Stu's xenon upgrade

[Sonic]

Hi,

Upon completing Stu's xenon upgrade yesterday i figured it may be handy to share a couple of points/tips with anyone else that may do the same :-

1. Be sure that when you cut a 25mm hole through the cap that clips over the back of the light that you cut it to one side so that the metal clip that goes over the top of it can still clip into place.
   
2. Check which light is the low beam because trust me, the high beam can be converted to xenon just as easy as the low beam (The low beam, the one you want to convert, is the one with the big cap)
   
3. Be very careful when replacing the bulb. Do not touch the glass as the grease from your finger print that will be left can crack the bulb when it heats up. If you do touch the bulb, and it may be a good idea anyway, wipe the bulbs with isopropane alcohol or something similar. Also, dont trip up, land on the light cluster and "break" one of the bulbs - because your a lucky son of a b*tch if it works!
   
4. Make sure you have a good earth connection. There is a 10mm socket screw on the drivers side on the frame that surrounds the light cluster that worked well (A bit of sand paper was required). On the passenger side there is philips head screw that already had 2 earth's connected to it that i used.
   
5. Finding a place to put the ballast is one of the trickier parts. On the drivers side i routed all the cables behind the hose that goes into the MAF (i think) and used a sticky pad to mount the ballast onto the platic surface next to the IC. On the passenger side it was quite easy, and stuck the ballast with another pad onto a metal surface that holds the light cluster into place, infront of the radiator.
   
6. When plugging the power cable that is connected to the bulb into the ballast be sure that it is the right way round. The clip should be on the outside of the pack, the blue wire being +ve, the pack -ve.
   
7. If you still find that one of the ballast packs doesnt work - give it a good smack with a hammer/screwdriver once or twice. (Yes, really... this is courtesy of Stu and Steph and worked for me! Apparantley the packs just need "waking up" )

The xenons are well worth it. Look amazing and make a real difference!

[topsparky]

have you done the side light to match sonic

[Acidburn]

Nice tips there, I saw sal's old s2 the other day and liked the sidelight bulbs he had as they matched the output of the hids, have you changed them yet?

[Sonic]

Cheers guys - that sounds like a nice idea!

Could one of you point me to a link? I presume you're talking about an LED of sorts?

[Jas11n]

Have a look at this thread here >>> LINK
Have a read through. After trying 4 different sets, I'm set on and happy with the five LED tower from ultraleds.
Match my HID dipped beam and HID fogs great.

Jas..

[4WheelDrifter]

Nice one Andy. I knew you would be capable of fitting a HID kit, in a round-about kind of way. The bulb nearest the centre of the car is high beam. Low beam is through the projector.

At least you know you can upgrade the main beam if you want to, although you should find the low beam upgrade is enough. Having said that we do have xenon high, low and fog lights on the A3, but that is a little overkill TBH.

Just be careful none of the new cables don't chafe on anything and are secure.
I may also be an idea to get the headlight allignment checked, just to make sure you're not going to blind anyone.

The important question is...

Can you see any better in the dark with xenon lights? Any before/after pics?

[merlin's S4]

Nice one Andy. I knew you would be capable of fitting a HID kit, in a round-about kind of way. The bulb nearest the centre of the car is high beam. Low beam is through the projector.

At least you know you can upgrade the main beam if you want to, although you should find the low beam upgrade is enough. Having said that we do have xenon high, low and fog lights on the A3, but that is a little overkill TBH.

Just be careful none of the new cables don't chafe on anything and are secure.
I may also be an idea to get the headlight allignment checked, just to make sure you're not going to blind anyone.

The important question is...

Can you see any better in the dark with xenon lights? Any before/after pics?

@Stu! Does the flash function work ok with the HID main beam? I was under the impression that this would cause trouble at MOT time.

[4WheelDrifter]

Flash works, as you get the very bright flash of the xenons firing up. It's just that you can shoten the life of the bulbs and ballasts I believe. But MOT is no problem.
If switching to high beam the xenon bulb obviously takes a little while to get to full brightness, but it isn't much of a problem if the low beam bulb stays on.

[Sonic]

@Jas!!n - Cheers for the link. Looking pretty swish

It seems the model you used has been replaced by the following: http://www.ultraleds.co.uk/501194t10...te-p-1545.html

Have ordered 2 - so will see how they go!

@4WheelDrifter - Well i managed to do the wrong set of lights on both clusters, but we got there in the end

The low beam is fantastic now, makes a huge difference and is way better than the halogen. I do still use the high beam when there is no on-coming traffic, just to see a little further, so i would maybe consider upgrading it to HID xenon as well. If not just to match I do think it would be tight to try and fit in another ballast pack on the drivers side though.

As for the alignment - you are probably right. Only had 1 person flash me as of yet

@merlin - As i did do a high beam conversion before i corrected it to a low beam, exactley as stu said. You can flash the high beam and it works fine.

[Ross]

Good job... was PMSL when i took that phonecall on the weekend

"Which one is the high beam? Because my HIDs are only working when i put them on"

Didn't know you could legally and reasonably do the high beams... now theres a further upgrade

Have you found that the auto-check light comes on at all? Mine were good for a while, came back when fitted to the Avant, but a good earthing job by Corey sorted it.

[Sonic]

I dont think i'll live that one down

Made it even worse that we i was dead proud of the 25mm hole we made into the small plastic cap (for the high beam), and still had the metal clip over the top working as it should... and later had to seal it up!

I know alot of "upper market" cars have xenon high beam these days, so it must be legal?

The auto check light did seem to stay on a little longer than usual at first, but seems absolutely fine now. I sanded down all of the screws and bodywork that the earths were connected to, so hopefully i wont have this problem!

Now, to do the side lights (fog lights maybe at a later date, bit OTT but looked cool) and all of the hundreds of LED's that i have for the interior and instrument panel

[Fat Audi 80]

@merlin - As i did do a high beam conversion before i corrected it to a low beam, exactley as stu said. You can flash the high beam and it works fine.

I would be careful Andy, Ballasts will only stand being turned off and on for a while and then die! The Main beam OEM HID systems use a flap to allow light out as far as I am aware rather than being turned off and on...

(BTDT with the flashing HID's when I first fitted mine. I had the old style wiring that switches DIPPED OFF when the Main Beam comes on, this killed a ballast box on mine in about 10 minutes....)

HTH

Cheers,

Steve.

[Sonic]

I would be careful Andy, Ballasts will only stand being turned off and on for a while and then die! The Main beam OEM HID systems use a flap to allow light out as far as I am aware rather than being turned off and on...

(BTDT with the flashing HID's when I first fitted mine. I had the old style wiring that switches DIPPED OFF when the Main Beam comes on, this killed a ballast box on mine in about 10 minutes....)

HTH

Cheers,

Steve.

Cheers Steve! I think i'll leave the high beam HID set then

The high beam conversion was a mistake - not intentional I converted the high beam instead of the low beam, but it all seemed to work ok before i did it the right way and did the low beam

[4WheelDrifter]

I would be careful Andy, Ballasts will only stand being turned off and on for a while and then die! The Main beam OEM HID systems use a flap to allow light out as far as I am aware rather than being turned off and on...

(BTDT with the flashing HID's when I first fitted mine. I had the old style wiring that switches DIPPED OFF when the Main Beam comes on, this killed a ballast box on mine in about 10 minutes....)

I had forgotten about that Steve. The kits we have on the A3 and Bora have H4 Hi/Lo bulbs, so the bulb stays on all the time when switching from high beam to low.

AFAIK Doug has a HID high beam conversion on his S4, but I'm not sure how long he has had it.

[Sonic]

LED Side Lights

Installed my side lights yesterday evening. A few before and after shots (taken on phone):











(You can see how quickly i was running out of light!)

Lights took 5 minutes to install. Simply undo the screws holding in the light cluster, pull it out about, turn the plastic thing holding the side light bulb to release it, take out bulb, put new bulb in, put back plastic thing and bulb, screw light cluster back in. Repeat for other cluster.

The cluster looks way better with the LED side lights, although it makes me realise now that the fog lights and beam could do with being converted to a whiter bulb.

I also immediately noticed that at fairly random intervals i am getting the bulb warning light on the display, along with the annoying beep that goes along with it.

Any ideas?