Rep Power: 0

I have a 2016 EX and was wondering if it's possible to replacement the headlights with HID/LED lights? What would be involved if possible? Does it require any hardware changes or just simply replacing the bulbs?

Thanks!

 
Rep Power: 511

You have a few options

1) Drop in LED bulbs. Be careful though, not all LED bulbs are equal. Since I barely use my high beams and I know the light's gonna scatter like mad anyways, I dropped in some . I wouldn't do the same for the low beams, however. Drop in LED bulbs come in many different flavors, ones with built in drivers, external drivers, heat sinks, fans, no heat dissipation other than straight ambient. No matter what, the LED bulbs you'd purchase should include everything you'd need for installation (with the exception of mounting external drivers, if your model of choice has external drivers). No lie, the beam pattern on my high beam bulbs suck terribly, but again, they're high beams. They light up EVERYTHING and then some, so they do their job. Light scatter on these really suck, but again, high beams. lol

2) Drop in HIDs. These stock projectors are actually not bad when it comes to PnP HIDs. Previously on my 2002 civic, I did a full-on retrofit and the cutoff was beautiful. You don't get quite the pretty cutoff dropping in HIDs into the stock projectors, but the output beam pattern is much like stock, but with significantly better light output. I'm currently rocking a Morimoto Elite HID kit from theretrofitsource.com. I'm a huge advocate for buying from them because they have amazing products and even better customer service. You could probably get away with just the bulb and ballast set that plug into the OEM harness, but for consistency and better, safer performance, the Elite kit has the option of a relay harness, which I highly recommend. Mounting the ballasts and/or routing the relay harness for a clean install would be your biggest hurdle(s) in this case. I should note that on TRS's website, they say the 16+ civic uses H11A (or at least used to), and that's wrong. You'd need H11B bulbs if you go this route. It has to do with the position of the return wire line on the bulb in relation to the tabs. Get the wrong one, and you'll see the shadow of the return wire in the light beam. I'm running H11B with no shadow.

3) The previous option leads me to this: an HID retrofit. This method can be tricky, however, TRS makes a "retroquick" kit that includes HID projectors and the mounting bracket required to mount said HID projectors to the OEM adjuster bolts. This requires you to open your headlights, swap the projector (and bracket) in, and seal them back up. This might not be for the faint of heart, but it's really not that difficult once you get down to business. The adapter bracket, however, does require a small bit of trimming in order to fit, but it's nothing major. I should also add that if you peruse their website and add the individual components, it ends up being cheaper in your car. lol. This bracket is the same as OEM Nissan Altima (or was it Maxima.. something like that), so with minor modification, that Nissan HID projector could theoretically drop right in. I'm unsure of the size restrictions with that, but with retrofits, you're allowed to get creative, as long as it works. lol.

4) Direct LED replacement assemblies. TRS also makes drop-in headlight assembly that mimics the Touring trim headlights with full LED lighting. They have 2 versions: OE style, where LEDs get reflected to the road to produce the beam (and those are $500 + shipping for the set) or a set that utilizes LED-specific projectors that produce a better light output, and those will run you $850. I know there are more LED assemblies out there, but I heard they're in the realm of $1200, and you could always look into dropping in OEM touring headlights, but that'll run you waaaaaay more money.


More information you'd want to pay attention to would be bulb color. Standard halogens are around the 3500K color temperature range. OEM HID is usually.. 4350K or something like that. Most companies out there will offer 3000K (yellow), 4000K (warm white), 5000K or 5500K (color temperature of natural sunlight), 6000K (cool white), 8000K (white with a lot more blue), 10000K (straight blue), 12000K (damn near UV purple/pink). If I were you, I'd stick to 5000K for the best balance between whiteness and light output. The bluer the light, the worse the light output is. 5500K matches the OEM DRLs pretty well, I might add. Only place I'm not rocking 5000-5500K lights are my fogs, and I went "JDM-style" yellow, with 3000K LEDs. Threw caution to the wind with these guys and bought a . They're actually not terrible. Beam pattern for those are definitely not like stock, but much wider, but since it's a low cutoff and fog lights are meant to light up the side of the road more, I'm happy with them for that specific application.

edit: added links as I saw fit.