'08 Projector Headlight and HID Install

One of the only things that I ever thought my tC was missing from the factory was HID headlights. I always assumed that they wouldn't sell them on Scions so that they had something to show as a difference between Scion and Toyota/Lexus. Luckily enough, there are plenty of third party HID kits on the market that don't cost an arm and a leg. The only problem is that if you don't want to blind people with them, you're going to want projector headlight housings to focus the beam and that was the problem - unlike some other models, there were no high-quality projectors available for the tC. Until recently your options were to go low-quality (sort of defeats the purpose) or buy projectors and retrofit them into your headlights (still quite expensive and the quality is only as good as you can make it). I didn't want to tempt fate, so I kept waiting. With the '08 model year, Scion rewarded my patience. The '08 tC comes with projector housings (non-HID of course) and they're a bolt in swap! I immediately ordered a pair and an HID upgrade. One thing to note is that the bulb sizes changed between the 05 and 08 model years, so I needed an HID kit that went from 9006 harnesses to H11 bulbs. Not a problem and we're ready to go.

Here's how things started off - looks fine, but no HID!

First thing's first - you've got to take off the whole bumper. There are 5 clips under the hood, then two screws in each wheel well (have to pull back the liner to get to one!) and then 7 more underneath.

The bumper just snaps off. Give it a yank. Don't be too scared! Once it's off, you've got two screws and a bolt holding each headlight in. Remove all the bulbs and wires. You'll need to pull the harness for the turn signal and parking light from each old housing and snap them onto the new one. The only other thing I did was bend the tab in the projector housing flat to remove the "squirrel spotter" light above the cutoff - it might be fine for halogen, but I don't want to blind anyone with my HIDs
Now comes the HID. Connect the red to your battery, the black to a grounding point on the car, the 9006 connector to one of your old headlight wires, and tape off the other one. Make sure your kit has relays and fuses - it just uses the old headlight wiring to give it the turn on signal - you DO NOT want to hook it up directly to the old headlight wiring! The only hard part is figuring out what to do with the HID ballasts. They're not small and not light, and the tC has little room for them. See the next two pictures for where I put mine - driver's side is on a frame piece that was big enough. Passenger's side is on the washer fluid tank - the only thing big and flat enough over there! I used industrial strength velcro and some zip ties for safety. It's not perfect, but it will do. 

Test it before you close things up, then reverse your steps and you're done! Make sure that all the plastic pieces are where they should be before screwing it all back together. Take a picture and see how your new lights look!

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Page 1 - Intro
Page 2 - Strut Bar Install
Page 3 - xD Paint Submissions
Page 4 - '08 Projector Headlight/HID Install (you are here)