INSTALL GUIDE: European headlight installation with LED headlight bulbs and LED running light wiring

[chalituna]

Was anyone able to successfully install the headlight leveling function? I too have a TYC headlamps with the headlight beam being way too low and I suspect it's the leveling motor being stuck at the lowest setting...

 

[danbfree]

Sorry in advance for additional thread bombing, but this is a great write-up and deserves a bump as well as people should know what's available out there now as an alternative to the OEM Euro's

So cars245.com did have the TYC's available and I was intending to buy those at $125 each side plus shipping, but when I finally went to buy them they had quit carrying those and were carrying Depo for $141 each plus shipping. If anything, I have heard Depo were slightly higher quality than TYC, both decent Taiwan replicas. So I ordered them and initially shipping was $55 but after 10 days of processing time they said the shipping company needed $17 more, so had to pony that up too and they are now finally on the way, I'm hoping to have them this coming weekend but with my luck they will come next Monday, but hey, it's not too major of an install, right? It's something I can knock out after work.

HERE is the link to headlights, they are the Depo with projectors, again, at $141 each side.

Anyway, I'm hoping the original front page post here is what I need to do to have the DRL on low whenever on to start with, I may eventually do a whole harness thing to get the separate low and high DRL output but as long as it lights up at all, I'm happy to have the projectors to begin with. Also, I know we don't have a lot of the modules that more expensive Ford vehicles have but I'm hoping that maybe some ForScan settings might apply to this too since I have that all setup and have done some other changes with it.

Maybe [MENTION=2176]blurred[/MENTION] or [MENTION=3967]V_2[/MENTION], can you confirm that changing the one pin as shown on the first page enables the LED into low DRL at all times? Also, we can enabled "dipped" low beam DRL's like they have in Canada with low voltage low beams right in Forscan. Do you know if that works and won't wear out/strain HID bulbs with this enabled too?

 

[blurred]

Maybe [MENTION=2176]blurred[/MENTION] or [MENTION=3967]V_2[/MENTION], can you confirm that changing the one pin as shown on the first page enables the LED into low DRL at all times? Also, we can enabled "dipped" low beam DRL's like they have in Canada with low voltage low beams right in Forscan. Do you know if that works and won't wear out/strain HID bulbs with this enabled too?

Doing the pin leaves the led strip in high mode. I left it this was and it is fine, not too bright or anything as I have seen suggested imho

Now, with DRL function the US and Canadian cars are quite different due to the DRL function in Canadian cars being ECU based and can only be turned on or off, but not switched to different lighting systems, so in my case my lights are just manual (or Auto mode but the strip only comes on with full headlight package turning on). In the US cars (I believe) you can switch the DRL to the parking lights, fog lights, or keep it on low beams? If that is the case the optimal setting would be to switch the DRL function to parking lights (as now your front turn signals are no longer parking+turn, they are just turn) as swapping the pin gives parking light power to the strip.

You do NOT use the HID on low voltage mode, so at minimum either turn off DRL or swap them.

 

[danbfree]

Doing the pin leaves the led strip in high mode. I left it this was and it is fine, not too bright or anything as I have seen suggested imho

Now, with DRL function the US and Canadian cars are quite different due to the DRL function in Canadian cars being ECU based and can only be turned on or off, but not switched to different lighting systems, so in my case my lights are just manual (or Auto mode but the strip only comes on with full headlight package turning on). In the US cars (I believe) you can switch the DRL to the parking lights, fog lights, or keep it on low beams? If that is the case the optimal setting would be to switch the DRL function to parking lights (as now your front turn signals are no longer parking+turn, they are just turn) as swapping the pin gives parking light power to the strip.

You do NOT use the HID on low voltage mode, so at minimum either turn off DRL or swap them.

As far as I understand, we have the same shitty ECU basic module options as that's how Ford did it for all of North America, which cover the dipped setting for Canada legality and shit for else, heh, which totally sucks... Now through ForScan, I did try the few different options in there with the OEM reflectors and they made zero difference with engine on/off, parking brake on/off, etc, and this is with LED's that don't support low-voltage dipped headlights for Canada DRL's anyway. But now you at least gave me the idea of possibly seeing if those other settings DO work once I install the the new headlights. In any case I'm pretty certain you have those same 3-4 options in a total of one module setting too, if you were to get into ForScan yourself... So, I'm not sure what to do, as I don't want the LED DRL on high all the time as they do glare at night from what I've seen pics of and what others have said. Absolutely no offense to your opinion on that man, I appreciate every tiny bit of advice you've provided.

When all is said and done, I guess I'll need to just install them with no wiring changes first and see if any of those ForScan options do anything, then look into options from there. I really just want the LED DRL on low all the time the engine is running with parking brake off like your guys legally required DRL's up there...

 

[danbfree]

So, things are getting confusing and have a trio of concerns:

1. Can't get a clear answer on wiring pins. According to these pics we shouldn't have to move anything for DRL in Low at all times, right? With one pic of each side of the connector, so they are reversed, we are already wired in pin 6 for DRL on low... Then why would we need to move the pin from 3 to 8, which is supposed to be for the leveling motor? Is the Euro wiring labels incorrect on the right pic? The bottom is cut off but shows that pin 9 is for DRL High. I truly am on information overload here and don't know what to believe any more. Also just can't believe no one tried ForScan before coming up with a complex wiring harness just to get low-high proper DRL functionality. I'm not afraid of moving pins around but again, can't figure out what to believe. For this I'm going to plug them in as is and try ForScan and see what happens, otherwise assume the Euro wiring pic labeling is wrong, otherwise I don't get why you'd have to move the existing wire already in what's labelled as DRL low to Leveling motor to get DRL low...


2. Still not sure if an H7 full HID conversion kit will be completely plug and play or not or need mount plates or anything. I'm REALLY wishing now I jumped on the Hikari Ultra LED when they were on flash sale plus a 10% off coupon for $63 total, UGH... Still might just return the HID's and get the Katana for around $45 that do work pretty well.

3. AAAAND the freaking leveling motor, how it will likely not be set right as its intended to. Reading far too much crap on this has me really worried.

Where to go from here:
First, once housings arrive, try to install the H7 HID kit as is and see if I get a proper mount in the bulb seat. If they don't fit right, try contacting DDM Tuning support since they were nice and helpful and let me know they had great results with their kit on another FiST with Euro conversion.

Second, assuming I can get the bulbs mounted properly, just hook them up and try them, see what happens. Then try ForScan and see if any of the options there change anything. If they don't, just do the one wiring pin as shown in the left pic/front page here and see if the harness kit becomes available, who knows.

Third, if the leveling motors are set to a bad position to where I can't adjust them, I don't know... Then, honestly, what I may do is have these GDMF'ing things sit until I have the money to get the projectors upgraded and get the levelling crap fixed with the headlights split. Then I'm out the money for the H7 HID kit when it's like another $200 for a whole projector upgrade with new proper D2S bulbs and that's not even the higher end stuff, that's just the DDM Tuning stuff which is OK but not the greatest...

I'm SERIOUSLY regretting buying these now, there is just TOO many issues and not enough clear knowledge on this stuff along with no budget to just throw money at the problem... Maybe I'm worried for nothing and it could end up completely 100% PnP as long as I'm happy with the DRL's on low, with maybe the one pin swap.

 

[nemesisfool]

I've had these for 2 years now, the OEM projectors. I bought mine directly from Ford UK with the German spec. I have a USDM 14 car so idk what differences in wiring exists with Canadian cars.

1) I tried FORScan on the original wiring and it didn't work. At all. The is a completely different wiring loom in the UK models. We do not have wiring on either end to make the motors work.

I have seen some specilulation that if you add the proper wiring to the whole loom you can turn the feature on FORscan and have it working.

I just repinned it, it's one pin and not difficult. Just be careful not to break anything. As it currently sits, the parking light is wired into the leveling motor so it will not work as a DRL unless you repin it, I suggest just to move it to pin 6 instead so it's always in low-output mode. The brightness of high output at night is blinding.

2) if you get an HID kit designed for an H7 bulb it will work. I've had 2 different kits installed in my headlights, the most recent are from TRS I got an H7 morimoto HID kit. It did not require any adaptors or mount plates for the bulb. You will need to find a way to mount your ballasts though.

3) you do not need to use the motors to level these. I've leveled my headlights manually countless times, leveling them is really easy, you just need an Allen key (I don't know the size, I just use the same one every time). It's accessible from the top and lights up with the headlamp, making it easy to do at night.

Adjusting them left or right though is a bit more complicated, not difficult but time consuming. You just need the correct socket (I think this thread shows which one it is at the top) and you can conly adjust them with the headlight off the car. So I just mounted them and unmounted until they were perfect. But honestly, they came in pretty much good from the factory so should not even bother IMO.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[danbfree]

I've had these for 2 years now, the OEM projectors. I bought mine directly from Ford UK with the German spec. I have a USDM 14 car so idk what differences in wiring exists with Canadian cars.

1) I tried FORScan on the original wiring and it didn't work. At all. The is a completely different wiring loom in the UK models. We do not have wiring on either end to make the motors work.

I have seen some specilulation that if you add the proper wiring to the whole loom you can turn the feature on FORscan and have it working.

I just repinned it, it's one pin and not difficult. Just be careful not to break anything. As it currently sits, the parking light is wired into the leveling motor so it will not work as a DRL unless you repin it, I suggest just to move it to pin 6 instead so it's always in low-output mode. The brightness of high output at night is blinding.

2) if you get an HID kit designed for an H7 bulb it will work. I've had 2 different kits installed in my headlights, the most recent are from TRS I got an H7 morimoto HID kit. It did not require any adaptors or mount plates for the bulb. You will need to find a way to mount your ballasts though.

3) you do not need to use the motors to level these. I've leveled my headlights manually countless times, leveling them is really easy, you just need an Allen key (I don't know the size, I just use the same one every time). It's accessible from the top and lights up with the headlamp, making it easy to do at night.

Adjusting them left or right though is a bit more complicated, not difficult but time consuming. You just need the correct socket (I think this thread shows which one it is at the top) and you can conly adjust them with the headlight off the car. So I just mounted them and unmounted until they were perfect. But honestly, they came in pretty much good from the factory so should not even bother IMO.

First, THANK YOU, for the quick reply on this, I have really been stressing out, LOL... So I'm hearing conflicting info, no one can even agree the right way to count the pins, so going by the numbers in my pic above I need to move from pin 6 to pin 1 for Low DRL's, just like the OP did, right? And that's just on the the car harness... I agree I don't want the massive glare at night, I got these mainly for the projectors anyway, yada, yada, so I'll start with pin 6 to 1 as suggested... Still can't help but wonder if the right pin combo would work with ForScan, as I swear there was an LED option in the one setting we have in the BCM module, maybe I can experiment a little more, but not too worried about it now. From what I understand the Canadian cars have the same exact setup we do, they do just have the low beam dipped for their DRL's with the regular halogen bulbs in the regular reflector housings we have, so that's propb all that ForScan does, which is confirmed to work with halogen bulbs on US cars too, rental/fleet cars in the US are often setup this way anyway.

For mounting the ballasts, I've got some pieces of thick 3M mounting tape, likely on top of the fuse box the driver side and for the passenger side, vertically on the inner fender... I'm hoping that's gonna be fine.

I saw a pic on a post somewhere here for the aiming, shouldn't be a big deal, but since I went Depo and not Ford OEM, it's still a concern they are not popped into the right place, etc, we'll see... Thanks again for chiming in right away, I do feel a bit better about this already!

 

[chalituna]

As far as I know, the reason for moving the pin location on this step is to have the parking wire 6 (which is blank on Euro headlights) and supplying it to 1 (which is LED High) to be always on when you have parking light on.

I think you're getting confused with the picture above with moving pin 3 to 8. The picture above is showing moving pin 6 to 1. Since it's the opposite side of the plug, you have to read the pin backwards. Since female plug reads 1 -> 8 across, male side will read 8 -> 1

I also highly recommend Virtual Ronin's write up to enable automatic low/high output of the DRL instead of depending on parking light to enable it.

https://www.fiestastforum.com/threads/16161-Euro-Headlight-DRL-Wiring-Enabling-High-and-Low-Output

Feel free to PM me if you're still confused regarding the wiring.

 

[nemesisfool]

You're confused on the pins, you want to move pin 3 to 6 for LED low.

Here's an different/older pic of the difference between the wiring pinouts i found in a different forum. Should give you a better understanding of the differences.


FORscan does not have an option for LED but it has an option for which headlamp style you want to have, however our cars do not have the proper wiring so our only option is to repin or add the additional wiring ourselves. I've tried countless times.

I mounted my ballasts on the front crash beam with 3M tape. Haven't had any issues with them.

There's a local fiesta here with Depo lights and when compared they were practically identical. He did not have any issues with aiming them or installing an HID kit, hopefully nothing is broken during shipping which would be my biggest concern.

 

[danbfree]

As far as I know, the reason for moving the pin location on this step is to have the parking wire 6 (which is blank on Euro headlights) and supplying it to 1 (which is LED High) to be always on when you have parking light on.

I think you're getting confused with the picture above with moving pin 3 to 8. The picture above is showing moving pin 6 to 1. Since it's the opposite side of the plug, you have to read the pin backwards. Since female plug reads 1 -> 8 across, male side will read 8 -> 1

I also highly recommend Virtual Ronin's write up to enable automatic low/high output of the DRL instead of depending on parking light to enable it.

https://www.fiestastforum.com/threads/16161-Euro-Headlight-DRL-Wiring-Enabling-High-and-Low-Output

Feel free to PM me if you're still confused regarding the wiring.

I just had someone on the FB group help correct me on this too, thanks for clarifying, I'll be trying pin 9 for first, for Low... I've read every single thread on here about this and it just overwhelmed me with info, but I do know that you need a harness made to do that full low and high as intended but I'm not trying to get into that, for now anyway...

 

[chalituna]

You're confused on the pins, you want to move pin 3 to 6 for LED low.

Here's an different/older pic of the difference between the wiring pinouts i found in a different forum. Should give you a better understanding of the differences.
View attachment 20357

FORscan does not have an option for LED but it has an option for which headlamp style you want to have, however our cars do not have the proper wiring so our only option is to repin or add the additional wiring ourselves. I've tried countless times.

I mounted my ballasts on the front crash beam with 3M tape. Haven't had any issues with them.

There's a local fiesta here with Depo lights and when compared they were practically identical. He did not have any issues with aiming them or installing an HID kit, hopefully nothing is broken during shipping which would be my biggest concern.

I made this diagram a long time ago and it's inaccurate. The correct wiring output for Euro Ford OEM and TYC is:

1: LED Hi
2: Low Beams
3: Level
4: High Beams
5: Turn Signal
6: Level
7: Low Beams/LED Ground
8: Level
9: Low LED
10: High Beam/TS Ground

Depo Euro headlight is:

 

[danbfree]

You're confused on the pins, you want to move pin 3 to 6 for LED low.

Here's an different/older pic of the difference between the wiring pinouts i found in a different forum. Should give you a better understanding of the differences.

FORscan does not have an option for LED but it has an option for which headlamp style you want to have, however our cars do not have the proper wiring so our only option is to repin or add the additional wiring ourselves. I've tried countless times.

I mounted my ballasts on the front crash beam with 3M tape. Haven't had any issues with them.

There's a local fiesta here with Depo lights and when compared they were practically identical. He did not have any issues with aiming them or installing an HID kit, hopefully nothing is broken during shipping which would be my biggest concern.

So first, thank you, I appreciate it! But, I think you are counting pins backwards from others and I already saw that pic above, I'm just going to do exactly what OP did but with the pin right below where he says to put it, like here, for Low, right?:


I literally can't even imagine/visualize mounting the ballasts on the crash beam, the cabling really reaches that long?

And thanks for confirming that you've tried every possible combination with ForScan, I accept that now all you can do is enable regular halogen low beam low voltage Canadian DRL's with the lack of wiring we have, which obviously won't apply to HID...

 

[danbfree]

I made this diagram a long time ago and it's inaccurate. The correct wiring output for
Depo Euro headlight is:

Whoa! Another mind-eff, I have the Depo coming so I do need to use the TOP one, as OP of this thread did for Low, correct? OR does this mean I'm good to go as-is as thread OP had a '16+ like my '17 and it shows already that it's in the right pin for Depo???? Going by the male/female orientation it looks like I'm already wired right for Depo?

 

[nemesisfool]

You're right, my apologies! Just move the pin exactly as OP did and you're good to go.

 

[chalituna]

Whoa! Another mind-eff, I have the Depo coming so I do need to use the TOP one, as OP of this thread did for Low, correct? OR does this mean I'm good to go as-is as thread OP had a '16+ like my '17 and it shows already that it's in the right pin for Depo???? Going by the male/female orientation it looks like I'm already wired right for Depo?

As far as I can tell, looks like you don't need to move any wires if you're going with Depo. parking wire should go straight into LED low ouput according to the wiring diagram. OP used the OEM headlight so his wiring diagram is a bit different.

 

[danbfree]

You're right, my apologies! Just move the pin exactly as OP did and you're good to go.

Aaand actually since I have Depo coming, thanks to [MENTION=731]chalituna[/MENTION] we now know that they are the one of the 3 to have the pin in the right place already for us, so this has been a moot point all along! LOL!

Edit: This is old and wrong, all 3 need the one wire moved the same.

 

[danbfree]

As far as I can tell, looks like you don't need to move any wires if you're going with Depo. parking wire should go straight into LED low ouput according to the wiring diagram. OP used the OEM headlight so his wiring diagram is a bit different.

Edit: This is wrong. all 3 brands need the wire moved.

OMG, I would have been trying to move wires around for NOTHING! LOL, thank you so much for making sure to clarify the Depos' are different! I would have never figured that, ever, you would think they are supposed to be clones of the OEM, let's hope that this is still the case and hasn't changed... How was it determined that the pic you provided was for Depo? Did someone with Depo post that and from everyone else with OEM or TYC they figured this out?

 

[chalituna]

OMG, I would have been trying to move wires around for NOTHING! LOL, thank you so much for making sure to clarify the Depos' are different! I would have never figured that, ever, you would think they are supposed to be clones of the OEM, let's hope that this is still the case and hasn't changed... How was it determined that the pic you provided was for Depo? Did someone with Depo post that and from everyone else with OEM or TYC they figured this out?

Yeah it was on that thread with the low/high harness by VirtualRonin. The thread has good info and it's worth a read

 

[TyphoonFiST]

So let me get this right....with the DEPO's you don't need to move wiring? Vs the Stock Euros you Do?

 

[chalituna]

So let me get this right....with the DEPO's you don't need to move wiring? Vs the Stock Euros you Do?

That was from the info I got from the other thread. I've never seen the Depo LHD lights in person so I can't be 100% sure. What I can tell for sure is that Euro OEM/LHD TYC both had the pin 6 (parking light) missing while the pic of Depo above showing the pin.