DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!

A month or so ago, a few members and I had a discussion about installing HIDs in place of our halogen reverse lights. I had always been thinking about this, and since there was no DIY, I decided I'd do it and make a simple write up.

List of Pros/Cons:


Pro:
1) Brighter reverse light for people like me who actually use it as a light
2) Color range is selectable from yellow to blue (HID bulb "brightness")
3) Relatively simple
4) Only one OEM wire cut.



Con:
1) biggest problem: Illegal
2) Not totally tested out, MAY cause melting of lens if left too long (? longest I had it on was a few minutes, no problems yet...but its a possibility if the light touches the lens)
3) One side tail light switch needs to be cut
4) Either you have a good permanent mount (JB WELD) or you have a superglued mount that MAY or may not fall off.



Materials:

1) Adapter plate - a circle of aluminum/steel/whatever thats roughly 1.5" diameter with a roughly 1" hole. (2x - this will be glued to your tail lights to hold the HID bulb in)

2) H7 HID kit + Bulbs of your choosing supplier

3) Harness kit, must contain: Relay, power, ground, signal wire(s)

4) Removable Crimps ( Male & Female, I suggest the blue colored crimps)

5) Switch (optional, for a anti-tailgate button)

6) Super Glue/JBweld/Plasticweld or equivalent.




How to:

I went on to DDMtuning on a advice of a fellow s2ker and purchased a 35W HID kit along with a harness. Make sure you purchase the harness. I attmpted it with no harness first, and the wiring was handling (no resistive heating, but the gauging is a little smaller than the recommended size for the steady state amperage) the power needed but fuses were blowing like crazy.


HARDWARE SIDE:

1) Remove both tail lights. There is carpet covering the tails, push that out of the way and there is four 10mm nuts. carefully loosen them all, and tap lightly on one of the bolts - the tail light should come loose. Remove all nuts and remove tail lights. Right and left will be the same.

2) remove the bottom bulb of the white housing (inner bulbs) This is your reverse light bulb.

3) Test fit your bulb first to make sure it fits in the adapter plate, then next to make sure the bulb fits properly in the housing without any of the glass touching the plastic.

4) This is where things become semi-permanent! so make sure from here on, you pay attention and read through BEFORE doing these steps.

5) Glue the adapter plates to the lens making sure to center them, and making sure the bulbs when in, dont contact the plastic. If it does contact the plastic, the bulb WILL melt it. I used superglue after lightly sanding both surfaces with 200 grit sand paper (really, any sandpaper will do as long as its not too fine)

6) Glue the HID bulb INTO the adapter.

-----While gluing, make sure they are secure, yet removable if you so desire. If you plastic-weld/JBweld the adapters on, chances are this will be a permanent mod. I used super glue because you can twist the glue off. This might be bad since it -COULD- fall and melt my housing but I'm going to take the chance just in case my safety inspection station is tough.--------DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!

How the ending looks:


7) reinstall everything, the hard(ware) part is OVER!



~~~~~~WIRING~~~~~~~~~


wiring is generally easy since you have a harness.

::will edit later with a PAINT image so you can see the wiring diagram:::

1) If you have a amp for a sub/sounds like I do, wiring is a piece of cake! You can bum power off of the amp power cable so you dont have to snake a wire all the way to the hood. Generally amp power wires have a higher rating then what they normally draw so it should be fine.

2) If you do NOT have a amp, you need to purchase an amp wiring kit. You will use the power/ground wire.


3) Give the + side 12V directly from the battery (through the amp cable), and ground the - side to a good ground.

4) The harness I purchased from DDM tuning had TWO signal cables - one for each light. You only have to hook up ONE side to make the relay work. For those who dont know what a relay does, it basically takes a low amperage 12V "signal" and flips a larger 12V high amp "power" for the case of a car relay.

5) I will use the OTHER side of the signal cable for my "anti-tailgate switch" - to do this, wire a switch from the amp to the + side of the unused signal switch, and wire the other to a chassis ground. When the switch is flipped, the relay will get a 12V signal and will activate the power.

6) The DDM Harness kit came with two "male" crimped connectors. These are the blue colored sizes. If you purchase/make your own harness kit, use whatever you want but just keep it consistent.

7) Cut ONE of the two sides reverse light wires midway between the harness and the light bulb. On the bulb side, put whatever connectors which are the same as on the Harness. For the DDM harness, those would both be males.

8) on the harness side, put the other type connectors, for the DDM case those would be females.


--remember, power input to the HARNESS matters but power input to the light (if you're non LED) doesnt--

9) Connect the DDM harness signal wires to the cut/crimped harness connectors. Make sure the power inputs are correct!

10) Connect the DDM harness POWER to the +12V and GND properly (follow the schematics!)

11) Seal everything up with electrical tape and you're done!



I'll update this DIY as I notice things I missed...pictures will be added as soon as my friend uploads them for me.

Thanks for reading guys, and PM me if you have any questions.. If I made any mistakes, please let me know as well.


REMEMBER THIS IS ALL AT YOUR OWN RISK!



Before and after pics...just for now:







-edit- for castanza-
Directly behind:


Its actually bright enough so that the (crappy iphone) camera cant even distinguish the "half-light" cut and it just sees it as a giant blurb of light. Still waiting on the real pictures though..


mini -update
shows where I tucked the HID ballasts! yay for random "bracings" to put stuff on

 

Looks like a lot of hassle just for brighter reverse lights that are Illegal... couldnt you just buy a brighter halogen bulb in place of the factory item?

Props for the effort & DIY though.

 

Hey alricl, thanks for reading it! its actually not that much work. With this DIY and the materials on hand, it shouldnt take more than 1hr if you have an amp, maybe 1.5 hrs if you dont. With a little electronics know how it should only take you 30minutes tops. I installed the lights in 45 minutes while dragging ass trying to find the best way (settled on this, I don't like how its glued but I do like how its reversible..) and I got the wiring harness in, in less than that.

The halogens only get so bright, I believe max power was around 27 watts. These are HIDs and 35 watts, and I believe 2-3x as bright. I'll try do a comparison with the stock bulbs on a different car as I only have a 3W LED to compare against.

 

Just change the bulbs for the rears with some Polarg's and you'll be set. Like 2x as bring and the HID color.

 

Pretty cool...would love to see a pic from directly behind the car

I may do this jst for shits and giggles with the extra set of 8000K's I have layin around since I have allready put Yellow 3500K's in my High Beams for driving down the back country roads to my house at night.

 

i put led's in my reverse lights and i think they are brighter than stock...idk about all that work for hid's. but good job

 

castanza, A picture was added on the first post for you

Boofster, can you post some pics? How much wattage are those bulbs? (For others who might read this thread and not want to install HIDs)

NFR, like I said, I had 3W LEDs and I'll show you guys pictures of the difference when its all posted.. the 3Ws were as bright as I could find under 50 at the time I purchased them, and they are nowhere near as bright as the HIDs. When you look at the LEDs they appears brighter but they dont seem to illuminate as much as the halogens.

 

Good job, but that's a bit ghetto.. Should wire a switch so if someone is up your azz you could get rid of them (without even shifting to 2nd) lol

But I'd personally replace OEM with a SMD x 28 globe, 5 minutes at most.

 

onions, I do have a switch for that reason

I dont know the specs for the bulb you mentioned, and I did a quick search which returns a 3.2W LED bulb. I had a 3W LED bulb, SINGLE bulb so it has more penetration than a "bunched" LED bulb, which I believe the one you mentioned is.

The 3W LED looks really bright from the back, but theres almost no illumination strength (as I mentioned before...) the HID is so, so much brighter. I wish I could show this to you in person! Also, the stock wiring only allows so much power output so no matter what bulb you switch to using the OEM harness, it will never be as bright as my HIDs.

I admit it looks ghetto but its a work in progress. if I find a better solution to mounting the bulbs I will update this DIY. I could fabricate a bracket with a little work but theres almost no way half the people who read this will be able to, as I have access to a machine shop and a tig welder...

 

i dont think it looks ghetto. it looks bright! i've been thinking of doing this myself but i'll probably attach a slim foglight in the rear or use just one hid bulb in place of the stock bulb location.