99-04 HID Foglight Install - Brought to you by HIDmasters.com

[iRoush]

Today's how-to will show you how to mount and connect your brand new HIDmasters 6000k HID Foglight Kit up to your 99-04 mustang all while keeping the ballasts hidden from view! This may work on 94-98 mustangs but I cannot provide a definitive answer.

Parts:

6000k 880 Series HIDmasters HID Kit - Found here: http://www.hidmasters.com/Full_Size_Ballast_Kits/p1124731_5178023.aspx

-Comes with 99.9% of what you need

Zip Ties

Tools:

Jack

Jack Stands

Drill (Electric or Power is fine)

Drill Bits from 1/8" (Pilot Hole) all the way to 1/2" (Final Size)

Ratchet

3/8" drive socket set

Screwdrivers (Flathead + Phillips)

Sharpie

Step 1: Jack Front of Car Up

-I prefer to jack it up from the pinch welds and place the jack stands under the a-arms. You don't need the car too high for this project. Just enough to be able to get under the car and be able to have a good line of vision of the foglights.

Step 2: Remove Front Bumper.

-First pull the pins on the headlights (2) on each headlight. and disconnect the bulbs from the headlight (headlight and turn signal bulbs) Put headlights off to side.

-There are 4 nuts holding the bumper in place on the outside edges. These are 11mm nuts. Remove these nuts.

-Next remove the screws on the edge of the fender liner with a stubby phillips screwdriver

-Now Using a Flathead screwdriver or prybar remove the push-clips holding the bumper in place on the underside (2) and remove the plastic screw inserts on the top side of the bumper (2).

-Now Carefully remove bumper being careful to not break the tabs on the edge of the bumper.

Step 3: Remove Headlight Panel

-There are a total of 8 bolts that hold the headlight panel in. They are Size 8mm. Remove them remember where they went for ease of installation.

-Now just slide the headlight panel out

Step 4: Drill Holes to mount Ballasts + Mount Ballasts

-Your HID kit should have come with two ballast mounts. Place the ballast in the mount and line it up on the underside/outside edge of the headlight panel so that the wiring faces forward. Make sure that the ballast is not further back than the rear of the headlight panel otherwise the ballast mount will conflict with the fender. Mark the holes for the ballast location and move the ballast out of the way.

-Now, using a 1/8" drill bit drill the pilot hole into the headlight panel. Be sure to not press too hard on the panel itself, IT WILL CRACK. Now that the pilot hole has been drilled, go up one drill bit size at a time until you get to 1/2".

-You should be good to mount the ballast at this time. Feed the bolt through from the top, down, and place the ballast/ballast mount in place and tighten securely in place. Do not overtorque though as this is just a fiberglass (if still oem) panel and it WILL CRACK.

When done you should have something that looks like this:

Step 5: Reinstall Headlight Panel

-You're on the home stretch now. Just reinstall the headlight panel using the same (8) 8mm bolts

Step 6: Reinstall Bumper

-Reinstall the Front Bumper (reverse of removal above)

Step 7: Plug and Play!

-Following the diagram below, just plug in the wiring harness included in the HIDmasters kit. Very straight forward, plug and play harness makes this easy!

-Now Turn on the foglights to test to ensure they work!

-Next use some zip ties and route the wiring the most clean way possible. I went down from the HIDmasters Ballast to the bumper support and around to the HIDmasters bulb, back to the the vehicle wiring harness located near the inner fender liner.

-Voilah! You have the industries #1 quality HID kit on the market installed in your car!

Step 8: Lower your car and enjoy your unique and bright lighting display!

Edited August 17, 2012 by iRoush

[ttocs]

Great write-up the only thing I would have included was relays for them. Its not uncommon to get ABS errs when the ballasts turn on and start working depending on where they are located but powering them with relays will help keep that from happening. again though very well done.

[iRoush]

Great write-up the only thing I would have included was relays for them. Its not uncommon to get ABS errs when the ballasts turn on and start working depending on where they are located but powering them with relays will help keep that from happening. again though very well done.

Didn't even think about that. Regardless, I think the ballasts are fine where they are in relation to ABS. I have not had any malfunctions to the abs since I've had them mounted there for almost a year (had to replace the headlight panel so I figured I'd recreate this write up).

[SniveTroll]

Scott can you make a write up on relays? I have a set of hids and would like to use your method.

Sent by smoke signals

[ttocs]

sure they are pretty easy if you break them down into their seperate componants - the coil, the switch, and the connectors on the bottom.

I will start with the connectors since they are the easiest. If you look on the bottom of the relay you will see 5 pins sticking out of it. If you look closely next to the pins on the plastic case you will see small numbers next to them - 85, 86, 87, 87a, and 30. Don't ask me why they are these numbers just accept it and move on idunnoeither. Now if you look on the side of of most relays there will be a small drawing showing what each pin goes to inside of the relay - the switch and the coil -

I will try to find a pic to insert here

I don't want to confuse you with all the different ways you can go about relays because there ar dozens of differnt types and just as many ways to wire them that will work but this is how I do them and would explain them. So if you or someone else looks at this and would say you would do it differently then great, there is more then one way to skin a cat.

switch pins

#30 - is connected to the switch that will be used to power your electrical accesories is generally used as the output pin.

#87 - This is the pin you will use to supply power to the switch. So if you want something to turn on with +12v(like in this example) you will connect it to a hot wire.

#87a - this is the normally closed contact part of the switch. Bet that helped ya alot huh?! You can forget its even there if you want we will not use it today.

coil pins

85 - coil

86 - coil yea its just that easy...

The coil - Lets start with the easy part its not rocket surgery it literally is just a coil of wire. Do you remember making electro magnets in science class back in grade school, or Jr high if you were in public school? That is what we are doing here. When the coil is energized it makes an electro magnet that will then activate the switch. What is nice about this set up is that you can wire the coil anyway you want as long as you have one side pos and one neg to energize it. It does not matter if 85 is positive or negative, as long as pin 86 is the opposit. When the coil is energized you will hear the relay make an audible "click" sound as well as feel it.

The switch - this is not all that hard as well don't let it overwelm you just take it one pin at at time and there is only 3 there and we are only using two. Now as I said above pin 87 is the pin that we use to supply the switch with power. In this case we will use it to supply power a +12v to the ballast to power the HID so we want to connect it to either the battery +12, or another wire that we know can supply enough current. In most cases people just go to the battery since we are right there already and the aftermarket wire kits for relays come with a ring terminal to do this.

Safety - To keep everything safe in the event of a short you will want to fuse this wire(pin 87). If you do not you risk letting the magic smoke out of your electrical componants and we all know they run on the magic smoke just like our cars do on gas except you can't put it back in. Now HIDs even though they are brighter do not take as much power as a standard hallogen. The ballasts consume more power on start-up but should not go over 15 amps on a bad day. Once it is powered up and running(when the light slowly changes to the proper color) it will only run from 7-10amps, at least for the 35 watt kits. I have not done a 55 watt as I heard they can get too hot if someone else has done them and knows the recomended fuse ratings please chime in. This is the only wire you really need to fuse, I will show a pic below on an easy-to-make fuse holder and easy ways to connect to the pins as they use the same connectors

ok now with the description overwith what do you do with them right? Again lets break it down to its componants and go to the coil. You factory headlight/foglight hrns has two pins, and so does the coil. You cannot do it wrong, connect one wire in the factory hrns to pin 85, the other to pin 86. No fusing is needed all the stock headlight/foglight circuit will power now is that relays coil which is milliamps of current not amps.

Now take pin 87, fuse it with a 15 amp fuse and connect it to the battery +.

Now take pin 30, and connect it to the positive power input on your ballasts

The only other wire you have left to connect is the ground for the ballasts and for that you can just find a clean point on the chassis, or since we are close to the battery you can go there too.

Edited August 17, 2012 by ttocs