Look what the cat drug in.....


And the headlight is open, the customer was cool enough to allow me to crack one for R&D.







HMMM I wonder what would fit in here to blow the OEM projectors out of the water????

An EVOX-R!! Fits perfectly, bolts right up!









OEM projector on the right and EVOX-R on the left.




More pictures to come, and comparison between the OEM lense and an potential clear lense.

 

So do you think these would be a direct plug an dplay replacement for non HID trucks
being the ballast is on the housing or is the wiring different?

 

Looking at the housings, I cannot make out if there is a provision for adjusting the up-down angle of the lamp if a truck were to be leveled and the front end raised...I thought I saw an adjustment for side-to-side adjustment???

 

Yes they are a DIRECT plug and play with my relay harness. Basically coverts the h13 halogen plug into the new 4 pin hid connections. Pm me for info on purchasing these. As far as side to side adjustment there are none, only adjuster is up and down like the stock halogens.

 

Well did a little more research while Turf's paint drys for his retro.

Here's what Ive all found out: the OEM Ford projector is some version of a Hella, and the EVOX-R is the only projector that will bolt directly up. The High beam solenoid input plug matches the EVO's input as well.

Now to the comparison of light output: the EVOX-R (on the right) as you can see distributes the light better and with a razor sharp cutoff. The OEM Ford on the other hand is scattered all over, very intense hotspot with no uniform foreground coverage. The high beams are also a tell tale sign that this projector was pretty developed, im dissappointed Ford! A little extra research could have yielded a much better performing projector.

I am still working on utilizing the OEM D3S ballast to work with the D2S Evox-r for those who would potientially upgrade. I have some wheels in motion for accomplishing this, but is a trade secret for now until I can confirm its reliability. This way the OEM ballast will still cover the giant hole it mounts into and keeping all the components self contained inside and mounted to the headlight housing.

First output shots were from around 15ft away

High beam solenoid pigtail




High Beams



This is from about 8 feet away



D2S plug fits inside great

 

Some extra pictures of the housing and comparison to dinosaur halogens

 

 

This place has oem hid headlights listed for $550 each. They have the FX4 style and the chrome ones.
http://www.allstarautolights.com

 

550 gets you the housing only... no ballast, no bulb, nada.... Tasca and Levittown Ford both have the housings listed at 480ea with a 50 dollar core charge each (not sure how that works..). The plug and play harness on ebay is 85, and bulbs/ballasts on ebay was looking about 200+ bucks. It's looking more and more like 1400-1600 to get the complete OEM set.

BUT now that I know they really aren't anything ground breaking, and I'd have to have them retro'd like the OP is doing to get good quality light... I think I'll just retro my current ones with some high quality components from RaptorRetrofit or one of the many guys doing it now. however, I am still very interested in what the OP can come up with price wise for a retro in the 2013 housings cause they look great!

 

I'm holding out for a set from a salvaged truck myself. I bought a set for my wife's car for $400 with everything from a wrecked GTI, but decided to go with the newer LED lights.

 

what's the advantage of going with an OEM kit with ebay wiring harness and aftermarket bulbs compared to a Recon lighting kit where it's all in for apparently less than $1000 ?

The Recon kit won't have the F150 logo inside the housing like this one does, but other than that, is there any difference function-wise or fitment or electrical compatibility?

 

Would it be possible to get a couple of pics going down the road at night with the HID's on? I'm curious to see how well they light up the road despite the not so even distribution.

Thanks in advance.

Would you say even with these limitations the HID's are an improvement over the stock halogens?

I did a retrofit in my old car and HID's just give so much better light. Usually factor HID's are fairly descent.

 

I traded my 2012 FX4 for a 2013 FX4 (long story) the 2013 HID's are a great improvement over the 2012 Halogens, I always thought that the stock halogens were anemic. I put silverstar ultras in, which made them a bit better. The HID's are very good IMHO, the high beams are awesome. High and low beam really light up the road. I think the low beams have a very good cutoff as I have not been "flashed" yet.

 

I figured they probably would be better than the halogens. Thanks for the info.

Do you know what the kelvin rating is on the bulbs? I assume it's probably the 4300K which is what I like vs. the 6000K more blue color.

Is there any warmup time with these have you noticed? Maybe 10 seconds or so to get to full brightness and proper color?

 

4300K D3S setup, very poor performance at best, but considerably better than a Halogen anyday! If you want real performance id step up to a evox-r with osram SVS bulbs. Like any HID system it takes a few seconds to get the salts burning in the capsules and even longer in cold weather