't need your brights as much though. I have noticed that a lot of the expensive sedans with the "blue" HID's are brighter, but I'm still happy with my conversion. It makes your car look badass as well, and you can get a euro grille!

 

Well, the stock focus headlights aren't that bad. I also have an '04 Dodge Dakota...they have horrible headlights. I've upgradded those by adding a set of PIAA driving lights with 85w bulbs and wired them to come on with the high beams. I do the same on the Focus, but I don't care for that look on cars.

Gary

 

If you don't like the appearance of the stock 4300K bulbs you can always get different ones...I replaced mine with 5000K and they're considerably whiter than the stock bulbs, although the color clashes with the inboard halogens when the highbeams are on (there's a distict cutoff between the HID and halogen light.) This would only get worse as you go higher, as you start getting into the blue/purple bulbs above 5000K. I'd either stick with the stock bulbs or at the most switch to 5000K bulbs.

 

If I'm understanding some of these posts correctly, when you put on the high beams, the halogen lights come on but the HID stays on as well? I didn't realize this.

Gary

 

If you flip on the high beams, the low beam shuts off....unless you do the "high beam mod," or whatever the kids are calling it these days.

 

Just a clarification...

If the SVT HIDs (or Mach Audio) lights came installed on the car from the factory,
then yes, both HID and high-beams will light up when switched to high-beam.

If you're converting to or installing these lights after the fact,
then no, they won't both be on when switching to high-beam.
Here's the fix:
http://homepage.mac.com/alf/HIDlights/step06.html

 

^^ Ahh it's all so clear now. Thanks for clearing that up WD.

 

When you go to highbeam, not only do the HIDs stay on, but a shutter is kicked out of the way by a solenoid and allows all of the available light out. The shutter is what causes the distinct cutoff with the 45* line.

 

Has anyone here actually installed the HID kit from Ford Racing? I'm wondering if they have addressed all of these items so that the lights work as if they came on the car.

Gary

 

The only thing that pisses me off about them is that they have the amber DRLs where the turn signals should be, but that's purely my opinion. Some people like them. I am still trying to figure out how to turn them off. (I'm to understand there is a way. Anybody confirm this?)

 

WTG on recessitating an ancient thread.
only way to turn em off is to unplug them. many have done so and blacked them out, or have replace the grill all together.
though now since i am going from HID to Ebay projectors, i will be eyebrowing the ambers and going DRL on them.

??? - did you realize this thread is 13 months old?

 

Yeah, I did. Thanks for the update. I got tired of searching through 20 some pages of HID related threads most of which entail someone saying something to the effect of, "Check out my new HIDs" or, "where can I find HIDs" or, "How do I wire these into the factory harness", etc. Good for them, but it doesn't answer my question.

Now, to clarify, on the Mach/SVT HIDs, there are four bulbs. There is a HID low beam, the halogen high beam, a city light, and the turn signal/DRL. The question was, how do you disable the DRL function but keep the turn signal? Unplugging it would not be a viable option. Currently, my DRL/turn signal does is be a DRL. I want them to be turn signals like I've seen on others. Can I do this?

 

I've never dealt with the actual Ford Racing HID retrofit kit, but if your turn signals are constantly on there must be a relay somewhere that feeds them power whenever the ignition is turned on, and then turns them off and back on again when the turn signal is activated. It must be somewhere in their harness. If you were to cut the FR harness out of the system and follow the "hacked VW" method you should be able to wire up the lights directly to the corresponding wires on the car's factory wiring looms and thus bypass whatever is turning your turn signals into DRLs.

Like so:

So basically you'd want to pull the FR wiring harness completely out of the car, and then clip off the plugs that connect to the back of the headlights and leave 2-3" of wire to work with. Then clip off the connectors from the factory wiring harnesses for the stock headlights (or you could buy adapters...check out www.ofoc.ca/hid for more information) and splice the wires from the factory harness into the plugs, and then do the same with the running light/turn signals from the grille. Its not that hard, I've done it on my ZX3 and my brother's ZX3, if you have any experience running wires it should take you an hour or two from start to finish.

 

Wow. If it's gonna take that much, I think I'm gonna put it off then, but if I start getting antsy or something I'll give that a go. I appreciate the help, Ska.

 

I just re-read Ska's post and wanted to add something...

The DRL/Turn signal does not flash or act as a turn signal on mine at all... It is only ever a DRL. The factory turn signals in the grill work fine. I have seen other Foci on the road that have the same Mach/SVT HIDs that do not have DRLs, but rather that lamp is the turn signal.

For those of you that know, there is a little wire lead that comes off of the Ford Racing harness that is labeled something like R (or L) Grill Park Light. I spliced that into the "major" turn signal wire and all I got was the city light flashing like a turn signal. So I undid all that and returned it to the way it was before. Does this change anything or help describe the problem?

 

^
Basically, you spliced the HID's city light into the turn signal. If you were to do the same with with turn signal wire you might be able to bypass the relay. Its hard to say what effect this would have on the rest of the system, however...

 

drl relay is located in the relay box under the hood. forget which one it is but is in the middle row. look at the owners manual and see what the relay locations are. drl relay is the only one not in the book, pull it and no more drl.