[Tekniq]

Wow good to know. I haven't hooked up my angel eyes and didn't plan to either. This will be good to keep in mind when I retrofit my other car, thanks!

 

[Legioss]

Wow good to know. I haven't hooked up my angel eyes and didn't plan to either. This will be good to keep in mind when I retrofit my other car, thanks!

To clarify, Demon Eyes (G5 sets only) are LEDs behind the HID lens. Angel Eyes (most sets) are the halos outside the lens. My halos actually work fine.

 

[Tekniq]

Great clarification! Here was thinking they refer to the same thing. Thank you again for the insight!

 

[Legioss]

^^ Wow sorry to hear about your problems with that seller,that really sucks.I have been in that situation myself with an Ebay seller.
Make as much noise as you can with both the seller and Ebay.Even though you are outside of the 45 day help window they should still help you to make things right.
Good luck.

Ebay refuses to help. Paypal (ebay) also refuses. My bank will deal with it, but I have to close & reopen my Paypal linked account. Unfortunately, I think that forces me to DOWNGRADE my WAMU account into a CHASE account full of fees.

 

[nacranym]

yes, i've found ebay/paypal to be of no help in such situations. it's all trust on the buyers part, so it's best to know the seller.

now he tells me!

<grin>

 

[Legioss]

I may have been able to resolve it with the seller. Rather than me pay to send it back, and him breaking more parts and paying to send it back to me again, and both of us losing money, he is selling me another one at cost + shipping. That way I will have 4 demon eyes to make at least the one matching pair, and I will be left with 1 extra projector, 1 extra harness, 1 extra bulb, & maybe 1 extra matching demon. I think it's a fair deal, although not the simple purchase I originally wanted. I'm assuming I will get the new set in a week or so, I can test it, and update. If i still have issues, I have plenty time to dispute charges with bank. The seller has a great feedback rating, but I think his technician must really suck.

The extra parts may be handy since my old G3 set had both a harness issue, and a projector issue. The projector issue I think was caused by me having to install/uninstall so many times.

 

[skellington]

Nice you are able to deal with a seller who will work with you on it,as mentioned with Ebay you do have to have alot of trust with the person you are dealing with.
At least you got some spare pieces if you ever need them !

 

[WestCoastPhilly]

08 Element SC: Aftermarket Xenon HID kit install.

Christmas was good to me this year. I had been hinting at a Xenon kit from Blinding HID (second one down, 6000K bulbs, and the standard 35W digital ballasts) and it seems the hint caught traction.

I live out in the country, lots of dark, windy roads with lots of deer and rabbits. I find with the stock low beams, they don't fill in the periphery much, and so I find myself driving with my stock fogs on nearly all the time. I figured that a proper set of Xenons would suit me well.

I installed the kit this afternoon, and it was super easy to do. Now that it's dark and I've had a chance to try them out, I'm a bit less than impressed. As I said, dark, windy roads. For the average city-dweller, I think this kit would be great. Personally, I think I'll see if Blinding HID will allow me to upgrade these ballasts to the 55Watt jobbies, as I understand the difference between 35 and 55Watts will, in effect, drop the output of the bulbs as though they were one colour toward the blue. i.e. the 6000K bulbs ordered would look more like 8000K. At order time, it's a $35 upgrade option, so who knows? I might just have to bite it, and replace the whole kit with a better quality one.


Anyways, onward and upward.

Here's the kit. seems pretty straight forward.

===============================================

Outside:

I started by mounting the ballasts, and making sure the wiring harness would reach. I decided on under the lip inside the upper fender. There's a perfectly sized gap there for it, and a convenient hole for the mounting bolt. I used the stuff they sent to firmly attach the metal straps to the ballast itself. The brackets are pretty thin, I figured the bounding of my super sporty suspension might jostle it, so I made sure it was firmly attached. 3M double sided grey tape between the bracket and the fender (then the bolt, just in case). That stuff is amazing.

The rest of it was mostly snaking the wires back to the ballasts. flip the switch, and at first the passenger side didn't light up. No biggie, flip polarity of the connection to the ballast, as mentioned in the lower-right of the instruction card:

and voila!

 

[Legioss]

I don't remember the difference between your model and mine. So you installed them into the headlight projector or the hi-beam projector?

 

[WestCoastPhilly]

I'm not sure what the later element models have, but the 08 sc has a standard halogen reflector for the high beams, and a projector for the low. The lows stay on full time, the highs and fog/driving lights toggle. (all 3 cannot be lit concurrently). What I replaced was the low bulb in the projector.

 

[Legioss]

I'm not sure what the later element models have, but the 08 sc has a standard halogen reflector for the high beams, and a projector for the low. The lows stay on full time, the highs and fog/driving lights toggle. (all 3 cannot be lit concurrently). What I replaced was the low bulb in the projector.

Then maybe your light isn't to your liking because the standard projector for the lows was not designed to reflect HID bulbs. If I understand the issue correctly, the light from an HID bulb is not at the same point as the regular light bulb would be, so it's not reflected correctly.

 

[WestCoastPhilly]

That's entirely possible. The brochure refers to them as HID headlights, but you never know just how loosely they throw terms around. The cutoff line is nice and crisp, however, so I think it's more likely I should simply go for the bigger ballast. And whiter bulbs.

 

[Eww-an E]

Then maybe your light isn't to your liking because the standard projector for the lows was not designed to reflect HID bulbs. If I understand the issue correctly, the light from an HID bulb is not at the same point as the regular light bulb would be, so it's not reflected correctly.

That could be part of the problem, I know some people on here have gotten decent results after installing plug and play HID kits in their SC Elements, but if someone is wanting the best performance out of their HID setup, they're really going to need to do a full retrofit using HID specific projectors.

 

[Eight]

Is it possible to cover the little peep slit on the cutoff of the OEM SC projectors without butchering it? I dunno what you call it, that little slit that lights up the road sign.
Its there to help the halogen light but it way too bright with the HIDs, especially on a pitch black road.

and its bright enough to get the people driving in front of you to road rage.

I've got people pull up on the side and let me pass and then tailgate me blasting the high beam until they feel satisfied or casually get behind me and blast the high beam like I deserve it.

I guess this goes for all non HID projectors.

 

[WestCoastPhilly]

No idea about the peep slit... I've not had any flashing high beam incidents since upgrading to xenon. As an update to my last posts about the brightness not being good enough, I upgraded the ballasts (not the bulbs) to the 50W digitals, and the difference is enormous! I am very happy with the 6000K bulbs with these upgraded ballasts. Should have done this to start.

 

[Legioss]

No idea about the peep slit... I've not had any flashing high beam incidents since upgrading to xenon. As an update to my last posts about the brightness not being good enough, I upgraded the ballasts (not the bulbs) to the 50W digitals, and the difference is enormous! I am very happy with the 6000K bulbs with these upgraded ballasts. Should have done this to start.

I never got flashed when I have the blue 6000K in, but the day I switched to white 5000K I started getting flashed relentlessly. The latest set has a horrible cutoff that spreads 3 or 4 colors, so I stopped getting flashed again, but not happy with the set.

I noticed that the 35w setup eventually started damaging my silver, in-headlight reflectors though (not in HID projector though, just OEM), so be careful if you are a hotter, total 55w setup now.

Mind posting a link/picture/etc. on your new ballasts?

 

[Eight]

Weird, I have a 5000k HID with a 35w slim metal ballast and its pretty bright. Of course not as bright as the OEM HID setups which I think is the best.

I used to have a OEM HID ballast, OEM 4300k d4s bulbs, etc. out of a Prius on my non HID RX8 and it was literally like daylight, great dark blue cutoff line, only problem was the squirrel finder light that shot straight into the front cars back mirror, pissed alot of folks who needed anger management...

Anyways, the peep hole aka squirrel finder, light, you can see it up against the wall its right above the cutoff line, directly in front, the closer you are to the wall the lower and more intense. I know we all have it, unless you retrofitted a real HID projector.

I guess I gotta gut the headlights...

 

[WestCoastPhilly]

Sorry for the delay. I forget things.

I had a bit of trouble with the supplier I picked for these, they came from california (to the grat white north, ahere the teperatures and humidity is a bit higher) and had to have the one ballast replaced twice. It would come on initially, but if I was driving any distance then stopped somewhere, (ie, taking a road trip, then stop for snacks or gas) the one would not turn back on right away. this is actually one of the defective ones ready to be shipped back. they gave me a hard time with the returns, as the first one I sent back, they were able to test on their bench and it seemed to work.

I still have the 35W ballasts I was able to test with, and the rest of the system is fine, just bad luck on 2 bad ballasts they shipped out. I have a feeling someone else will end up with my return. Next time, I'll order them from LightDepot.ca


I think I need to adjust my aim a bit though. Seems to me I have not done it since baking/clearing my headlights, although the cutoffs still seem to be pretty close to what they should be, just below the side mirrors of the car in front, and well below the rear view.

 

[Peregrine]

It ended up being that 4 prong connector that you screw the cap on.

It had melted insided. When I took the connection apart and turned on the lights you could see sparks flying and melting the plastic plug.

So I just cut it and connected the wires directly.

All works fine now.

Hey Uozo, what connector where you talking about. I might have the same problem. One of my HIDs is out. I got replacement bulbs, then ballasts, but it looks like the problem is the controller or some connection. I know it's not the bulb nor the ballast because I swapped them around and tested individually, and at the end I got a brand new ballast, cable and HID bulb and connected the 2 prong 12V connector to the ballast and nothing. Then I took the same ballast, cable and bulb to the other side (which is working fine) and it worked. I checked the disconnected 2 prong connector that goes from the controller to the ballast and it's showing 12V when the circuit is powered on. So I'm not exactly sure why the ballast doesn't power on. Maybe there's not enough current flow.

Unfortunately all these unexpected problems took much more time than I had available and I couldn't troubleshoot any longer. I thought the controller may be bad, until I found this quote from UOZO above. I searched for the controllers online, and all I found was just this schematic.

Did anyone have similar problems with these controllers and figured out what to do or where to get them?

 

[Peregrine]

So I spent some more time today and tested everything, and I know beyond a doubt that the controller is the problem (I hoped it was just the ground, but no luck). Without load from ballast, it provides 14V (with car running), with load from ballast, it only provides 7V - not enough to run the ballast. Everything else works fine. I tried to jump the output + wire from the controller->ballast with the input wire from headlight circuit->controller. It worked fine, but when I turned the lights off, the ballast was still sparking and controller was energized (something was looping) so that was no good. I looked at the controller more closely and it has some more detailed info, including a website address www.auto.gov.cn. Unfortunately it's all Chinese. I sent them an email and waiting for a reply. But would anyone know where else I can get these controllers??
Thanks