DIY RS headlight install in Non RS car Help

[l008com]

Bump - I'm not the O.P., but I'm thinking about doing this myself. I skimped on the RS because I wanted to save some cash. But the biggest motivator for me doing this upgrade isn't the "cool look", it's that I can't see shit with stock headlights. The ****ing beam is barely wider than the car! It's horrible. So I figure if I can find a deal on some RS lights, I'll get the ability to see at night :-) and also the cool look of RS lights. But I have little experience working on cars. I'm pretty handy generally speaking though. Here's the info I'm looking for:

1) How do you take the light units out to begin with? I actually just found a youtube link before posting to this thread... but the video doesn't actually SHOW very much. A guy sticks his hand into a dark wheel well and that's supposed to show me how to do it...

2) Wiring. First I hear that this mod won't work because the computer will think something's wrong. Then I hear you can get a wiring harness to make it work? Where do you get these harnesses?
Is this just like the LED hacks on other cars? Where they draw so little power, the car thinks a bulb is out? If so, would it be better to just get the car's computer flashed rather than use the harness, because that means the harness would just have inline resistors to "waste" the extra power, so the xenons draw as much as the halogens. (or this whole thing could be wrong).

2a) Are ballast's included in the headlights themselves on the RS lights? Or are they a separate piece that I'd need to get?

3) Alignment? Back in the day headlights used to have alignment screws to get the beams right. Is this still the case? Or are these things made with enough precision that everything is lined up out of the box? If you do need to align them... how would you go about doing that?

[christianmotox]

Originally Posted by l008com

Bump - I'm not the O.P., but I'm thinking about doing this myself. I skimped on the RS because I wanted to save some cash. But the biggest motivator for me doing this upgrade isn't the "cool look", it's that I can't see shit with stock headlights. The ****ing beam is barely wider than the car! It's horrible. So I figure if I can find a deal on some RS lights, I'll get the ability to see at night :-) and also the cool look of RS lights. But I have little experience working on cars. I'm pretty handy generally speaking though. Here's the info I'm looking for:

1) How do you take the light units out to begin with? I actually just found a youtube link before posting to this thread... but the video doesn't actually SHOW very much. A guy sticks his hand into a dark wheel well and that's supposed to show me how to do it...
if you saw the video of the green camaro, then youre right on track, when you look in to the wheel well you will see 3 screws that will need to come out, plus all others that are described in the video


2) Wiring. First I hear that this mod won't work because the computer will think something's wrong. Then I hear you can get a wiring harness to make it work? Where do you get these harnesses?
Is this just like the LED hacks on other cars? Where they draw so little power, the car thinks a bulb is out? If so, would it be better to just get the car's computer flashed rather than use the harness, because that means the harness would just have inline resistors to "waste" the extra power, so the xenons draw as much as the halogens. (or this whole thing could be wrong).

You can get the wiring harness from AAC, but i higly recomend that you get OEM plugs they are like 40 bucs each. becuase AAC will only provide you with single connections that you will need to insert individually in to the pins, i personally did not liked that at all.
also i did not had any issues with the camaro's computer, you do not need to reflash the ECU

2a) Are ballast's included in the headlights themselves on the RS lights? Or are they a separate piece that I'd need to get?

Ballast should be included with the headlights, you can look for them they are round and are screwed to the bottom of the headlight.

3) Alignment? Back in the day headlights used to have alignment screws to get the beams right. Is this still the case? Or are these things made with enough precision that everything is lined up out of the box? If you do need to align them... how would you go about doing that?
I didnt had to re-align them, but they do have an alignment screw if you want to mess with it

Hope this info helps you, P.M. any other questions you have

[guyjusthere]

Very good answer Christian Moto

[WayneBrady]

To install rs lights (halo hid and fog) I need the

1.Bulbs
2.Housing
3.Some kind of special wire for the ECU

is this correct? Nothing needs to be done to the body right?

[l008com]

Bulbs and housing are one unit. At least that's how I got mine. Still trying to find a working wiring harness though.

[christianmotox]

You are right, but just to be clear you need the HID complete housing not just the bulbs.

And you will need to buy the Harness, AAC sells them and i believe some one else sells them.

And for the fogs, (If you have the LS) you will need the housing and you will need to cable it to a switch, because you're LS will not have the wiring, and the ECU will not be programed to just plug it in.

[christianmotox]

Originally Posted by l008com

Bulbs and housing are one unit. At least that's how I got mine. Still trying to find a working wiring harness though.

Did you tried AAC's wiring harness, i used that and it worked fine.

[l008com]

Yeah I did. It didn't work, had wrong connectors, missing connectors. They were going to call me back and they never did. And then one of their people told me I read the wiring diagram wrong, because the diagram has the headlight plugs listed in reverse order. So I ended up returning the harness. Then the other guy that sells them, otto something, never responds to messages. Now he apparently has PMs turned off on this forum. And nowhere in previous PMs or on any of his threads I've seen, has he ever given a link of where to buy his mythical harnesses. His website is just a home page and nothing else. So these brand new RS headlights have been sitting in a box in my house for maybe two months now :( I'm on the fence about wether I should just resell them, or holding out for another company to come up with a product.

[christianmotox]

Oh men, Sorry to hear that. I bet it must be very frustrating.
Maybe i can help you out with the harness., What exactly happened that it did not worked? the wiring diagram can be confusing (ive been there), but im sure we can figure it out.

[SirPhobos1]

AAC doesn't make the harness anymore, from what i've found out... which is a damn shame, because I don't know if ottobody does either. Like l008 said, ottobody's site is just a site, and nothing else. They promote their T/A conversion, and that's about it. I even wanted to buy their used set of halo's in a listing they had here, but have yet to see any responses in that thread...

Surely, there's an easy way to make a retrofit harness and make it 100% totally plug & play with no modifications whatsoever. it's all just wiring, right?

[christianmotox]

Wow, Its a shame that AAC does not make the harness any more, it had a lot of potential, all it needed was to include the OEM harness (35 bucs each from GMparts direct), and this would have been a true plug and play harness.

[l008com]

My AAC harness also lacked any connections at all for the halos. Also once they were installed and you turned your lights on, your lights would not turn off. I had to disconnect the harness's positive terminal to get them to turn off. The terminal that I had to install on the harness myself because from the factory, the power lead to the AAC harness had a loop on it that was WAY too small to fit on the ( + ) post. Also I was on the phone with one of their techs for a good hour trying to figure out why the harness wouldn't work at all, at first. We finally figured out that the diagram was upside down. No I wasn't holding it upside down, the diagram listed the connectors on the headlight lens upside down. So christianmotox I appreciate the offer, but there's nothing you could have done.

And if even AAC isn't making the harness anymore, then I guess my dream of being able to see at night while driving... is dead.

[christianmotox]

i wish i would have seen youre post's before when you still had the harness, now that i have the HID's i cant imagime drivimg with out them.

The way i was able to determine where to plug the cables is that i just unscrewed the plug on the headlight housing, so i could see where the black wire was, once i got that straight, i just followed with the other cables according to the diagram.

as far as the lights not turning off, the only time i had that is when i had my DRL on. after i disabled the DRL all was good.

Now i cabled the Halos to the fuse box, so when ever the switch is open, the Halos will be on, Basically now my halos are my DRL.

I suggest hold on to the headlights, im sure some one will come up with a harness.

Good Luck.

[l008com]

Halo's as DRL's is exactly how I wanted it. But when I say my headlights wouldn't turn off with the AAC harness, I mean AT ALL. Like even after I turned the car off and took the keys out, the lights would still stay on until I disconnected the harness from the positive battery terminal. Yeah I bet the lights not only look good, but provide amazing visibility. My previous 3 vehicles had xenon HID and it was great. Sucks for me.