HID

[Donald]

Here you can know better for HID, play with the colour to look at the changes.

http://www.sportsimportsltd.com/hidxenon.html

 

[valkryie]

Bro aramis, he mean HID Conversion Kit, this is for car without HID (Xenon)

BTW, I get my Plasma HID 8000K RM 1000

A HID conversion kit is to convert your existing halogen bulbs into HID bulbs. This means replacing your ori bulbs to hid bulbs, doing the wiring and securing the ballast to the chasis of the car.

A HID retrofit in leforte context is to add a projector into the light housing. I.e. you try to fit a OEM/bosch projector into your original housing. After the projector is installed in your housing then you proceed to install the HID bulbs and the ballast.

The main difference is

1. Conversion kit = no projector = poor HID light projection

2. Projector Retrofit = Installing a projector to enable the projector to focus the light from HID bulbs to a far and wide homogenous (uniform) area. You get superior light throw.

Simple analogy

1. Conversion kit without projectors is like a torch light where the bulb sits in front of the relector.

2. Projector - The bulb fits behind the projector lens just like those projectors used in meeting rooms and presentations.

The best, most straight forward and trouble free HID solution is to install the OEM Xenon projector light at least for E46. It is plug and play. Take out your existing halogen light (the whole housing) and plug in the xenon projector light. Connect the cables and you are done.

No need to open housing cover, take out reflectors, trying to fit the individual projector in place of the original reflector, align the projector, etc...

For cars without OEM or factory projectors, retrofitting a projector may be the only choice other than a conversion kit or buying after market projector lights.

 

[leakwoon]

clap clap clap

 

[leforte]

Hid

just found out that these HID's for sale the bulbs are for D2S version.. perfect seating for the e46's..local spec's..

SLIght COrrectioN....the d2s bulb will only fit cars that came stock with hids. if your car has no HID, the d2s bulbs may not fit. the bulb might be able to fit within the bulb socket but this does not mean its at the precies depth. further more, d2s bulb has not locking plate on it unlike our usual h1 or h3 bulbs, so if you do force it down with anything BUT the original bulb d2s bulb holder, you might run the risk of it dislodging itself on a bumpy road and starting a fire due to the high heat HID emits.....

ANYWAY... since the hid is only a few hundred dollars.. why not spend a little more for all the performance benefit of a OEM system and sort for a oem HID projector ( e46 would be ideal, but the truth is any projector for a oem fitted HID car will do.)

Valkryie:
the retrofitting do require vbmenu_register("postmenu_138768", true); vbmenu_register("postmenu_138768", true); a complete stripdown of you headlight as even the e46 projector may not be a direct fit on a e46... namely the alignment of the projector and centrering. another issue would be the mounting holes as only one hole will fit and you would have to redrill the other three to install the xenon projector...

 

[valkryie]

hi leforte,

Yeah the projector retrofit is not that easy . Anyway, I am just trying to present a rough idea without getting into the nitty gritty details of what a projector retrofit is, which is essentially trying to put a projector into the original reflector housing.

Like you mentioned, it won't be as easy as just stripping off the reflector and putting in a projector. This is a good point that you have highlighted. And for E46 which is more complex would require professional help. I know a person who do projector retrofit and he does not recommend this solution for E46. Maybe for older and simpler cars.

But if anyone has retrofitted a projector into E46 without any problems, please do post it up as it would be a very interesting read.

Bosch projector = US$100 per pair
HID Kit = RM 1000 approx for a decent kit
Labour to retrofit = ???
Additional misc materials = ???

Aftermarket projector lights for FL E46 = RM 3000 approx.
You probably save slightly more than RM 1,000 in retrofit but the risk of someting going wrong is an important factor to consider. It will be very messy if you make an irreversible mistake in the retrofit.

While the most straight forward and quality assured method would be to get Bosch OEM Bi-Xenon projector lights which would set you back by around RM 5-6K for face lifted E46.

Bosch sells a xenon projector for non FL E46 which is cheaper and this makes it not very worthwhile to do a retrofit on non FL E46.

IMHO retrofitting a projector to an E46 is not a worthwhile thing to consider after factoring the pros and cons together with the cost of alternative aftermarket and Bosch projectors.

 

[valkryie]

just found out that these HID's for sale the bulbs are for D2S version.. perfect seating for the e46's..local spec's..

Hi pussy,

Like leforte posted. Only E46 with xenon projector uses DS2 bulbs. The rest of the halogen reflector equipped E46 uses H7 bulbs.

 

[portse7en]

bro,
I need that info too
thank u

 

[vincent]

so what about e36 , i tot that e36 has projector on its head lights, and what type of bulb e36 is using , i m intrested wit the rm 500 hid deal

 

[leforte]

HIDs

Vincent
your e36 do come with projectors from the factory. projectors they are but HID projectors they are not. anyway, the hid set with d2s bulbs will not fit your e36 which uses H1 bulbs. rm500 may be cheap but getting a rebased hid bulb will cost you more than the rm500. better off buying a hid conversion kit elsewhere.

the rm500 HIDs will be a great option for those whois thinking of going the retrofit route or even those intending to keep them as spares, since getting a replacement from "official sources" may most often cost you say..... an arm or leg, methaphoricly speaking.

 

[leforte]

hid

valkrie,
i did my e36 retrofit on my own. not a simple tast but its not really a tough one either. kinda time consuming +/-4hours. experimenting with the projector alignment on the first try took up about 3hours but the after that, the second housing is just barely half an hour. some may see it as hard work, but its just worth it after seeing the end result, everything looks stock oem and the best being the oem hid light projection from the projectors.

A retrofit is worth every dollar saved. coincedentally, i am doing a retrofit for my cousin's FL e46. the projectors took fairly an hour to fit into the light housing, only requiring to redrill 2 holes to mount the projector. a much simpler job than my e36. BUT one missing part... the projector bezel. the e36 with internal lenses negats the need to cover them but an e46 just looks like something is missing. oh well... since there's no bezel, angel eyes makes a good if not a better subsitute.

ANYWAY... total amount spend ...circa 1800( should have been around 1500 but incurred a last minute spending on the angel eyes)... satisfaction from retrofitting an oem projector ... unbelievable.

 

[valkryie]

Hi leforte,

Good job man. That is really cool that you retrofitted a projector to an E46. Do you mind posting some picture on the end result of the projector retrofit?
You can buy the bezel of the net assuming you are using bosch projectors.

Got some questions to clarify :-

1. Do you get any warning lights from the OBC?
2. What about the initial alignment when the car started? For E46 both reflector and projector equipped lights will move up slightly when the engine is started initially.
3. After the projector retrofit can you still adjust the light throw level (up, down, left, right)?
4. Will there be any water leakage issues? How do you seal up the back portion of the projector (the part where u insert the hid bulb and where the wirings connects to the socket)

 

[leforte]

valkrie

1. obc will show low beam failure if you do a direct tap from the low beam harness. simple fix would be to take out the two tiny bulbs (front parking lights) in the headlights. it eliminates the OBC message, its a rather temporary solutions. A permanent solution should you want the parking lights back on is to install a relay on the low beam harness to trick the OBC. I went with the former solution for my e36 for now, but will experiment with the latter solution on my cousin's car tomorrow...hehehe sometimes its just good to experiment on someone else's car first. will let you know on the wiring formula later.

2. all e36/46 with the leveling control will realigned itself upon startup. its just the selenoids firing up and going back to the stored position. the opposite actually happens everytime we turn off the lights whereby the selenoids retracts and goes back to the lowest position. SO, don't bother with this as you will be aligning them with the lights on.

3. no problem with alignment. however the e36 do required a slight dremelling of the rear cover to increase the depth of the rear cover. no modification required for the e46.

4.for the e36, the new projector fits inside the original light housing. as for the e46 just reuse the rubber cover to cover the new HID projector and the sockets just plug right over it like the original halogen setup. both car were parked out side, even after the heavy rain just now, no leaks so far.....

 

[suratsh]

Now i see Too many brand HID in the market place and too cheaper (Rm600.00 - Rm900.00)
For the branded HID (rm1k++) philip/Aura& etc, still costly or still over budget.

for my confiusion that is the difference cheaper one with costly one????
But my friend use cheaper one made from Taiwan the brightness is too low with xelux/philip brand.

 

[tomyck]

i m intrested wit the rm 500 hid deal for E36 is it come with the angel eye ring as well ?

 

[DanPromote]

HID is the bulb inside your lamp, Angel eye is the ring outside. They are 2 different things.

leforte, what projectors fit on e36? Can I for example, get an e46 D2S projector and fit it on an e36? I was told some old 7 series also uses D2S. Quite keen on this as recently the D2S HID are going for as low as RM390.

 

[cool728]

the guy i know at BMduina, has 100 sets of original bmw H7 HIDS for sale at RM500.00 each sets, cums with balast, ignitor, bulbs without installation.. 4800 colour tempreture..

i just them and they are good..

hehehe..

Is this 4800K colour temp is pure white light or is it blue+white??

 

[c-square]

4800K should be still yellowish. If you want pure white, you'll need 6000K-7000K. Anything higher the colour will turn blue and finally purplish

 

[leforte]

danpromote,

an oem Bosch E46 D2S projector will fit within a e36's light housing just fine. in fact any D2S projector will fit with minor base modification.

 

[DanPromote]

Didn't know D2S and H1 are compatible.. what minor modifications need to be done?

 

[leforte]

D2s and h1 are the type of base used for bulb fitting. they are entirely different and not inter changeable. so a h1 bulb will not fit in a D2s bulb vise versa....