One of my stock headlights for my 98 GS is jacked up due to a recent fender bender. I am wanting to replace them both since they were getting fogged out anyway. My question is since most of the headlights sold any Ebay are the halo projectors that are pieces of sh!t anyway, what would you all get? Get the crappy projectors on Ebay for the look or go with stockers? Which are easier to mod for HID, stockers or Ebayers, thanks.

I would choose the stockers. They look the best and provide better light. You can find aftermarket oem headlights that are probably cheaper than buying them from satan. Mine are made by TYC and are exactly like the stock lights. Some members here and on other dsm sites may have some for sell as well.

I would think the aftermarket light would be easier to convert to hid than the stocker, just because of the lens housing inside the lamp itself.

I bought some projector ebay headlights and they shine so much better than my stock ones ever did. Plus you have the HID conversion posibilities.
-Todd

Originally posted by awugod
Which are easier to mod for HID, stockers or Ebayers, thanks.

The projectors are easier to mod for HID.

Out of the box, the light output sucks with the H1 and H3 bulbs. I personally have a set of stock headlights and projectors. OEM headlights own the projectors in brightness.

www.hidplace.com they carry diff kits and they fit diff lights, so just get a common size light like an H4 or a 9006 or something and get a kit to match and ur set to go. intsall takes like an hour to get it all in there nice and neat. i speak from experience

If you can find factory headlights in good condition get them. They are decent performers and they certainly look sweet. There are some aftermarket factory style lights out there that have horrible reflectors in them and while they look the same from outside they do NOT shine nearly as well as the original factory lamps with clear lenses. Be on the lookout for those. You don't want them except maybe to steal the lens for your old housing. Yes, you can add an HID kit to a factory housing but you will certainly cause glare to oncoming traffic. I ran a McCulloch HID kit in my factory housings for about a year but I was careful to first go inside them and reduce as much of the glare as I could by painting flat black over the chrome areas of the reflector bowls that were shining light above the cutoff. This was a lot of work for okay results. I really wanted true factory HID performance and in the end I did even more work when I retro-fitted a set of Hella E55 HID bi-xenons into a pair of Ebay projectors (after first removing the projectors and halos they came with).

Here is a shot of the headlight I modified to use with an HID kit. Glare was greatly reduced but it did not have the desired sharp cutoff of a true HID projector.





Fitting an HID projector into ANY Eclipse headlight housing is difficult. It has been done in all the popular types with varying degrees of success. Some look excellent and some leave a little to be desired due to trouble fitting cosmetic bezels around the projectors. In the picture below you'll see four lights I have experimented with. The ones on the bottom are the easiest to reto-fit. As you move up the job gets harder either due to alignment issues or bezel fit problems or just plain not enough room. The projector in the photo is a TSX unit and is a good candidate for installing into these housings. The E55 I did is a bi-xenon unit so it is bigger and much harder to work with.



This web link shows a few detailed shots of my E55 installation. I built a jig for checking rough alignment out of the vehicle. I had to cast two high-temp silicone rings to locate the front of the projector. The angel eyes had to be removed also to fit the large 3" projector.
http://www.rcaz.com/rcaz/sub%20indexes/E55_install/index.htm

Are you doing retro-fits for people now dave?

Originally posted by EclipseTenzoR
Are you doing retro-fits for people now dave?

No way. It's too labor intensive.

I am still looking for that one housing/projector combination that might make it feasible. I "accumulated" a few lights and decided to open them up and take some measurements for future reference.

Thanks for all you advice and input guys. I had been looking at Ebay projectors as I am going through and giving my car a new look since the factory paintjob was going to crap. Here in a couple of months I will be repainting my car black. Was thinking about adding a little red pearl into the first coat of clear to give a custom look. But I bought some Altezza brake lights that were blacked out (not the chrome ones), and had been looking at some of the Ebay projectors that were blacked out too. Think I may just go with the Ebayers sice that is what I was originally wanting. Anyways, thanks again.