The Retro has begun. Headlamp overhaul.

[yies]

Don't have the parts yet, I wanted to make sure I would be able to do this before buying anything. I was planning to get philips d2s, denso ballasts, h7 to d2s adapter, and this:

 

http://www.xenondepot.com/product.php?product_id=50

 

I am wondering, will this harness cover all the extra wiring I need to complete the project?

 

I looked at the diagram but never having done any electrical work before, other than installing new bulbs, I am clueless as to what it means.

[VXCL]

Don't have the parts yet, I wanted to make sure I would be able to do this before buying anything. I was planning to get philips d2s, denso ballasts, h7 to d2s adapter, and this:

 

http://www.xenondepot.com/product.php?product_id=50

 

I am wondering, will this harness cover all the extra wiring I need to complete the project?

 

I looked at the diagram but never having done any electrical work before, other than installing new bulbs, I am clueless as to what it means.

 

yeah you will be fine. one you get the ballasts you just have to know which wire is + and which is ground. then you can either plug right into the oem h7 connector using spade connectors or make a harness and run directly off the batt. this will keep drl function. if you do plug right into the oem circuit you will have to disable drl becuase of the varing ground.

 

peace

[KA81]

just curious, do you park your car in the kitchen/dining room? ..hahaha

 

might be back when i get a legacy, someday....

[VXCL]

just curious, do you park your car in the kitchen/dining room? ..hahaha

 

might be back when i get a legacy, someday....

 

just an extra battery and lots of headlamp parts

[Brock Samson]

Rezzing a thread from the dead here, just because you look like you guys really know your shit.

 

I know the world of HID kits has been flipped on its head (capitalism: it works bitches!) and now there are $30 H7 kits available from places like (http://www.ddmtuning.com/Products/Apexcone-Raptor-HID-Kit). How do these compare to a full retro? Looking for ease of install/bang for the buck this is very attractive, its a new car to me and I've got about a zillion projects I want to get done.

 

Thanks, so happy to be buying a car with real enthusiasts behind it.

[TSiWRX]

Compared to a full retro, the things you're going to notice are a lack of spread, and both increased foreground flooding as well as artifacts. The thing that oncoming drivers will notice would be some level of increased glare.

 

The former isn't too much of a problem. Even if you require extra distance lighting, that can be easily compensated-for by pairing the drop-in HID capsules with HIR high-beams. For extra side spread, engaging your factory fogs should allow for enough compensation. The foreground flooding may be somewhat more problematic, but whether you notice that or not - and whether it will be, actually, advantageous to you, to have such intense foreground lighting - will depend heavily on where and how you drive.

 

In terms of glare to oncoming, as long as you pay good attention to properly aiming your headlamps, you won't offend anyone too much. The glare can be further reduced (although this isn't "do-or-die" necessary, by any means) by filling the "squirrel finders" in your factory cut-off shields, but this is much more easily done by pulling the headlamps off the vehicle...and at that point, you might as well bake the housing and open it up, and effect a full-optics retro.

 

Overall, the BL/BP's factory halogen-incandescent optics do a very good job of shaping light from a simple plug-and-play, and also a very good job of controlling glare. At $30-$50, shipped, the plug-and-plays become a very cost-effective upgrade, particularly when the potential for early and routine replacement of standard halogen capsules is factored in. Nevertheless, it's still far from perfect.

[Brock Samson]

Thanks. I'll probably do the cheap kit (because it's so cheap!) and come back around to the full retro in a couple years.

 

Is there a good thread on fogs? I live in the Pacific Northwest, and the primary job of this car is going to be getting into the Cascades for skiing and other forested, dark, slushy road-type stuff. My buddy has yellow fogs on his Mazdaspeed 3, and it seems to work really well for this sort of thing. I'd like to yellow the fogs on my LGT, but i've yet to see a good example.

[TSiWRX]

^ There's plenty of fog-light related threads here, a quick search using the search-engine will get you going well.

 

With "yellow" fogs, they only really work well if your eyes-brain respond better to yellower light: and even then, current evidence suggests that there's no true quantifiable performance benefit, and rather, that the benefit is simply better driver comfort and enhanced driver confidence - which can actually lead you to "over-drive" what light there is available, for the conditions, so be sure you don't fall into that trap.

 

Typically, those who receive yellower light better tend to say that it helps with depth-perception and edge-delineation, but whether or not that truly helps with your particular driving needs is something that you'll have to judge - and remember, no matter how you achieve that "yellow" light, there's going to be less absolute light-on-road than with "white" light, so you may need to compensate for that by pursuing "more" light (i.e. higher-wattage or with an HID setup, of which, again, there are plenty of past threads here for you to search), which itself will then require further workings.

 

Regardless, the BL/BPs' fog placement is low. And while this combined with the factory fogs' optics makes for a good "true fog" setup in terms of decreased back-scatter, an inherent shortcoming of the system's physical setup is that it's also too low to truly serve well as even "true fogs." Re-aiming the lamps and/or going with an aftermarket setup may be necessary for you to gain the functionality that you're looking for.

[BAC5.2]

So, how much did the E39 setup set you back?

 

That's the trouble with doing a retrofit, finding stuff "on the cheap" and knowing what OEM setups are good, and what are bad.

 

I DO wish we had halogen optics like the 2010 VW's. They are phenomenal.

[TSiWRX]

^ Dude, I barely remember what components are on my car, now! If it wasn't for my log-sheet of components, I'd be lost! You expect me to remember something from a car that I haven't touched in 5 years?

 

I honestly don't remember what take-offs I'd used. I'll have to dig-up the old sheet on my TSi (I wonder if it's in her glovebox?), but that was from a time when I didn't log much to the computer.... The hardware cost me about 600, IIRC, but that was back in the early part of this decade.

[BAC5.2]

And you have E39 stuff in your Legacy now?

[TSiWRX]

^ No.

 

I am still in-process of playing with my headlamps - a project which I started only this past late-fall/early-winter.

 

I went from the slight-overwattage (65W Osram Hyper) incandescent halogen to my current setup, a 55W DDM H7 plug-and-play, in 4300K, at that time, mainly in an effort to recover the light (absolute) I'd lost to my LaserVEIL G4 application, but also partly because I'm at a good stopping-point elsewhere in my upgrade path.

 

I started off with just the plug-and-play, and then, months later, filled in the "squirrel finder." By that time, though, it was spring, and with diminished night hours (due to my role as primary caregiver for my daughter during the weekdays - my wife's weekday schedule is much busier and less flexible than mine - I don't see much, if any, driving in the dark hours for all but the winter season), I have not been able to assess this second step as much as I'd liked to. As-such, it's another temporary stopping point, which I will revisit likely this winter or next spring, to then stepwise update to a full-retro (but likely a simple, using this excellent walk-through: http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/rx330-oem-conversion-full-oem-hids-write-up-56028.html?t=56028&highlight=rx330 by MiniSTiGuy).

 

Currently, I still need to play with the horizontal aim, to see if I can make what I currently see with the plug-and-play "better," but without good road-time, it's not something that I'm willing to do, just yet. All that I can definitively report is that, without horizontal re-aiming, using the same setup I have for the Hyper H7s, I do notice significant decrease in spread, and at the time, am compensating via my re-aimed overwattage (85W) fogs.

 

Having a spare set of headlamps (I bought an old set from Underdog, quite a while ago ) gives me a lot of time to just play with things. I'm decidedly taking it easy, this time around, trying to get a full feel for things, before taking the next evolutionary step.