HID Upgrade & Relays
- Thread starter Ed Hall
- Start date
rayner601
Dedicated LVC Member
You definitely need relays on those hid kits.
Go Fast Get Tickets
Dedicated LVC Member
+1 on what rayner says
NoLimit95
Dedicated LVC Member
What's the deal with these 55 watt HID kits? Why go with that? The 35 watt does the trick just fine and is going to lengthen the life of your housings. I don't know how much heat they put out but our housings don't like heat.
rayner601
Dedicated LVC Member
You also won't be able to leave the autolamp function on all the time either unless you wire in a LARGE capacitor to help out with the voltage dip the ballast will see when starting the car. The heat generated by hid bulbs is less than a halogen bulb, but I suspect that the 55w kit will run close to what a normal incandescent 9006 runs temp wise.
ramairmustang
Active LVC Member
I got the 35 watt in mine with stock wireing no relays and every now and then I will get the only one headlight comes on I just turn them off and back on and they both work. I bought the Digital Slims from www.vvme.com so that on/off on/off has no ill effect on anything. If you figure yours out relay wise let me know please I'd love to get my issue fixed. Oh I tried the 55watt's first and that was a disaster. They would flicker really bad at idle and it was really hard to get them both to light up.
MediumD
Dedicated LVC Member
Frankly I'd prefer to run a relay on any headlight setup, stock halogens included... They're not expensive (like a dollar at the pick a part yards) and neither is wire. My 55w HIDs are relay driven, so are the stock halogens in my Vic.
I have the 55 watts from retro solutions. Way way bright. I’d love to compare to 3 watt. At idle they flicker and sometimes only one turns on. Or then the fan or pump turn on…one goes out. It’s pretty frustration. I do have under drive pulleys but raised the idle and put on a overdrive pulley on my car. It seemed to help but still not all there. I do think my electrical system is not all charging.…at idle I’m at 13 volts…
NoLimit95
Dedicated LVC Member
I would say that's your problem. I don't ever have one headlight come on or any flicker and none are relay driven. I use a Duralast 1000/850 battery and have a new alternator. Even when the other alternator was going bad, I still never had any flickering. Sounds like some bad kits that need to be sent back if you have flicker or there isn't enough power coming from your charging system to power the ballasts.
Question about putting a relay inline with the factory ballast connectors. After you do that, will the check light error still not appear? On my 97, I do not get the check headlight error even with my aftermarket HID kit. I just hope that if I put a relay in place, the error still won't occur.
NoLimit95
Dedicated LVC Member
You shouldn't but even if you do, it's not a big deal. Just push reset until you get around to snipping the one wire that stops it.
Rich88LSC
Dedicated LVC Member
I don't see the point of these 55W kits. If you feel like spending more more to say they are 55W who am I to stop you.
My Mark has a kit from mafioso with no relays. Doesn't come on most of the time with the autolamp. I just turn them on manually now. My LS has 35 slim kit from DDM tuning with their relay kit. They come on fine with the autolamp and do not trigger the lamp out warning.
My Mark has a kit from mafioso with no relays. Doesn't come on most of the time with the autolamp. I just turn them on manually now. My LS has 35 slim kit from DDM tuning with their relay kit. They come on fine with the autolamp and do not trigger the lamp out warning.
Will the relays help out with the autolamp? I know its silly but my wife LOVES the autolamp and it annoys her that the headlights go off right away now. Also should I be grounding the ballast shell to the car? I saw where someone did that once.
NoLimit95
Dedicated LVC Member
No, I have two 35 watt kits. One 6000K and one 8000K. I don't really see the reason for the 55 watt kit.
NoLimit95
Dedicated LVC Member
Some people ground them but I don't. I never had my 94 grounded with the 10,000K kit and I never one time had any flicker or any lights going out or not coming on. The 8000K kit I put in isn't grounded either and works fine with auto lamp, which I keep off because I don't like it. When I want light, I turn the switch on.
People with halogens that use the auto lamp feature just don't realize the damage they're doing to the housings by running those 55 watt hot bulbs during the daytime. HID's and auto lamp is ok because the heat isn't hurting anything because they don't produce much but that light switch isn't that hard to turn on when you need light.
NoLimit95
Dedicated LVC Member
You're getting more lumens compared to the 35 watt kit but think of it this way. If you had halogens, you would have anywhere from 900 to 1200 lumens. If you have the 35 watt kit, you're going up to 3200 to 3400 lumens and with a 55 watt kit, you're going up to around 5000 lumens.
Also, when you go for the 55 watt kit and choosing color temp, the higher wattage kit is reducing the color that you may be going for. Example: an 8000K 55 watt kit is going to look like a 6000K 35 watt kit. So if you wanted a blue tint in the 55 watt, you would most likely need to go with the 10,000K so that it would match what the 8000K 35 watt kit would look like in color.
For the money, going with a 35 watt kit over normal halogens, you're already jumping up over 2000 lumens or more and it makes a huge difference. That's $50 vs. $160 for the 55 watt kit. A lot of it has to do with the housing too. On youtube, they have comparisons but most of them have the 35 watt kit in the fog lights, meaning smaller housing, lower level of the light itself. I would like to see two Marks side by side, one with a 35 and one with a 55 and really see what the difference is. I'm sure the 55 watt is brighter but I can assure you that with the 35 watt kit, I'm not missing anything and I'm also drawing less power from an already power hungry car.
Also, when you go for the 55 watt kit and choosing color temp, the higher wattage kit is reducing the color that you may be going for. Example: an 8000K 55 watt kit is going to look like a 6000K 35 watt kit. So if you wanted a blue tint in the 55 watt, you would most likely need to go with the 10,000K so that it would match what the 8000K 35 watt kit would look like in color.
For the money, going with a 35 watt kit over normal halogens, you're already jumping up over 2000 lumens or more and it makes a huge difference. That's $50 vs. $160 for the 55 watt kit. A lot of it has to do with the housing too. On youtube, they have comparisons but most of them have the 35 watt kit in the fog lights, meaning smaller housing, lower level of the light itself. I would like to see two Marks side by side, one with a 35 and one with a 55 and really see what the difference is. I'm sure the 55 watt is brighter but I can assure you that with the 35 watt kit, I'm not missing anything and I'm also drawing less power from an already power hungry car.
MediumD
Dedicated LVC Member
DDM's kit is an extra ten bucks for 55w which is why I have them. Only difference is a slightly bigger ballast.
I did. Dunno if it helps or not because that's the only way I've run it. But it doesn't hurt and is pretty much free.
98lincmk7lsc
Dedicated LVC Member
Yeah, $10 with DDM tuning, plus the 35w kits were back-ordered a couple weeks, so I just went with the 55w kit. Came out to $63.37 after shipping. Not a bad deal.
Just a small update for anyone that cares. I have been having the flickering problems with my aftermarket HIDs and was planning on doing the grounding wire and relay fixes in hopes that it would prevent the flicker and occasional dead headlight.
Well I brought my car to the parts store because I was having some issues with my battery. Turns out that as soon as my headlights came on, my at rest battery voltage dropped to 10. The car has been slow to turn over as well.
New battery and my headlights work perfectly. No more flicker. They even work fine with the autolamp.
Well I brought my car to the parts store because I was having some issues with my battery. Turns out that as soon as my headlights came on, my at rest battery voltage dropped to 10. The car has been slow to turn over as well.
New battery and my headlights work perfectly. No more flicker. They even work fine with the autolamp.
rayner601
Dedicated LVC Member
As long as the load is balanced (same load on each headlamp circuit) you won't get the check head lamps message. If you only use the left headlamp wire as a relay trigger and not use the right on a separate relay, you will get the message.
That is good info to know!
Does that go for the 93-96 models as well if you convert them over to HID?
rayner601
Dedicated LVC Member
That's pretty much any FOMOCO with a lamp out module and seperate L&R headlamp circuits
The rest measure the resistance of the headlamp circuits with a comparator circuit.