Saijin_Naib

HID Conversion Kit

Okay, what does this mean? Does this mean you can use HID (xenon) bulbs now with this kit? Or does this simply mean that regular halogen bulbs can be run up to 140w instead of 65 or whatever? I dont understand, can someone clarify?

CDP

wow that is such a cheap *** "HID" kit.

It's basically 9004 stock bulbs made to look like HID ones.

Stay away from that auction. haha

Look to spend $250+ for a nice set of HID's.

ebennz

first you have 2 different technologies-you will NEVER find a halogen bulb that color matches and HID.

if you put a 9004 re-based hid bulb and ballast [ILLEGAL set-up BTW] you are spending good money on a bad idea at best.

the beam pattern sucks on it's best day!!
so now you have [spent money for] a hyped up sucky beam pattern. you still have a b.s. beam pattern-just a lot more of it.
what have you really gained?

buy euro lights and finally see.
you will give your 15 year old classic the facelift it really needs.

OE bosch or hella WILL give you the best fit and finish and performance, however a knock-off brand euro light is still better than a bosch dot w124 light.
you will have a more effective light/beam pattern and GLASS lensed, LESS GLARE set-up [if you still go that way]and a better platform for an HID add on later.

by the time you up-date the plastic headlight surrounds, buy all you stuff you will have easily bought a OE set of euro lights and have something someone else may want someday.

Saijin_Naib

Okay, so this thing is not worth it at all? Are those high-powered relays legit or ?
How about this kit? Another HID kit

Or this kit (super expensive )
Yet antoher HID kit

YNVDIZW124

Real HID lights have a ballast and D2S/R Xenon Bulbs.It dosen't have to be that expensive and you don't have to buy cheap replica kits. You can buy a O.E setup from a 350z or Infinity (Not too blue or purple) on ebay for around $150.

Saijin_Naib

Okay, and what would I need to make that work? And those kits i showed you, those arent real HID? Like, whats the problem with them? Im not sure I understand...

YNVDIZW124

All you need is a 12v connection to make all HID lights work. The ballast is what produces the high voltage. You just find the tap into the ground and 12v wire on your headlight plug and that's it. The most expensive one is a real HID kit but low quality. I trust more a O.E setup and retrofit it into our cars.

Saijin_Naib

Ahhhh Okay.. I wish that they made w124 HID kits with lenses and stuff in one package so I could just buy it and not have to worry that i will **** it up when I go to install it :\

natural_person

Just stuffing D2S bulbs into a light made for a H4 bulb results in a very bright light with a terrible pattern. You'll end up blinding everyone! Best way is to buy a set of cheap Taiwanese lights off ebay that have CLEAR front lenses and retrofit a set of genuine projectors. I finally finished mine, took about 70 hours of work, thanks to Rik's instructions at www.2phast.com/500e (Rik, you are a Master Craftsman! Wow! I struggle along but you can tell this guy is GOOD. I could not have made these without his info at his site. Rik, how do I send you some money?) It was a ^&*$#@ of a job, but I learned a lot, the next pair (ha!) would take me half the time.

Pic#1 - Daytime Running Lights (I'm in Canada) wired to inboard H3's only at 75% power - bulbs should last forever. Got the DRL off Ebay also.
Pic#2 - Xenon high beams also activates the inboard H3's.
Pic #3 - closeup at high beam
Pic #4 - closeup at low beam. At low beam the inboard DRL's automatically shut off (good thing too, since the H3's throw a lousy light pattern).
Pic #5 - - closeup of DRL's running during daytime.

Saijin_Naib

Dude, it looked beautiful on 2phast, and its beautiful on yours! Good job my man! I would probably go for the black projector lenses myself, and then fit the projector inside the ready-made cups.. But the chrome-euro look fits your car beatufiully. Was it worth the work you think? Hows the light pattern?

natural_person

The pattern is AMAZING. It's just pure light from side to side. I can read licence plates on cars parked on the left hand side up to about 100' away. On high beam you get the same except it's about 20-30' high wall of light. It made it all worth it.

As a comparison here's a pic of the light pattern out of the inboard H3's. I never did try the light pattern from the original H4's but it's probably similar to these. In other words, all show, no go : (

Saijin_Naib

Hate to be a pain in the ***, could you post more pictures with hi/low and fogs and all that. Im intersted in this, but I dont want to do it if its not like... HUGE difference. Or managable, I still havnt determinded whether Im capable of doing the work yet

natural_person

OK, I'll have to take some more pictures tonight.

CDP

that looks extremely good! I've always wanted to retrofit this into my headlights but I don't have the time, craftsmanship or funds to it at the moment.

natural_person

Ok, here's the pictures, as promised.

Picture 1 are the inboard "driving lights" with H3's. These are the stock reflectors on these lights from Ebay, made in Taiwan. (While the units themselves are not top-quality, nor do I expect them to be at $160 a pair, the bulbs themselves are Philips for the H4's and Osram for the H3's.) As you can see the pattern clearly (unclearly?) shows the quality, or lack thereof, of the light units' reflectors.

Picture 2 are the Hella E55 Bi-xenons on low beam. Note that there are no dark areas, unlike the H3's, and the even light pattern from far left to far right. I was told these came out of an ML320, I bought them off Matt on Ebay (ebay ID: retrofit-source.)

Picture 3 are the "bi" part of the bi-xenons - the solenoid-activated shutter has now moved, thus allowing the high beam pattern to shine through. If you are using simply xenon lights then you will have to wire a seperate set of lights for hi beam. I wanted xenon on hi beam so I got bi-xenons. It makes wiring more complicated as I had to wire a second relay per headlight to to switch the +12v from being triggered by low beam to by the high beam.

Are they worth it? Yes!

I'm going back to bed now : )

Eric

Saijin_Naib

Niiiice My plan was to buy the Demec kit (My Thread) and use the fogs that are on the bottom front spoiler. Today when I looked at a mitsu 3000gt I found that the projectors that they use are very similar in layout to these ebay lenses:
And using those lenses, I would mount the lights in the same way as the 3000gt has... I believe its high outside, low inside. Im pretty sure I could just pick up a xenon kit from 3000gt and it would fit. What do you think? And howd you figure out how to wire and mount? Was it crazy hard?

crr1612

damn, that is hot. what was the total cost of all that?

Saijin_Naib

The lenses from ebay run about 160-200$ and as for the bi-xenons no idea. he might also have had to buy some extra parts to make the whole thing work... it bears being constructed into a sticky thread with tons of details from him as well as 2phast so that people can read and learn how to do it themselves, and have a consistant place to leave advice and discoveries.

natural_person

Hella E55 projectors, ballasts, and ignition coils off Ebay = $400
Taiwanese light units off Ebay $200
Projector shrouds off Ebay - $50
4 relays, reflective duct tape, waterproof fuse holders, waterproof heat shrink tubing, wire looms, solder, 10 gauge wire from alternator, connnectors, new trim below the headlights, J-B Weld, epoxy resin & fiberglass cloth, silicone, stainless steel bolts, washers, etc - probably another $150

Total Cost: around $800
Time Spent: around 70 hours
Light output: priceless : )

2PHAST

Good job Eric, they came out nice!

BTW, anyone attempting this mod, keep in mind that bi-xenon shields should be on the bottom of the projector, not the top. This is not explained in detail on my site and my pictures don't acurately represent this. Projectors don't have a top/bottom designation inscribed on them.

GORBETTTEAM

Man, I didn't wanna say anything but dude: you've got wrong headlights on your car. I know everyone likes the HID conversion but those inside gaps don't look good. So, I don't know what's the fuzz about....

natural_person

Like I said in my other post, "Bad Pics of my Dirty Car", the objective, for me, for modding is safety first and looks second. It rains a lot here in Vancouver : ( . Hence the mods; they weren't just to "look cool". If that was my primary objective I would have just bought them & just stuck'em in, or bought Euros.

I agree with you, the gap doesn't look so hot. Oh well, life's not perfect, but at least now I can see where I'm going at night : )

GORBETTTEAM

Please, don't take me as an ******* but I wouldn't even think of spending $800.00 and over 70hrs of work for lights that aren't for that year/model just because of bad weather conditions. But hey, what do I know........?
- gorb -

natural_person

Oh, no offence taken. Others are crazy; look at Sunman's site at: http://homepage.mac.com/drsunilpatel/PhotoAlbum14.html Now, I would never go THAT far in modding my car. (No offense meant, Sunman! I admire your work!) To each his own.

When I was in my 20's, out of university, I had fun building an electronic crossover for my tri-amped speaker system in my little Datsun 510. This was back in the mid 1980's when car stereo shops didn't know yet what an electronic crossover was (I still have it). I took it more as a challenge than anything else. Same with the HID light retrofit.

Let's put it this way, You couldn't PAY me enough money to make another pair to sell. But I have the time, as I'm semi-retired, and for once in my life I can mod a car without having to worry too much about the cost. I haven't done any modding since that Datsun 510, and took this car, which I bought in 5 minutes on an impulse, as a summer project to pass the time and to buy cool tools that I really don't need, like a Snap-On digital torque wrench that vibrates when you're tight enough. Do I need that to mount my wheels? Well, no, not really, but, boy, is it cool!

Plus there is that intangible satisfaction of saying, "yup, I made'm myself". I remember years ago , in an article in Audio Amateur magazine, where Nelson Pass, a highly respected audio amplifier designer (www.passlabs.com) talked about an odd condition called "builder's ear". Basically, it was an infliction whereby any amplifier that you built from scratch always sounded way better than your buddy's store-bought ones : ) I guess that I, and many others on the board, have a bit of that disease, in a slightly different affliction, that have to do with modding Benzes.

Saijin_Naib

Here here! I only wish I could have that satisfaction for myself. Sadly, Im not handy enough to do so yet