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I added 6000K HIDs to the lows (35W) and fogs (55W) and although the colors matched my Halo eyes and LED parking leds, the light output was far too inferior compared to the replacement Osram Narvas I had in my headlights. I therefore 5000K bulbs for both the fog and low and 55w ballast for the low beams. I think 4300 would look way to yellow compared to the leds I have.
I've already had my headlights apart to put in the halo eyes. The HID bulb is surrounded by a lot of aluminum from the projector housing and the projector lense is glass. I am not too worried about the extra heat from the 55w bulbs since there is a lot more dense material inside this headlight to dissipate the heat compared to my other vehicles.
What I am concerned about is the wiring. My halos use a separate circuit (Add a circuit tap) that I installed in the main fusebox and this draw is much less than one amp. I currently use the existing wiring for the fog and low HIDs but I am wondering if I am pulling too many amps for the wiring especially since the low hid power is being pulled from the headlight harness and through the actual headlight inside wiring. I do not want to fry the wiring and make it brittle by overheating it over a long period of time.
What have others done? Rewired and if so how? Adding more "Add a Circuit" connections in the main fuse box will get ugly fast. Can I pull the main fusebox and add some circuits underneath? Seems like a lot of work if it is even possible. Is the standard vehicle wiring sufficient to handle the ballasts directly? If you added a wiring kit with a relay where did you draw the power from? I would be also concerned about pulling all my headlight sources from a single breaker assembly.
Does your car have fog lights OEM? if so, use that wiring.
How do your Halo's turn on? Switched separately? Powered on with the side markers? The power draw from them should be negligible.
The OEM halogen bulbs dissipate 55 watts. 55 watt HID's should be the same-no problem with using the main housing connector/wiring. There are a couple of threads (sticky's?) on this install. I wrote one of them.
If you feel that a relay is the way to go, the small, square, flat box in front of the battery opens up to expose a power tap area. I used mine to power my sub amp. Just MAKE SURE to install an appropriate fuse. The power taps there connect directly to the (+) battery terminal.
You could get rid of the mess in your fusebox and power all from there. Cleaner and neater. And it's made for this.
I've had 35 and 55w hid ballasts wired directly to the stock headlight wiring for several years now with no problems at all. If you want to install relays for your own piece of mind, go for it.
Thanks for the info on the battery tap! I never even looked over there for one.
My Oracle Halos (both high and low) get power off the cigarette circuit via a tap on the buss before the cigarette fuse. Draw is very small and the halos are on as soon as the key is turned. The're bright even in the daylight and they look sharp but it was too much work.
I'll use the existing wiring for now for the 55 watt HIDs.
My HIDs are not always coming on....I have not installed relay harnesses yet but now I guess I will have too. My 55 watt HIDs appear to draw 10 or more amps when they try to fire up sometimes. it appears that it is enough to cause the car to somehow shut power down on that circuit (or are the HIDs shutting down due to low amperage??). Have to retry several times sometimes to get all the lights on. I swapped kits around so I know the kits are fine but they appear to be pulling just too much current at startup. Once I can get them up they stay on and it is always the same positions with the issues...right fog and left low beam. So I think I will install 30 amp fuses in the tap for each set of lights.
You ballasts are just crap from China, that's why the igniter portion of them won't fire up the bulb properly each time like it should. Get yourself some Morimoto's from TRS and call it a day, along with their XB bulbs too if you want decent cutoff and hotspot positioning. The car uses 55watt halogen bulbs as stock, so no, 55watt HID ballasts won't "draw too much" power from the system. Though 55 watt HID tend to burn out quicker by about 20 percent when referring to the bulb's lifespan.
The car uses 55watt halogen bulbs as stock, so no, 55watt HID ballasts won't "draw too much" power from the system. Though 55 watt HID tend to burn out quicker by about 20 percent when referring to the bulb's lifespan.
You might want to "fact check" that.. you are a first to claim 55 watt as stock that I have ever seen.
H7 bulbs come stock at 55watts of power draw from what official specs mention from Philips and OSRAM. So, since the makers of them say so, it must be kinda true LOL
Huh.. I never researched past what I had read on the forum.. which there were expressed concerns of going to 55 watts.. but that was back when I was looking into HID lighting..
Yup, these bulbs have been 55watts and in special cases even 70watts as standard. They have never dipped below that threshold power wise, and hovered around 1450 to 1550 lumen in output. Actually, quite a few of the H series bulbs are 55watts standard for vehicles.
From direct testing, the Morimoto 35watt and 55watt ballasts put out 37/38watts and 52/57watts respectively. They actually do haul some serious *** and keep power constant and clean to the bulbs without fail. I know some of you guys run cheaper ebay special kits that you've said have run fine for a while, but there's more to it than just "running". Trust me, I've used cheaper kits too for giggles, but their output was never as good as the Morimotos are. Granted, you can still do better with a full system from OSRAM or Phillips, Matsumishita, etc. Those are true OEM units built into Audi/Mercedes/BMW.
I've had Morimotos for some years now and had a ballast fail. I found the Hylux 2A88 ballast on Ebay for much cheaper and are the OEM ballast for Philips systems. One of the only ballast to use the ASIC chip for better power control , efficiency and longer life. PLUS the ballast is intergrated with Canbus circuitry. Lights faster and last longer. My XB35s run perfect with these ballast.
BTW, the same factory makes the Hylux and Philips ballast. Only difference is the name stamped into the case, and the price markup for Philips ballast. Same exact internals. You'll find them all over Ebay, but here's cheapest I've found Hylux ballast....
The new XB ballasts from Morimoto are the same as the HYLUX but with a slightly higher wattage output now. They are great and warm up so quickly they are OEM speed wise. I used my 5 year warranty on my original Morimoto kit to swap everything out to the new XB lineup both for bulbs and ballasts without paying a penny lol. All I had to do was request to upgrade to the new components.
Basically, I paid 150 originally for my old Morimoto 3Five kit. Due to the awesome warranty, I ended up getting another $150 kit from the new XB lineup for free. LOL
Installed HIDs - concerned about wiring
