So I just got my HIDs installed, and while it's a much needed improvement on the lighting, I'm still not satisfied.

So I'm thinking of adding some extra lights (to turn on with the high beams) behind my grill. Either a projector with no cutoff, or a small reflector housing. Add to that a 55w HID kit, and I think I'll have all the nighttime visibility I could ask for.

Has anyone done this? Pics? Any other ideas on where to mount these?

 

why do you need it so bright?

 

I like this idea. I know it sounds kinda hondaish but I drive at 9 pm and 6 am through deer country in the middle of wisconsin and some extra lighting would be fantastic.

 

Honestly get retrofits. On my old explorer I had Piaa 540 driving lights which were good but my retrofits on my cobalt are quite a bit brighter than the explorer. The hids in my retros have a taller beam pattern in the highbeam mode and have a very wide beam pattern which is amazing for lighting up ditches. And they still light **** up miles down the road (literally) They are expensive to buy but so are decent auxiliary driving lights...

 

Trust me they're a hell of alot cheaper then hittin the damn racooon!

 

i also had these rigged up for a while.



for highway driving. i could hook them up in like 10 minutes which i did before road trips in the middle of the night

 

I have Gen 2's with the high beams rigged to trigger my low beam relay. In other words, when I switch to high beams, the lows remain on.

 

I'm about to give up on this idea. There just isn't a good mounting location for driving lights. The bottom half of the top grill only has about 2.5" of usable opening for the lights to come through, and almost no way to mount lights.

The bottom grill has about 4" of opening, but there's no room to mount anything because of the intercooler (my car is an SS/TC). Anything more than 2" deep is too deep. You could chop up the bottom grill and let them stick out a little. There's a solid place to mount them just inside. But I think it would look like crap to have lights sticking out of the grill.

The only place to mount them, really, would be in place of the original for lamps. That's fine with me, I don't even use my fogs.

Anyone know of a good projector light (with no cutoff) that would fit in place of the original fog lamps?

I found these PIAA driving lights. They are a small, reflector housing, and they look like they just might work.

PIAA 00412 - PIAA 004XT Driving Lights - Overview - SummitRacing.com

Opinions?

 

Fog lamps r too low for driving lights. The angle makes it like impossible to get quality light down on the road. They need to mounted fairly high up for any decent light output

 

roof mount!

 

Perfect!!! It'll go great with my glue-on hood scoop and my "Powered by Chevy" sticker!

Idk... I may just have to bail on this idea.

Retros would be great, but I can't handle dealing with that guy on buyhids.com. He does not know how to treat customers at all. I was going to buy retros from that guy, but after emailing him a few times, I decided I wasn't comfortable with giving him $500 of my money.

Everyone else seems to be a lot more expensive... that's why I picked up an HID kit from V-LEDS. Works great, and it's a huge improvement (5000k). Lights up the ditches like a charm, but it doesn't send a strong beam down the center of the road. Seems to be a limitation of the cobalt's headlight housing.

Won't be too long before I sell this car anyways... lol. I'm terrified to keep this thing after the extended warranty... it's spent more time in the shop than it has on the road.

 

haha what was "the guy from buyhids.com" saying that you just decided it wasn't a good investment lol? That is funny. PM some members on here and they'd probably build you a set for a lot cheaper.