Better Headlights

[crouse]

What have you guys done for brighter headlights. Brighter bulbs or is there a LED or HID conversion?

[offroadkarter]

If you want to do it right, have a projector retrofit done. no other option is a good one.

I think that "Panther Lights" guy is still doing retrofits, reach out to him.

https://pantherlights.com/collections/custom-headlights

[crouse]

Yikes! That's a lot more than I want to spend. Thanks.

[burt ragio]

Started & found upgrading the standard bulbs offered little improvement. Few years later upgraded the wiring harness with relays showed a significant improvement. Best improvement will be from a projector. I finally stepped for www.retrofit .

[BAD MERC]

I did an HID 8000K conversion on mine when it was a year or two old. That's when HID lighting was new and EXPENSIVE and I was in the industry and was not the exception. I remember paying nearly a grand for my kit. Mine is bi-xenon and has four ballasts. I also did the foglights and at night it's like driving on white paper even with a tinted windshield. Generally reflector housings are horrible when retrofitting anything but standard bulbs. My light output, spill and horizon all seem to be acceptable and I have driven into my own headlamps and don't seem to have any issues with glare or being blinded. Having said that, now there's hundreds of cheap kits from all over the planet and I cannot speak for them. LED's are the new tech but modification of the housing to install the projector is necessary.

[blazen71]

LED will work in both style housing but is meant for reflective (stock) housings.
HID will work in both style housing but is meant for a projector housing with a cutoff line so oncoming traffic isn't blinded.

[03Merc]

I bought these bulbs and the harness, I think they work really great for the price. I went with 6000k, the more K the more Blue they are up to purple. 6000k is a very light blue almost white. If You want no blue at all have to do 5000k.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20221116/61eb8605f175ee90e5d3112ec71c5b 70.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20221116/b5682d38cbe5231da15ad07d2aa8f9 21.jpg


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[NXSBOB]

I bought these bulbs and the harness, I think they work really great for the price. I went with 6000k, the more K the more Blue they are up to purple. 6000k is a very light blue almost white. If You want no blue at all have to do 5000k.
What are you using for a bulb dust cover, that will no longer fit?

[offroadkarter]

Yikes! That's a lot more than I want to spend. Thanks.

you could DIY this if you wanted, it isn't that difficult to do on these cars. The last set I did for my 03 Marauder I went from opening the headlights to aiming them in the car in just a few hours.

https://www.theretrofitsource.com/bixenon-morimoto-mini-h1-stage-3?quantity=1

this would be the more budget setup (that morimoto H1 kit used to be 270 bucks for years)

https://www.theretrofitsource.com/bixenon-morimoto-mini-h1-stage-3?quantity=1

Your only other option would be a minor improvement by wiring the headlights directly to the battery, relay kits exist for this. I did this setup on a friends 04 sport years ago and it had a noticeable improvement but you're still working with the factory beam pattern.

https://www.crownvic.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2754205&page=1

PnP HID/LED bulbs (poverty beams) are not the answer, period. Neither are designed to work properly with an old halogen reflector type housing no matter what the Chinese marketing says on the box. Just because it "fits" doesn't mean its correct. How a halogen bulb emits light is different from how a xenon or LED emit light, which is the basis of the problem with putting different bulbs in a housing not designed for them. My advice would be, if you don't want to do it the right way with a projector retrofit, take the easy way out with the halogen relay harness upgrade and live with what Ford gave us.

Here are the lights on my old car that I put together and installed in the same day

https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-mFDXRkh/0/XL/i-mFDXRkh-XL.jpg (https://offroadkarter.smugmug.com/Cars-I-No-Longer-Own/2003-Mercury-Marauder/Headlight-Foglight-Retrofit/i-mFDXRkh/A)
https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-srfdRhp/0/XL/i-srfdRhp-XL.jpg (https://offroadkarter.smugmug.com/Cars-I-No-Longer-Own/2003-Mercury-Marauder/Headlight-Foglight-Retrofit/i-srfdRhp/A)
https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-dfX29xR/0/XL/i-dfX29xR-XL.jpg (https://offroadkarter.smugmug.com/Cars-I-No-Longer-Own/2003-Mercury-Marauder/Headlight-Foglight-Retrofit/i-dfX29xR/A)


and the setup I built back in 2012 for my DTR, little more involved since I used replica Infiniti FX35 projectors and had to custom build mounts. This one took me a couple weeks of tinkering, still working just fine after 10 years though

https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-7hxZwr2/0/XL/i-7hxZwr2-XL.jpg (https://offroadkarter.smugmug.com/Merc/2004-Mercury-Marauder/i-7hxZwr2/A)
https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-W5sszp7/0/XL/i-W5sszp7-XL.jpg (https://offroadkarter.smugmug.com/Merc/2004-Mercury-Marauder/i-W5sszp7/A)