H.I.D Retrofit - High Intensity

Everyone who drives our nation's highways has seen expensive cars and SUVs driving with headlights that, although not modified from stock, possess some of the brightest driving and headlights they've ever seen. About 10 years ago, many of the high-end automotive manufacturers began using a different type of system to power their product's headlamps.

This sort of lighting, called H.I.D. for High Intensity Discharge, provides lighting that is closer to the type of light that is received from natural sunlight. Typically, this type of lighting uses about 1/3 of the power of a standard H-4 or other halogen-type bulb. This means longer life for your headlight bulbs and better use of your vehicle's power resources.

Follow along as we retrofit this intense (pardon the pun) lighting setup from Hiper Industries with the help of the talented professionals at Sportruck Specialties in Carson, California.

First, we opened the kit to inspect the parts we were going to install.

The kit consists of: a pair of ballast units; starters; connecting harnesses; H.I.D. lights with their own pigtails attached; fuses; and assorted zip ties.	Just in case you become lost during this quick install, this is one side of the system plugged together on the bench to give you an idea of how everything is connected.
First, we disconnected the factory headlight harness from the backside of the headlight. We were installing the kit on a Tacoma that already has composite headlights, so this part was easy. If you have a truck that uses sealed beam lights, you'll have to first convert the headlamps to an aftermarket composite type that's available for retrofit.	Luckily for us, the Tacoma already had H-4 bulbs. We simply popped the new bulbs into place and secured them using the factory bulb restraint. Some headlight housings require the bulb opening to be enlarged using a slightly larger hole saw attached to a drill.
Next, we turned on the headlight switch in the cab of the truck to allow power to flow through the headlight harness. We used a test light to determine which leads were the power, the high/low beam, and the ground. Noting the polarity of the contacts, we turned the power off before proceeding.	There are two leads coming from each H.I.D. headlight bulb harness; one red and the other black with spade connectors. The red lead plugs into the low beam side and the black plugs into the grounded lead.
We cut the factory rubber headlight seal on one side and reinstalled it to keep moisture from getting into the headlight bucket or the H.I.D. bulb we just installed.	Once we determined that everything was working properly (we turned on the headlights), we located an area to permanently mount the H.I.D. system's ballast. This should be an area that's not easily made wet by driving in rainy conditions.
Next, we prepared the H.I.D.'s starter for installation. The kit comes with mounts for both the ballast and the starter, but we only used the mount for the starter in our installation. Then we secured the starter to its mounting plate using the supplied zip ties.	We mounted the starter using the supplied hardware near the ballast out of the way of direct contact with water, which may be shed into the engine compartment under rainy conditions.
Now we began to plug the system together. The plug from the H.I.D. harness already installed in the headlight bucket was plugged into the extension that comes with the kit and then into the in side of the H.I.D.'s ballast.	Next, the plug from the harness coming from the starter was plugged into the out side of the ballast.
The lead from the H.I.D. light in the headlight bucket with the round connector and the black wire was connected to the lead coming from the starter with the black wire and the blue stripe.	The other round connector coming from the H.I.D. harness in the headlight with the red lead wire was connected to the other round connector coming from the H.I.D. starter that has two leads running into it with a blue wire and a black wire.
The other round connector coming from the H.I.D. harness in the headlight with the red lead wire was connected to the other round connector coming from the H.I.D. starter that has two leads running into it with a blue wire and a black wire.	For an added measure of peace of mind, we taped the power leads running into the factory headlight harness using electrical tape to seal these connections from being exposed to moisture, dirt, and other contaminants.
With one side of the installation complete, we shot this image to show the difference between the factory headlight illumination and the H.I.D. illumination. Note the clarity of the light coming from the H.I.D. side in the left lamp as well as the clouded illumination coming from the right lamp that's still equipped with an H-4 bulb.	We then repeated the procedure on the driver side of the truck, making both headlights H.I.D. functional. Now the truck sheds far more light than ever while using far less energy. By far, this is the easiest to install and most complete kit we've seen available in the aftermarket to date.