Found this on the SVX World Network. It's a link though BimmerForums and it looks like people have been pretty happy with the product. $49 + s/h... The company is DDM Tuning. (I am in no way affiliated with them) LINKY
I've seen stuff from DDM before. I've got the impression they're a decently reputable shop. Trying to decide if it's worth pulling the trigger for my wife's car. That's the only one we have that has separate high/low bulbs. Just don't know what she'd think. Edit: pulled the trigger.
sale is still good today, i just forgot my headlamp size, lols. gotta go look and order some tonight!
Yes. Do yourself a favor and don't bother with the foglights, unless you're just going for a "look" The stock fogs have a bad enough pattern with the correct bulb/filament placement. They'll have an even worse pattern with a HID conversion.
hah yeah good point I wasn't planning to b/c I personally think it would be a waste anyways But was checking for the correct size, thanks for the good info OH and by the way DID U GUYS get Hi & Low? or would that be a waste as well
Exactly why I never got a retrofit kit for my 02 (besides the fact that the light scatter would have been awful and I pretty much would either have had to aim the headlights at the ground or live with being flashed about every 5 mins...). If you put in a low only kit on a headlight that uses a dual filament bulb (like the 9007 the 02-03 use), you lose high beams. If you do the Hi & Low, then you won't. Funny thing about my wife's car. The factory HID kit is a retrofit just like this, so the light is already designed to handle a HID bulb, so the pattern should be clean with a good cutoff.
i went just lows.... however... they just emailed me saying there was an issue with my processing.... FAIL
ah, seems i will go just lows 6000K If it turns out bad like you said Vector, at least I spent only 50 $ on it and will prob trade it hopefully my order goes through...
Well, $64 after shipping. But yeah, it's cheap. I got the 4500K. Really thought about the 3000K, but I bet they just put a coating on the bulbs, which reduces output anyhow.
No status update on mine yet. But the orde was conformed, etc. I figured at worst case, since our Altima uses H1 low beams, even if it wasn't good in the car, that I could swap them into a set of Hella FF1000s (probabaly need to modify the rear dust cover a bit, but no huge deal).
awesome, got it cleared up with them, just waiting to hear now if the shipment for my exact needs came in. at 11 their time, it wasnt there yet (due in by noon)
what K value do you suggest for HID's vector?? I uesed to have 8000k and I sold them when I lived up north because everyone hated them. but when I was in the cities nobody ever flashed me. I want the best usable light.
Well... Tungsten & Halogen bulbs are ~2700-3000K. So that's what your typical non-HID car has. Stock HID lights are 4300K Direct sunlight at noon is about 5000K As you get higher than 5000K you get first more blue and then into purple. The natural light output of a HID is about 4300-4500, so they put out the most light at that temperature. They're most efficient there. Anything else is achieved by putting a colored tint on the bulb, and you lose some output. The farther from that 4300K range, the more the output drops. In my opinion, anything other than the 4300-4500 range is just cosmetic. Higher color temps seem brighter to the human eye, even when they're not, so the higher you go, the more annoying it will be to other drivers. And in fact, the glare from backscatter will hurt your actual vision also, even though you feel like it's brighter. 5000K is closer to a "pure white" and isn't too far off, so a lot of people who don't want to go crazy opt for that. The real problem is the simple fact that if a light wasn't designed for a HID capsule, the pattern is going to be sub-optimal, and may cause extreme hotspots and light scatter. And that's what really gets you flashed. I haven't seen a bugeye with HIDs in stock housings that didn't have horrible scatter and glare. HIDs in a set of Morettes work pretty well, but unless they're the really rare Morettes that have HIDs built in, they're still not perfect (I'd take it over stock lights though!).
I just got an email back from DDM Tuning. According to them this is NOT a sale, but an "everyday price." Hope that helps clear things up some.
Well, here is an better initial review that I put on the SVX forums. I put mine in today and am pretty happy. General impressions as I said before are that they're quite well built. Everything feels solid and sturdy. There are good water-seals on all the connectors and all the connectors fit together quite well. One odd thing is that you have to reverse the connector from SVX's lighting connector to the ballast because the wires are backwards. Fine fit backwards just fine and I used zip ties to hold them together instead of the built in clip, The lamp itself fits sungly into the socket on the headlight housing. The lamp appears to be pretty well built. The envelopes were identical and appeared to have the same amounts of metal-salts in them (as best as you can tell by a visual inspection) I fired them up and they came right on. There was a small warmup delay, but it wasn't really bad, and that has to do with the amount of Xenon gas in the envelope. As with any other Metal-Halide lamp that I've seen (I work with lots of them in the professional lighting world, just much bigger 500-1500W) the initial startup included some colored flickering as the salts began to evaporate and take over for the Xenon gas. That should be less prevalent once they've had a little bit of burn-in time. I haven't been able to take the car out because of some other problems, but so far they seem so good. DDM also makes a big deal about their lifetime warranty on the whole schebang. So if they do go out DDM should replace them for you. Also there was a very solid edge of the pattern with very little coloration or "rainbow effect" at the edge, which shows that there is pretty darn good arc-placement.
I have the same kit and I have problems on initial startup. Getting a bit of flickering then it levels off and afterwards there are 0 problems while driving around.
vector, how do you think setting these up in uk300's would look/work? i'm looking for something because the initial wiring for these was done pretty poorly and i don't really want to find the gremlins and instead just replace it with something.
Real UK300s? Or knockoffs? Real UK300 lights are probably meant to be mounted o n a RHD car, which means the aim may be off (shoting into oncoming traffic), but it may not. Also in Europe, they allow side-to-side adjustment of lights, which isn't allowed by the US DoT. So even if they do have a RHD bias, it may be possible to adjust it out. Anything with a projector will do a lot better than the stock reflector when it comes to HIDs. Even the e-bay knockoffs that have a projector lens for the low (not the ones with two reflectors) would probably work pretty good. The real UK300s are sweet, with Hella optics. iF you can get a set of those I'd do it regardless of HID or not. Because even with halogen bulbs they'll kick the stock bugeye's for light output. Also, I believe that Gridlocked was considering selling his Morettes at one point. those would be a good option too.
I am thinking about getting HID's for beths mazda. according to osram/sylvania her car takes an H1-55w. should I get the 55w HID's or just the 35w. Thanks. What do you guys think?? http://www.sylvania.com/ConsumerProducts/AutomotiveLighting/LampReplacementGuide/AutoLRG-Results.htm
