confused with my lighting setup...

[JimmyGoll]

Hello I have bought my mess of a civic about 2 months ago now, and inspection time is right around the corner. Well I need to get new headlights for it since I only have a high beam...no low beam at all. I am very new to all this and am just wondering what is my best/most cost effective way of fixing this. The guy I bought the car off of put some pretty cheap HID kit on it, with an aftermarket light housing. Can I get 2 "filament" light bulbs for high and low beams with HID? Can I simply put the OEM replacement bulb in even with the HID converters hooked up? Or will I need to buy a whole new light casing with OEM wires?

 

Sorry I know this is totally a stupid question, but I have never had to deal with headlights before and do not know the jist about them....any help is greatly appreciated!

[cmgogo]

Hello I have bought my mess of a civic about 2 months ago now, and inspection time is right around the corner. Well I need to get new headlights for it since I only have a high beam...no low beam at all. I am very new to all this and am just wondering what is my best/most cost effective way of fixing this. The guy I bought the car off of put some pretty cheap HID kit on it, with an aftermarket light housing. Can I get 2 "filament" light bulbs for high and low beams with HID? Can I simply put the OEM replacement bulb in even with the HID converters hooked up? Or will I need to buy a whole new light casing with OEM wires?

 

Sorry I know this is totally a stupid question, but I have never had to deal with headlights before and do not know the jist about them....any help is greatly appreciated!

 

 

take a picture of the housings and i can tell ya exactly what to do, but the short story is to pull out the ballasts and bulbs, and replace with h4 (if its a single hi/lo bulb) or with a pair of h1 (if its a hi bulb lo bulb set up)

 

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE THE BALLASTS WITH HALOGEN BULBS

 

and to be honest, if you cant figure it out, you probably should not be messing with wiring, youll either end up shocking yourself, catching your car on fire, butchering your wiring, or doing it right. that is 75% odds you will screw it up somehow.

[JimmyGoll]

Thanks for your response and caution haha! I'm pretty sure this is the housing - http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/yhst-5006790027353_2171_620477 . I'm not trying to mess with wiring if i don't have to! I'm not bad with wiring though but my only experience really comes from audio systems and computers. Reason I am asking this is I have 0 knowledge of how these bulbs work and figured I should ask before I go out and waist money on something that won't work...

[cmgogo]

h4's, just disconect the 3 prong plug from the ballast and put a standard h4 bulb into the socket and plug the 3 hole socket into the 3 prong plug on the back of the h4 bulb

[JimmyGoll]

and this will still work even with those hid boxes still attached or no?

 

Edit: Nvm i got it, thanks for the help!

[cmgogo]

yeah that box is the ballast, steps up voltage to around 7000-20000 volts, which will blow your bulbs and arc with anything close. No bueno!

[JDM Astar]

Jimmy,

 

We came across your post and wanted to shed some light on what lighting solutions you can consider.  Here are a few things you can try:

 

1) Keep your HIDs- Replace only the HID bulb if the ballast is still good.  If the ballast is out, replace the ballast or consider going for a higher end HID kit. 

2) Go old school- As cmgogo mentioned, the ballast is usually plugged in to the headlight sockets/harness.  Remove it and just buy yourself some H4/9005 55W/65W 12V DC Halogen bulbs.  The connectors should still be the same and would get rid of all the wiring that HID kits use.  The H4 halogen bulbs should plug right in and the headlamp housing already uses an H4 mount that fit the H4 HID so the Halogen bulb should go in with no problem.

3) Use an aftermarket LED- Its the same concept as going old school where you would remove the HID and ballast and plug the LED replacement directly to the headlight socket/harness.  No wiring is involved on most aftermarket LED type bulbs.  The LED headlight will usually adapt to the same housing just as long the bulb size it takes is the same which in this case should be an H4/9003 LED bulb size.

4) Using an aftermarket LED headlight housing- These may require some wiring depending on the quality.  Most, however, should plug right into the original sockets, or you will simply need to cut off the cars factory socket/harness and just wire in the ones that the housing includes. 

Either option would work and judging from your post, it does not appear that you will need to do any wiring unless you opt for a housing with an LED circuit board as the main low beam headlight.

Hoping this helps!