I decided to
install HID’s in place of standard halogen bulbs for a little more
light and I guess exterior looks. I won’t be able to see them much so
I hope you other driver’s like them J.
Here’s the kit, a standard 35 watt HID nothing fancy conversion kit.
The only extra I bought where some load resistor to clear up any
“check fog light” errors I may receive: |
|
H3 8000K bulbs: |
|
Let start by
removing the fog light, insert your screw driver as shown and push in
to release fog light. Have your other hand in front of the fog light
because it may “pop” out: |
|
Once fog light is
out remove the main plug as shown: |
|
Now you can move it
to the work bench or where ever you plan to work on them. I first
tested the lights and ballast so these pics are taken on a box.
Release the fog light[s] back cover as shown: |
|
Opening the cover,
white is positive coming off old halogen bulb and brown is negative
pig tail wire. Unplug positive and ground, release the metal clip and
remove the old bulb: |
|
Now it should look
like this, just set the cover aside. You’ll drill a hole into it
later: |
|
Ok, in a perfect
world you should be able to plug the positive HID wires into the
positive post inside the fog light and then insert the negative HID
wire into the negative fog light pig tail and the lights should fire.
NOTE: You may get the dreaded “check fog light’ error message on the
MID, but we’ll fix that later.
In my case the connections inside the fog light did not yield anything, i.e. NO
lights, NO power although my stock halogen bulbs worked fine. Go
Figure! So I thought maybe I got a bum kit, so I proceeded to test
the kit at the battery and everything fired fine. After doing a
little investigation, what I found was is if I plug the HID lights
directly into the main fog light plug everything worked great. So
rather than messing around and making a harness to pull power from the
battery and then relay it down to the fog lights, I just proceeded
with what I call “plan B” on my install. I WILL do further
testing, but for now I’ll run with this install. I’ll update the PDF
when new information becomes available.
When testing, if
you plug your HD lights into the inside of the fog light positive /
negative connections and they work, run with it. Anyway you look
these directions should suit your install, EXCEPT for the positive and
negative wiring coming off the ballast.
You can see how I
have the wires plugged directly into the main plug that goes to the
fog light itself, and the light shines bright: |
|
Here’s a picture
minus the glaring bulb: |
|
Driver side same
results when I plugged the ballast positive and negative directly into
the fog light main plug: |
|
Another pic minus
the glaring bulb: |
|
So now let’s move
onto installing them. I took the fog lights to the work bench and
with the back cover removed I drilled a 7/8” whole through the back of
the fog light cover. Sorry no pic of drilling the hole, but it’s
pretty simple stuff. After you drill the hole in the fog light cover
slide the bulb through the hole and insert the rubber grommet in. The
7/8” hole I drilled was a perfect size and I probably didn’t need to
put any silicone on, but just to be safe I put a bead of silicone on
and then with your wet finger [spit works great J]
run it around smoothing it out and fill and gaps and remove any air
bubbles. I did this on my work bench and let it dry over night: |
|
Now let’s take the
bumper cover off and get ready to install everything. First remove
these 2 bolts in the wheel well, there are 2 on each side [driver &
passenger] that need to be removed and they are 8 mm. Once they are
removed slightly peel the fender away from the wheel well: |
|
Now remove the
trim, with or without PDC it is the same. Pop the front loose like so
and then carefully slide / pull the trim piece towards the side of the
car [see the arrow]. Then once off remove the PDC plugs if you have
PDC: |
|
Now we move onto
under the front bumper. There are 2 hooks that hold the lower portion
of the bumper cover to the lower cover under the car. Simply push in
and slide back. NOTE: I only have a pic of one, but the other just
next to it: |
|
Now we are ready to
remove the bumper cover bolts, there are 2 of them. These are long,
but don’t have a lot of threads so removing them is easy. These are
T-50 Torx head bolts: |
|
Here’s a shot of
them removed: |
|
And a shot of the
Torx “bit” if you will: |
|
Now simply pull off
the bumper cover and set below the car or move it out of the way if
you’d like. My situation is unique because I have my ZR3 sensors
installed and those wires prevent me from just carrying it away. I
just lay it in front and kind of tuck it under like so. Don’t forget
a sheet or something to put it on, this way it won’t get scratched up: |
|
With the bumper
removed I’ve figured out my mounting points for the ballast and also
the load resistors, so I’m going to connect my wires on the bench for
ease of mounting on the car. What you see below is the black plug
that plugs into the ballast and the gold thing is the load resistor.
Rather than drilling 2 holes in my car to mount the load resistor I
made a little plate that I mounted it to and then I will mount the
plate to the car. These load resistors get HOT, so don’t plan on
mounting them to plastic and make sure you choose a spot away from
existing wires: |
|
Here’s my work in
progress and my mad soldering skills! Basically I took the positive
and negative wires from the HID ballast plug and twisted them on to
each wire of the load resistor, then twisted a 3rd wire
onto both of those and soldered them together, applied heat shrink and
finally some wire wrap: |
|
Both of them are
finished, aren’t they pretty: |
|
Now I mounted
them. Again, you DO NOT want to mount the load resistors on plastic
nor do you want them to touch any wires. They get HOT and I confirmed
that when I was testing them by letting them run and touching them.
They get HOT. This is the passenger side, I mounted the HID ballast
on the bolt that holds the snorkel for the air filter box and I
drilled a small hole in the secondary air pump mount and mounted the
load resistor to that: |
|
Here’s the driver
side. I mounted the ballast to an unused mounting point near the
bumper cover guide and I drilled a small hole in the bracket that the
horns mount to: |
|
Another shot of the
driver side. Ballast right and load resistor left: |
|
Now that those are
mounted in their respective places let’s put the bumper back on. I
attach string to the PDC wires to make is easier to pull them
through. Pick up the bumper cover and set it on the black bumper
mounts in the front, then go to each side and make sure the side of
the bumper is lining up with the bumper slide mounts on each side.
Once that is all verified you can slide the bumper into place. Take
your time putting the bumper cover back on. Once it is on and
situated you can pull your strings to get the PDC wires through their
respective hole and bolt everything back up / on: |
|
Like so: |
|
This is a shot
through the passenger side fog light hole. You can see the load
resistor [1] and the HID ballast [2], and they are clearly accessible
should I even need to access them later: |
|
This is a shot
through the driver side fog light hole. You can see the load resistor
[1] and the HID ballast [2], and they are clearly accessible should I
even need to access them later: |
|
Now, as I mentioned
in the beginning of the document, I couldn’t get any power when I
plugged the HID’s into the inside of the fog light itself so I decided
for ease of the install to just tap power from the main wired going to
the fog lights. I didn’t want to cut the factory wires so I just used
these gel filled water resistant wire taps. Yellow is positive, brown
is negative: |
|
Passenger side, same
thing: |
|
Plugged in the
lights and we have lighting: |
|
Check Control OK: |
|
Now it’s time to
put the HID bulbs in the fog light housing. The bulbs fit exactly the
same as the halogen lights, but you won’t be able to use the metal
clip to hold them in. Rather than counting solely on the metal tabs
being bent to hold them in, I decided to also thread some wire through
the 2 little hooks on each side of the light. Basically, thread the
wire through, make sure the wire is taut and start twisting the wire
together with a pair of pliers. Once you feel it is pulled tight
enough stop. Now pop the cover back on and move to the car for final
installation: |
|
I showed you
earlier how I tapped the existing wire for power, well now it is time
to cover that up. I simply took some wire wrap, slid it over the main
fog light plug and taped it on: |
|
Now plug the HID
lights wires into the plugs that go up to the ballast, plug the main
fog light plug into the fog light, insert the fog light back into the
car and you are done!: |
|
Here is a day shot
of the HID H3 fog lights with my DDE’s on: |
|
And a side shot: |
|
And one more with
the garage closed and the garage lights off: |
|