Tools Required:
Soldering Iron
Solder
Needle Nose Pliers
Cigarette Lighter
Scissors
Heatshield material
Zip ties
Double stick tape
Electrical tape
Duct tape

Step 1: Disconnect and remove the bulbs you already have in there. This is typically an easy task on most cars, but some don’t give you much room, you may find yourself having to move things around a bit which is beyond the scope of this DIY.

Disconnect and remove exisiting bulbs

Step 2: Your kit will most likely come with some connectors and some wires (red and black), these wires then go into some metal prongs that then slide into the connector that fits your stock socket (i.e. 9006, H1, 9005, etc…). What you’ll need to is solder those wires to the metal tabs, this insures a good connection and will help against flickering or short circuiting. Take your time here this can be a delicate process.

Solder wires to the connectors

Step 3: Now slide those soldered metal ends into the connector, you’ll want to uses some needle nose pliers to grab the other end and pull it until it gently pops into place. Now, wrap the end of the connector to the wires with electrical tape, this again helps with short circuiting and/or shorting out. It also helps keep things in place.

Insert prongs into connector

Step 4: Now mount your ballasts someplace where there wont be much or any water intrusion and as far away from heat as possible. Use zip ties for this instead of drilling into anything because you want to relocate these at another time.

Attach ballasts

Step 5: Connect the ignitor module and locate it someplace just like the ballast, as little heat and water as possible. Insert your HID bulbs into your headlights being careful not to touch the bulbs with your bare hands (if you do wipe them down with rubbing alcohol and a q-tip).

Plug in the ignitor

Step 6: Connect the plugs and turn on your headlights, if they work hooray! if they don’t try again. Remember it’s not good to run HID’s on just battery power alone, if you want to stare into the light start the car up. Just be sure you have proper ventilation!

Step 7: Now if you’re like me when I did this you couldn’t find a good spot to mount the ballasts away from a lot of heat. So here’s where some heat wrap comes into play. What I used was a starter heat shield from Summit Racing. Measure the dimensions of your ballast then trace those dimensions onto your heat wrap, get out the scissors and start cutting.

Heat wrap cutouts

Step 8: Cut several squares of double stick tape and place them onto the ballasts then stick your cuts outs to those squares. Then wrap the edges where the different layers meet with duct tape (alot like wrapping a gift). That’s it, now your ballasts can withstand some serious heat for those hot summer days idling at a light.

Wrap with heat wrap

I hope you found this DIY helpful! If you did please forward it on to your friends or simply use the bookmarks below! Thanks!

When looking at a HID kit you are always going to see them rated in Kelvins, for example: 6000k -or- 6000 Kelvins. What this is referring to is the color of the light that will be emitted. Most OEM HID’s are somewhere around 4000K – 5000K, “JDM” crystal blue (whitish blue) is 6000K – 7000K, deep blue is 8000K – 8500K and violet purple is generally 9000K and up.

HID Color Guide From Kaixen

Here is where it gets tricky, there is a little known fact about HID’s and does in a way seperate them from halogen bulbs. The higher up the Kelvin chain you go the less usable light you get. When I say usable I am talking about visible light on the road to your eye. Staring at a 4300K OEM HID compared to an 8000K HID the latter is going to seem way brighter, but when driving the visible light on the road is going to be far less than the former. This is because the lumens are far less in an 8000K HID compared to a 4300K HID, and this means your eye sees less viewable light on the road surface.

The catch is that a 8000K HID will be substantially brighter in appearance to an oncoming driver than a 4300K HID which can lead to safety concerns and is why in many states a “blue” headlight is considered illegal. However; a 10000K HID will appear to be even brighter than an 8000K HID but in turn will provide substantially less road visibility.

Does this mean that a yellow 3000K – 3500K HID provide the best road visibility? In some cases yes, the yellow light emitted by a 3000K HID will indeed light up the road better by having more Lumens. However; the distance the light can travel is less. This is a good reason why yellow lights or 3000K HIDs make such great fog lights but not such great headlights.

There is always a method behind the OEM manufacturers madness, and when they give you a 4300K HID they are doing it for a reason, the 4500K is an excellent trade off for usable on road lights (lumens) and easy on the eyes on oncoming traffic. The light will travel far enough to provide the driver with the proper amount of light to drive by and not blind oncoming traffic.

I have personal experience, I had 8000K replacement HIDs in my TSX and it was great on dry summer nights, I could see for miles it seemed. However; on the first rain I could see absolutely nothing, I had might as well been driving with no headlights at all. Not to mention the amount of times I was flashed by oncoming motorists (and no not the good kind of flashing, more of the angry headlights flashing).

Am I recommending that everyone buy 4300K HID’s to make the roads a safer place and get more usable light? No, to each his own, I am just helping you make an educated decision.