Hella black magic HC3 conversion vs 500 with the smoke shieldz

Googled and searched each thread on here involving the Hella Black Magics and the ability to convert them to HID. I realize that the challenge is that regular H3 bulbs won't fit due to hitting the black crosshair material inside. Someone said that H3C bulbs do fit, however.

The strange thing is, there are no threads saying that anyone has done this that are past around 2010. Has something better come along that I'm missing?

I want to put the lights behind my satoshi, so I think I would want them to be dark and barely visible when off, vs the bright silver regular Hella 500 look.

If the H3C is easy to retrofit into the Black Magics, it seems like a quick Ebay search turns up a ton of H3C 55 watt kits for $40. Surprised I don't see threads about anyone buying these and putting them in the black magics. Looks like the few threads on here show people who buy the regular H3 bulb kit (DDM or wherever) and then buying all new H3C bulbs... not sure why they didn't just buy the H3C kit to begin with, unless those kits are pure junk or something.

Otherwise, it seems like an option to get the 500's and a normal DDM H3 kit, and the Hella Color Shieldz in smoke. What I haven't been able to find in a thread is wither the smoke shields kill light output (in addition to being behind the Satoshi...am I wasting my time here?! )

Anyone have thoughts on which direction to go, or recently successfully converted the black magics?

Thanks

 

Don't know if you've made any progress on this but I just found a How To on a Jeep forum. A guy put HIDs in his Black Magics. It seems fairly simple. It was written in 2011, so newer than what you've been able to find but still not brand new.

http://www.jk-forum.com/forums/jk-electrical-lighting-sound-systems-13/hid-black-magic-hella-conversion-195394/

 

Ended up going with the 500's and getting to smoke shieldz for them. In pretty happy.

 

Without and with a smoked shieldz

 

Looks good man! What's the light output like with the smoked shieldz? Is the output pretty close to what its like without the shieldz?

 

It's still like the force of 1000 suns. I don't think the shieldz feminist the output much, with 55 watt HIDs