High Intensity Discharge light kit fitted to my car:Pics

[Draeger]

Well, as some of you know I said I was going to get rid of the Calibra after I bought my X-Type Jag a few months ago, but it ended up that I decided to keep it as to be honest, it was worth more to me keeping and running it into the ground than it was to sell privately.

With that considered, I have been using it more for the colder and wetter nights to commute to work and the RSV has been tucked up in semi-hibernation mode for the winter.

I knew for a while that the headlights on the Calibra were a pile of poo, so last week I decided to do something about it. I had tried uprated bulbs etc, but they were really no better, the problem with Calibra light output stems more from the inferior wiring loom fitted to early models than the bulbs themselves.

So after a good bit of digging around online for information, I decided to retrofit a High Intensity Discharge kit to it.

And what a HUGE difference it has made. I cant understand why I hadn't done this earlier. The lights are fantastic now, even better than my factory fit Xenons on the Jaguar. I'm actually thinking of buying another kit to fit to the Jag itself!!

I'm also definately going to get a hold of a single light kit for the Mille. After using this for a a few days I just cant go back to driving with standard halogens.

Anyway, here's the pictures. Excuse the quality of some of them, a few were taken on my phone, some were on the digicam.

Click all thumbnails for full size images.

LED White Xenon sidelights only

 

[Draeger]

HID headlights

 

[Draeger]

HID headlights AND highbeam

Notice the difference in colour temperature.



Drivers side is HID, passenger side is standard H1 bulb

I posted a thread including how to wire these up with some pics of the wiring looms and bulbs etc on a couple of Vauxhall and Calibra forums, if anyone wants any info on fitting these, let me know and I'll link ya up.

Best money/improvement I've spent on a car ever to be quite honest!!

 

[Draeger]

The entire kit cost me £155 inc postage.

Here's the link, its in the first part of the thread above, its a bloke on eBay:-

CLICK HERE!!

And the actual kit I bought from him on eBay:-

CLICK HERE!!

Factor in another £5 for heavy duty velcro strips and some longer cable ties ( the ones in the kit are really too short ).

Sounds a lot of cash, but the difference it makes is incredible and more than worth it.

Do you use the club calibra site? a mate of mine Jay runs it still havent had a proper look at it yet though lol

Yeah, been on there for a while now, good bunch of lads and good info too.

Thread on ClubCalibra.net

 

[Draeger]

Negative.

Its a HUGE grey area as far as retro-fit HID's go.

There's no hard and fast rules laid down. Even a lot of MoT testers dont know the small details.

I'm a responsible driver m8. After these were fitted, I went out in the Jag and had the wife drive towards me in the Calibra ( on the other side of the road.....lol!!! ) repeatedly, to check against just that blinding issue.

There were no problems at all. Drive towards my Cally on the road and its no different to driving towards say an Audi or a Merc with HID's. There's no blinding apparent at all.

The good thing is if you ever came up against an MoT tester who was adamant that you were going to fail, it takes @10 mins to remove the whole set up and refit the standard bulbs.

Taken from a retro-fit HID kit suppliers website:-

Both versions of our HID systems are DOT approved, MOT approved and fully E-compliant in all safety, E.M. emmission and performance specifications. As far as we are aware these are the only HID kits on the market that meet all these requirements.

This makes our kits ROAD LEGAL ; there is a lot of misinformation regarding the legality of HID systems fitted to cars without headlamp power wash and rear axle self levelling ...these are only an E.U. legal requirement on Xenon systems fitted to NEW cars AT THE FACTORY PRODUCTION STAGE .

HID systems fitted as an aftermarket accessory DO NOT REQUIRE the car to have power wash or self levelling ; even the DOT get this wrong sometimes .... our expensive lawyers did not!

 

[Draeger]

Fancy one of these for the Hornet.. Can only find one on ebay though and its Nearly £100 .
How small is the Ballast unit as it has to fit on a naked bike.

Persil

They are about the same size as a packet of 20 cigs m8.

A guy I know fitted one to his Aprilia RSV with good results.

Pics here:-

http://www.byphotos.com/album/1514878

The ballast box is the silver unit you see in the middle of the "box" picture.

I intend slapping one on my own RSV soon too.

 

[Draeger]

Now I'm really, really tempted. Did you get bummed by the Government for import duty?

Nope m8, not a bean. I think what happens with that particular seller is he gets them supplied from overseas and then retails them/dispatches them from within the UK.

Just thinking it might be cheaper to buy a car kit and split the cost with someone else..works out a lot cheaper .

Persil

Not a bad idea. All you would need to do is find a second person who has the same dipped beam bulb format (H4, H7 etc ), as your bike on their bike and hook up with them to sort the details out.

If your running an H4 as your headlight bulb on your bike, i might be interested in going halfers with you as I run an H4 in the headlight of the RSV.

 

[Draeger]

What colour/temp did you go for, 6000k?

Very tempting, easy to install? My only worry would be my inteptitude in fitting it in to the existing wiring so they can actually be used

If you can change your standard headlight bulbs, you can fit one of these kits m8. It's as easy as that.

I put up a guide on how to do it on the auld Calibra here:-

Thread on ClubCalibra.net

Yep, I went for a 6000k kit. This was after a lot of digging around on the internet to try and decide. I was going to go for an 8000k kit first, but it turns out that the 6000k is actually brighter in performance than the 8000k one and this is what I was most concerned about. Wasn't interested in "looks", i just wanted the best headlights I could get.

The 6000k kit still looks great and as I said earlier, still has a wee edge tint of "ice blue". Looks identical to the lights you see on Mercs etc.

The 8000k kit is a bit too blue for my liking, and doesn't throw as much light out.

I've spoken to 3 guys who have carried out this conversion, all of which went straight away for the 8000k kit. Every one of them said if they could go back and buy again, they would have went for the 6000k kit.

They take at least 50 hours burn time to "bed in". The 6000k kits progressively increase in performance as they charge up when first switched on, takes a minute or two, you can see them getting brighter as they warm up.

 

[Draeger]

The 8000k kit looks really tempting.


Would you have to buy 2 kits to do both high/low and sidelights ?

Ok, the LED sidelights, I already had installed. They are available pretty much anywhere online if you have a dig around m8.

As far as I am aware, there are two main types of retro-fit HID kits available.

The one I purchased and another type, which is referred to a lot of the time as a "Bi-Xenon" HID kit.

This means it operates both the dipped and high beam bulbs/circuits. As far as I know, its only available at the moment for H4 bulbs, though I might be wrong.

There are a few people online who can supply these, but in my honest opinion, they aren't worth the additional cost, since after fitting a kit like the one i have, there's no real need to use high beam at all......you just dont need it to see the road ahead!!.

Obviously, a high beam/ Bi-Xenon set up would allow your high beam circuit to perform in proportion to your dipped HID's, i.e. even better than your conventional high beam bulbs in conjunction with your already improved dipped ones. But I dont see the need for it when the dipped HID is as good as it is.

If you are keen on going for a Bi-Xenon set up, then be prepared to pay at least double the price, if not more for a complete kit.

These fellas do Bi-Xenon retro-fit kits, but as I said, they are quite expensive:-

http://www.hids4u.co.uk/products.asp

http://www.xenonvalot.com/newh4bixenon.html

 

[Draeger]

After muchos research online, the 6000k kit seemed to be the most common one to go for m8. There are very few suppliers doing 4700k kits, but granted, it may well give out more light than a 6000k one.

I have quite a few web url's in my IE favorites that I used to decide to go for the 6000k one, I can post 'em if ya want to have a wee look-see!!

 

[Draeger]

Just depends m8. A lot of sellers of these kits only start off at 6000k, very few that I contacted said they had 4700k in stock.

6000k seems the most popular one to go for and I'm perfectly happy with it.

Here's a few links from my favorites that I used to plough through for info on these things, there's a lot of reading there in various forums, took a while but I managed to get there and make my mind up in the end!!:-

http://www.audiworld.com/tech/ext52.shtml

http://www.bbesound.com/bmw/HIDinstall/

http://www.geocities.com/jvxdriver/crx_mod.htm

http://www.brightheadlights-hid.com/hid_lights_faq.htm

http://www.vagparts.com/pages/HID_install.htm

http://www.autolamps-online.com/gasdischarge/fittinginsthalogen.htm

http://www.autolamps-online.com/gasdischarge/fittinginsthalogen.htm

http://www.h-i-d.co.uk/products1.shtml

http://www.vagparts.com/pages/GtiHID.htm

http://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1224207&page=4

http://www.honda-acura.net/forums/showthread.php?t=190926

 

[Draeger]

Thanks for that.

One question : The ebay link you give shows a kit with seperate igniter and ballast yet yours is combined? Is the ebay info incorrect then or did you specifically ask for this?

Although that seller shows a seperate ballast and igniter, it ships with a combined set up. I guess he just hasn't updated the pics in his listing there.

@s0ck, yeah, thats because the Punto headlight units are fitted with projector beam lights or as the FIAT sales bods put it "ellipsoidal" headlight units....hence the *flashy* effect you somtimes see from them. Its all to do with the lens of the headlight unit and the coating on it.

 

[Draeger]

Draeger .

My hornet has a H4 bulb so looking good .Let me know if yer interested in fitting HID to yer bike ..

Regards

Persil

I'll get back to you on it m8, I'll try not to take too long.

The only problem I can see with buying and splitting a kit is one of a warranty issue. If say, a component of your fails, we would probably need to send the complete kit back for a replacement.

You can purchase single HID kits that are specifically for bikes from this fella:-

http://www.hids4u.co.uk/product_details.asp?id=12

£119 the price, altough for another £30-£40 you could have a full kit of two units which would cost two people @£80.

 

[Draeger]

Interesting link there m8, cheers.

I think that reinforces the reasoning behind fitting one to a bike. Then the "Sorry m8, I didn't see you" brigade would have no excuse!!

I take onboard what is being said in that links content, but to be honest, I dont think there's a "glare" problem, but thats just my opinion. Certainly not when fitted to most vehicles. The only time I find the HID's are really noticable, is when the latest shape Range Rovers are behind you and the lights are in your rear view mirrors. When either a Range Rover or any other vehicle fitted with these is coming towards me, I dont have any issues with it.

 

[Draeger]

If you ordered it from the same guy I did m8, dont worry about customs or any additional charges. I didn't incur any.

 

[Draeger]

You will be more than happy with the 6k kit m8, its fantastic.

If you have any probs or questions when it comes to fitting it, give me a shout and I'll try and help ya out.

What are you fitting it to btw? What type of bulb is it? H1, H7, H4 etc?