Sylvania HID Upgrade...

[Matverick]

I had a set of the Xenarcs on my 2001 Silverado 2500HD. They made a HUGE difference over the factory lighting. You still have highbeams, just not the HID. (HID for low beam, Silverstar bulbs for the highs) Sylvania offers the Silverstar as a highbeam upgrade when you buy the HID kit. The bulbs closely match the color of the HID. The other thing that is impressive is the width of light coverage. I live in South Dakota, where deer are a real problem. It's so much easier to avoid them when BOTH ditches are completely illuminated. Definitely putting the 7 inch set on my H2 when it comes in 2 weeks.

And no, I don't work for Sylvania!

Mat

"Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds"

[Mango]

Paragon, tell us about the install. The stock unit does not use a sealed beam type system. Did you just replace the stock headlight enclosure (lens, reflector, etc) with the new sealed unit? Any mods necessary?

Mango -- Saltwater Flyfisherman, Photographer, Varmint Hunter -- Fort Worth, Tx

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

[mpetrich]

Paragon, I would also be interested in where you installed the ballasts and any other tid-bits of information you could provide on the install.
Thanks.

[PARAGON]

Actually the stock headlight is a plastic reflector made to the same specs as a sealed beam but it has a replacement bulb in it. The new lamps are true sealed beams and fit perfectly into the stock bucket (you just have to make a minor modification to allow a connector to fit properly).

To start you have to remove your grill guard (if you have one), and the entire grill. There are 4 nuts to remove for the grill.

You then remove the 3 nuts that retain the headlight assembly and pull the assembly out the front. You'll see that the headlight itself is mounted in a black sealed beam bucket and all you do is remove 3 screws and the bucket comes apart and the headlight simply falls out. I had to take a dremel with a sanding wheel attached and removed about 2x3 inch portion of the black plastic bucket on the back so that one of the new wire connectors would not bind.

After that you reverse the installation using the new headlights. The starter is part of the headlight assembly so you only need to mount the ballast. It's rather small and I simply mounted it next to the back of the headlights. The kit comes with everything you need and plenty of cable length. I'll try to mention a few of the things I did that made it easier.

First the headlights have to get their power direct, so I attached the supplied cable to one of the "always on" posts underneath the fuse box that's under the hood. I then ran a single ground wire over to the engine block for a ground and attached the other end to both grounds for the lights. I routed the wires around the battery and through a hole behind the left headlight. I continued the wiring for the right headlight across the front of the radiator and tied it off in places using the supplied ties.

You have to cut the plug off the end of the stock headlight wiring harness and use the supplied connectors to reconnect the new lights. The instructions are very good and tell you the colors of the connectors for each connection. Here is a link to a copy of the installation instructions: http://www.sylvania.com/xenarc/pdfs/x6024man.pdf

The way this installation goes, you (if you wanted to) can easily go back to the stock headlights by simply reattaching the stock plug and putting the old headlight back in. The modification to the bucket I made does not effect the stock setup at all.

One thing to note, after the initial installation I had to take it all back apart to make horizontal adjustments to the headlights. The beam pattern is very well defined and easy to aim if you could adjust both horizontal and vertical at the same time. You have to use trial and error with the horizontal by make the adjustment and then mounting the light back in and checking it. Luckily I was happy after the second removal.

Let me know if I missed something or if you have more questions.

[buddy]

Here's some more info.

www.redhummer.com/

[JCJ]

Would Sylvania (or other manufacturer) have replacement set (pref. HID) for DRLs as well?
What would be the DRL's size/diameter?