uhh what??? sorry no. on the passenger side the only thing restricting space on the headlight is physically the air box, so you can either remove that very easily or just put your hand around it. now on the driver side it isnt as bad as it looks. for better room the windshield wiper fluid reservoir turn unscrews from its container. also the battery voltage meter off to the side of the battery unlatches and allows you to get your hands down there just fine. i dont think gm intended you to remove the headlights, if you had to you would , you would have to remove the whole bumper. as for what ive told you this works and i have fully converted everything but my high beams due to lack of fundage. word of caution you will have issues with the day time running light function. to fix this on mine two relay kits were installed on the turn signal light power wire. so when its night time the wire gets a full twelve volts and the stock head light and stock fog light wires are no longer used.
People don't generally realise that the way an arc lamp (which an HID bulb is) put out light in a very different manner than an incandescent lamp.
While it is really cool that our reflectors have a sharp cutoff compared to normal lights, it does not mean that they're designed for an HID capsule. The cars you see with reflectors that have true HIDs and a sharp cutoff (like the older Prii) have reflectors specifically designed for the way an arc lamp emits light. They use special bulbs with an R suffix (e.g. D2R) to denote that they're specifically designed for use only with an HID reflector headlamp. Even though they use reflectors like ours do, the reflectors are engineered to produce a beam based on the arc capsule's unique light source. Putting an HID capsule in a reflector headlamp that's not designed for it will cause issues like light scatter, glare, and hotspots pointing in odd directions that blind other drivers and can cause accidents I've almost driven off the road because some ricer thought it cool to shove HID capsules in their normal headlamps. Rain, snow, and fog only make these problems worse.
HID lamps that use projectors are far more common nowadays and have projectors designed for the way an arc lamp emits light. Shoving a rebased HID capsule in a projector designed for halogen may get more acceptable results than putting the same capsule in a reflector, but it's far from the correct and safe way to do things and often leads to hot spots pointing in weird directions that become distracting and annoying for other drivers. Projectors the are used for a proper retrofit are deigned for an HID capsule and have the correct optic dimensions to make a sharp, precise, focused beam that gives you the colour and sharp cutoff you're looking for and only blinds oncoming traffic if you forget to switch our high beams off. You can tell they're designed for HID bulbs because the only ones that will fit them have an S at the end of the size (e.g. D2S). If I remember, the S stands for Shield, which is what hear projectors use to properly focus the light.
In order to retrofit these projectors in the lamps of the Sonic, the headlights have to be taken apart.
Ergo, to add HIDs, you MUST remove the headlight units from the car. It is the ONLY safe and responsible way to perform a retrofit.
I'm passionate enough about this topic that I just typed this all on an old iPhone (I'm waiting for my Android replacement in the mail). I used to be a professional driver, delivering pizza in the mountains of NH, so I can appreciate having immensely powerful headlights. I also know firsthand at how painful and damaging they can be if not used properly. Please, for the love of your car, fellow drivers, and the friends here on SOF, retrofit your car properly?
PS, running the signal wire off the Marker lights is a great idea. I may steal that when I do my retrofit.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
