New here - hope I am doing this right.

I just got a 2017 F-150 XLT with the 3.5 EcoBoost V6.

I ordered the Anzo headlights, and an HID conversion kit.

My main questions are - Do I buy the 35W kit or 55W kit?

I bought, what I think, is a good quality kit, 55W, but want to make sure I dont ZAP my trucks systems.

My other question is, is the STOP/START feature for MPG going to cause any problems?

Thanks,
Nathan

 

I believe the anzo headlight come with the ''LED bar'' that acts as running light, right? If you are in the USA, you don't have DRLs so don't bother.

The auto S/S will not affect anything.

55W is brighter (and hotter). 35W is a little less brighter (but still very good) and cooler. Either way, you won't ''zap'' anything.

Did you consider LED bulbs? They are as bright, but consume a lot less energy & last longer.

 

I went with the Anzo's for the look and for the projector style headlight.

The LED light bars will just be coming on with the parking lights, and that is OK - I am just more concerned with having GOOD headlights.

I am coming from a Genesis G80 with AMAZING headlights, to crumby stock lights on the F-150.

Yes, I have considered LED - but all the trusted experts say HID's have better light output, and are backing the facts with actual light meters, so I went with HID.

 

Your HID lights will burn out sooner with the 55W kit because all its doing is over-driving the light itself--35W is "plenty" and all you really need!

 

Are the projectors in the Anzo’s the Correct projectors for HID lights?

 

You need a relay harness and antiflicker capacitor. 55w will be fine but you will get more life out of the 35w.

 

I just recently installed Anzos in my 2015 and also installed HIDs. I used 45w from Lightwerkz and everything works great and gives a ton of light.

https://www.lightwerkz.net/index.php...id-system.html is the kit I used with the 4500k and HD relay harness. (It's a total PITA to find a place to mount the ballasts and relays, but in the end it was worth it)

 

ok, I got you here.

The start stop feature gave the first kid I tried fits. It would completely shut off the head lights when the engine would kick back on. Some times the ballasts would recover and come back on, some times they wouldn't. This was unacceptable.

I ended up replacing the cheaper kit that was supplied with a canbus harness with a Morimoto 55w kid with the HD relay harness. This harness pulls straight from the battery and uses the factory headlight plug (the h7 from the anzo's) as a trigger for the relay harness. Voila, start stop issues fixed.

Now for another issue I learned the hard way. Flicker. THere are a few solutions to this. I tried both and I'll tell you my preferred option. You can use anti-flicker capacitors that go inline between your ballasts and your factory wiring. This method works fine, but is yet another little brick you gotta figure out a way to hide.

THe other method to fix this flicker is using FORSCAN. I started with LED's and got very bad flicker which also reared its head with the HID's. The forscan method did the trick. No more flicker and no bricks to hide.

One last thing with HID's got me because I didn't read all the way. 55W ballasts will reduce your bulb color by about 1000k. I bought 4500k wanting the factory color, but as of right now I have head lights more yellow than the factory halogens as I wait for replacement 5500k bulbs.

I made a lot of stupid mistakes buying different lights for my anzo's. I hope my financial endeavors and the experience I gained save you time and money. If you have any questions, feel free to message me.

 

Besides shortening the life of HID bulbs, running them at 50W or higher can also burn out the surface of the reflector bowl. It happens even with good quality OEM projectors, and the Anzo projectors IMO fall short on that quality. I've seen pictures of projector bowls burnt after only a few months of running at higher wattage. Not worth the extra bit of light IMO.

 

I too am gathering info for an upgrade of some kind and wondered why the two options of 55 or 35w