I finally got my HID kit yesterday and thought I'd share my experiences with you:

I ordered the McCulloch 6,000k kit from a vendor on Ebay.

The kit arrived in excellent condition and all the parts seem to be well made & well assembled.

I have to say that installing the bulbs is the hardest part, but if you take your time and work carefully you can do it. The bulbs themselves look like they're a multi-fit kind because they have a lot of different designations besides "H7" on the plastic container they come in. The bulbs come with a very large plastic base on them that doesn't look like it is even close to what an H7 should be, but if you look carefully, you'll notice that you can slide part of it down the wires to reveal a standard H7 mounting base. I used a pair of diagonal cutters to snip the unneeded piece of plastic off the wire pigtail. I also cut off the rubber pass-through grommet.

I discovered that it was easier (for me at least) to squeeze the base of the retaining clip and completely remove it before inserting the bulb into the housing. Once the bulb was mostly in place it was relatively easy to re-install the clip. You have to fish around a bit to find the right spot to insert it, but once you get one side in the other side snaps right into place.

I used a razor-knife to cut a small "X" at the top of the rubber covers to allow the wire pigtails to pass though to the ballast and the igniter. One thing I noticed is that the connector body on the ballast wiring that connects to the headlamp connector a bit too long to allow a good connection so I had to trim off a bit of the connector's hood to allow a good fit.

One important tip. It matters which way you wire the power connection from the ballast to the headlight connector. If you reverse polarity the bulb will not light. In my kit, the black wire has to be connected to the side of the headlamp connector that has two wires connected to it. The white wire goes to the side that has only one wire connected to it.

Once the wiring was in place I mounted the ballast & igniters to suitable spots under the hood and cable-tied the wiring securely to keep it from flopping around. One note: Space on the right side of the car is very limited, so be prepared for a little bit of creative thinking when you route wiring and find places to mount the pieces. A work of warning too: There's nice flat place between the coolant overflow and the battery that looks like it would be perfect to mount the ballast. This is not a good place because the right side hood bracing will contact the ballast when you close the hood.

The kit's instructions say the bulbs must have a 10 minute "burn-in", so I went for a drive. Wow, they are very bright and very white! My SilverStar lamps (now installed as the high-beams) look dull and yellow in comparison. Road illumination is excellent and anything with a reflective coating on it really stands out. One thing I noticed is that the "filament" on the HIDs must be in a slightly different place because the beam pattern is a little bit higher than with the stock bulbs. This is not necessarily a bad thing since it illuminates farther out and nobody got annoyed and flashed their high-beams at me.

The only negative thing I have to say is that the bulbs throw a small shadow that runs in a straight line from the lens to the bright spot in the beam pattern. I assume this is from the wire that runs alongside the lamp to the outside electrode. I'm sure I'll get used to it after a while, but I found it kind of annoying.

As far as color temperature goes, the 6,000k bulbs are definitely at the upper end of the spectrum for me. I did a little research, and found out that as the color temperature goes up, the light output goes down. They do a really good job at lighting things up, but I now find myself wondering how much brighter the 5,000k or 4,700k bulbs would be. Over all though, I am very happy with them and consider it money well spent.

 

Thanks Bob...good info for those of us still considering the conversion.

 

post some pix damn it!

 

Does the crossfire have separate bulbs for high beams?

I would like to do HID in my headlights and foglights but would like to keep my high beams.

 

~ yes it does.

 

Okay, here are some pics... I went with the McCulloch 6,000K kit purchased from eBay for $235 shipped... Then after reading the BMW forums, I decided to go with the Hoen Xenonmatch Bulb over the Xenesis TrueMatch bulbs, because the people at those forums seem to like them better than the Xenesis and they are cheaper. I went with the Hoen Xenonmatch Titaniums (H7) for the high beam and just the regular Xenonmatch (9006) for the fogs. The high beam on the passenger side was a pain in the **** to install because of the limited space. You really don't have to completely remove the retaining clip which makes the job more difficult if you do remove them in my opinion. You just need to unplug the cable with a sharp yank from the harness and not the wires and then unlatch the clip. Once that's done the bulb just comes out. The fog lights are the easiest. You just turn your steering wheel completely one way and open up the access panel and then unclip the cable and then twist and turn the 9006 bulb out. Turn the steering wheel completely the other way and repeat the process. Now on to the pics...

Here's the McCulloch 6,000K HID kit installed with the OEM fog bulbs (notice how yellow they are):


Another angle:


Here's the McCulloch HID kit installed with the OEM high beam bulbs:

 

(cont.)

Here's the McCulloch HID kit with the Hoen XenoMatch fog bulbs:


Here's the McCulloch HID kit with the Hoen XenoMatch Titanium high beam bulbs:

 

Here's mine they're 10,000k really blue.

02-26-07_0149.jpg

 

I know this is a very old thread but I want to make one point RE: the annoying shadow line on the road. H7 bulbs can be used in both low and high beam reflectors the only difference is the orientation of the bulb. Tab up or tab down. If you look very close the filament of the bulb is slightly off centerline so when it's used as a low beam the bulb orientation keeps the beam pattern slightly lower than if it were in the high beam housing inverted allowing a slightly higher beam pattern.

Having said that, if you install a HID kit in the low beam housing and see the annoying shadow line on the road the bulb is in the wrong housing. Meaning, the HID bulb in the low beam is really a high beam HID bulb because of the wire placement. Move that bulb to the high beam housing and the annoying shadow line on the road goes away because the bulb is now inverted. Now you need to order the opposite style bulb for the low beam housing.



See the placement of the wire in relation to the tab?

 

Very interesting!!

 

The bulbs are not shown correctly oriented, the low beam bulb has the tab at the bottom and a the high beam bulb has the tab at the top. If you rotated one of your bulbs I do not think you would see a difference.

 

Dave, he is talking about HID bulbs, and their unique design (I believe)... Not standard H7 bulbs. Your statement is correct IF incandescent H7 bulbs are installed.


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Exactly! see the picture with the alignment tabs at the top yet each bulb has the wire going to the front connector on the opposite side of the bulb?

 

See the picture with the alignment mounting tabs at the top yet each HID bulb has the wire going to the front connector on the opposite side of the bulb? One of these bulbs in the low beam housing will produce a shadow on the road, The correct one won't.

 

I am not sure what wire you are talking about.
I thought it was agreed that the post through which the filament lead goes through to the front end of the filament caused the shadow. If that is the case then the H7-B is the low beam bulb on the older model bulbs. Someone suggested filing off the tab and rotating the bulb 180 deg. to get the shadow off the road.

 

H7-A has a blue insulator over the wire going to the front of the bulb on the lower side of the bulb. H7-B has a brown insulator over the wire going to the front of the bulb on the upper side of the bulb. (as pictured) One is designed for the low beam housing the other is designed for the high beam housing. You need the proper bulb in the proper housing to eliminate the shadow on the road. Simple as that! No need to file tabs off just buy the correct bulb for intended placement.

 

If you rotated the H7-B bulb so the tabs match how a low beam and high beam are side by side in the car you will notice the brown insulator and the blue insulator are both at the bottom side of the glass. This means there is a specific bulb made for the low beam housing and a specific bulb made for the high beam housing hence the point of my post, if you have a shadow you have the incorrect bulb.