I just bought an HID kit for about $115 after some research. It came from HIDDIRECTONLINE.COM. Went in very easy with the main difficulty being getting through the clips at the backs of the old bulbs. Seriously, forty minutes for the whole thing. Its an ac system so should have better bulb life. Mounted two very discrete ballasts with 3M two sided stickum on frame rail or wheel well. No error or extra lights on my dash. The ballasts require a "CAN-BUS" $30.00 upgrade from the base for the ballast that will not cause the ecu to display the error, and the whole thing was plug-n-play. For now, worked first time, and I hope it stays that way.

 

Guess if my wife wants HID's on her roadster next..


I'll still be buying a Xentec system.. $35 bucks.. out of the box - into the car - no added extra anything required for error free operation.

January will be 2 years in my car without an issue at all.

 

A couple weeks ago I decided to take the HID plunge for my 04 coupe and split the difference between the very low cost sets and the $100+ sets and got a 6000K OPT7 55w AC set for $66. Installing an HID set would be a 20 minute job for most people if it wasn't for those dam* bulb clips - especially on the passenger side. I unhooked the clips, placed the bulbs and re-installed the clips mostly by feel. I could use a mirror and a flashlight for the drivers side, but had to use psychic-remote-viewing-spidey-sense and the good dose of "the force" to do the passengers side. HINT: Dental floss, yep you read right, dental floss tied to the clip for easy clip recovery should it go PIIIIINNNGGGG! Also you'll need a large crowbar, C-4, a sledge hammer, 8' length of 2x4, a 12 ton chain hoist, and a clean spot on the garage wall to bang your forehead when trying to remove the coolant overflow tank. I tried at first without removing the tank thinking my small girly-like hands would do the trick but had to go to plan "B" when I sliced up my hand on the sharp sheet metal above the back of the headlight. I gave blood that day, good thing my Crossfire is Blood, uhhh make that Blaze red. I tried silicone spray, rocking it back and forth, twisting, yanking and even got to the point where I pissed enough to be willing to spend what-ever it would cost for a new one if I broke it. At one point I was pulling up so hard I thought to myself "if this things lets go, I'm going straight backwards through the garage wall and into the neighbor's yard." I ended up getting something in under the "****" that extends through the grommet to apply pressure up and "pop" it was loose. I was so happy I felt like building a parade float and riding it through town holding the overflow tank high in the air. The things we go through to doll up our toys!

Ok, after everything was back together the lights fired right up with no dash error or flickering. Shoot! Shoulda' done this a long time ago. If I were to do it again I'd go with 5000K. I'm a bit of a light freak and have added a set of Philips Daylight 8 DLRs just inboard of the fog lights. I also swapped out the eyebrow lights with some real nice, bright LEDs and converted the fogs to a super bright LEDs. I thought the 6000K would match the LEDs better but the eyebrow lights and DLRs are whiter, while the fog is a little bluer. I think 5000ks would be a better match overall.

I live out in the country and the HIDs are awesome not only in illuminating the road ahead off to the sides as well. All the better to see those deer/possum/skunks that wait in the dark to run in front of you at the last minute.

My wife and I leave for work about the same time and after doing the LED upgrades she told me she hates being in front of me going down our gravel road - and that's WITHOUT having the headlights on. Its been a couple weeks now and I haven't been flashed once at night (I s-l-i-g-h-t-l-y lowered the headlight aim just to be sure. After seeing all the light working my wife said: "If you were a trucker, I'd bet you be one of those guys with 10,000 light on his truck." I said "yep. and aren't you glad I can't get to the wiring in the motorhome because it would have a whole bunch of LED lights on it too!"

Sometime soon I'll post pictures of my upgraded lights. I wish I had taken the time to do one side first so you could see the difference - its dramatic - and possibly too much for some, but I like it.

Tom

 

Excellent, humorous write up !
I have found that when retrofitting HIDS, much pain and anguish can be avoided by removing the headlight assemblies.
This also allows easy access to the area just below the assemblies where you have a flat surface to mount the ballasts, and they are out of sight.

 

Sage advice!

 

Your story probably matches to half the adventures on the passenger side..LOL.
I was able to do mine without removing the tank. What LED's are you running in the fog light? I had contacted and Ebay vender on these before, and in his honesty he informed me they were more show than usable light output.

 

They run a bit similar to folks who install HID's in reflector lamp housings. Except that you don't dazzle oncoming traffic. In this case, the light output is just a bit brighter than using regular halogens.

 

After wrestling with HID install I COMPLETELY agree removing the headlight assy is the best way to go - and bloodless maybe????

My LED bulbs - with the exception of the Philips Daylight 8 - were purchased at "The Bay". For these I only dealt with "USA sellers" because I didn't want to ship something halfway across the world if I got a dud, which I did with the foglights. Dealer fired off a replacement before I ever got the bad bulb in the mail to send back. No problems since (a couple months now). Fog lights came with plug and play resistors which get fry-an-egg-HOT!!! I used a little left over Thermal paste from a computer CPU upgrade and clipped the flat side of the resistor against a sheet metal bracket above the foglights inside the fender well. I used a big spring clip - aka "bulldog clip" because I couldn't get a drill in there to mount with screws without taking the fender well liner out (a future project?)

Here's the fog lights: search for 1 set 9006 HB4 Fog CREE LED Hi Power Projector bulbs. You'll come across two different types, one has a lens on the front, the other doesn't. I got the ones with the lens because I didn't see the other kind until after I ordered. Because there's a bulb shield in the fog light housing the "projector lens" does nothing as it shines into the back of the shield.

For the eyebrow light search for: 2X WHITE 10-LED 5630 SMD CANBUS T10 194 168 912 921 W5W PROJECTOR LENS BULBS. Now the lens on the front of these is nice because it really throws light out to the front while the side chips illuminate the corner of the headlight reflector.

Photos - albeit kinda crappy - are in an album titled: LED foglight, eyebrow light, DLR (shoulda' been DRL) upgrade. I put the stock eyebrow bulb in the driver's side headlight for context. Of course the camera does a lousy job of showing actual brightness but in the case of both LED upgrades they are brighter than stock bulbs.

My biggest fear is as time goes by more and more people are upgrading to aftermarket HIDs and LEDs and at some point police - State Patrol mostly, will start cracking down on non-DOL approved lights - especially on Red 2 door sports cars :^) I'm not so worried about my HIDs because of the Crossfire's projector headlights. They don't look any different than a lot of factory HIDs in higher end SUVs, sport coupes and sedans. I have noticed more of these have pretty bright LED DRLs on them now. Even the new Prius has a very bright LED in the lower bumper so maybe I'll blend right in. Yeah, I'm a little paranoid. . . well not ME, it's the other voices in my head that are paranoid.

My name is Tom, and I am a light-a-holic

 

I agree, but in my case, I HAD to remove the front facia to get the assemblies out. No other way was possible!