H1 HID conversion kits for smileys... Any recommendations?

[JamOnIt]

Hi guys,

I'm after a HID kit for my E30. I've been looking online but there seems to be a few options i.e 35w and 55w. So has anyone fitted a kit recently and are they easy to fit and good quality?

[konfuzion]

I've had both.. both at 6000K. The difference is night and say, so to speak. I thought the 35W burners were good, but the 50W are far superior. I never used main beam since installing them.

My 35W kit came from somewhere in Asia via ebay.. my 50W kit came from HIDS Direct.

Fitting is easy.. pretty much plug and play, except a hole that needs to be drilled into the back of the headlight cap.



Regards,

Ian

[charlE30]

I fitted a set of 4300k 55w HID's at the weekend. They were £35.78 deliveried and arrived in under a week from overseas. No hidden charges and had full online tracking when in the UK as they were deliveried by HDNL and not royal snail

This is the link to item I brought http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/H1-50W-55W-HID-Co ... 230ab3062f

[JamOnIt]

Cheers guys,

got a set and fitted them as per the wiki... I did have to also widen the original H1 bulb holder on the back of each light unit but they're in and working fine. A massive improvement when driving at night.

[ultralinear]

Does anyone have a clue about the legality of using HIDs in headlights that weren't designed for them?

Is there anything special about CA Automotive's set? Other than that they're nearly three times the price mentioned above?!

http://www.ca-at.co.uk/products-Y2FyX21 ... 9MTAw.html

[Morat]

The ballasts look a bit different to my 35W ebay cheapies, but they use exactly the same cables, connectors and the burners look identical down to the packaging that they arrive in. I would say you're paying extra for a "butch" black ribbed casing on the ballasts.

As far as legality is concerned, they're in a grey area. HIDs in an E30 would fail type approval because the lights are not self levelling and (mostly) don't have wash/wipe anymore. However, you don't have to pass type approval because that is done once for the model of car and the E30 is legal to drive in the UK.
The MOT does not test for bulb type, only beam pattern. My MOT tester put down an advisory for the dip beams taking too long to switch on, but he's a miserable bastard.

A mate of mine is a firearms cop who does traffic when he's not poncing around in kevlar and he says there's no way he'd bother pulling someone for HIDs as long as they were white, correctly aligned and not dazzling people. The key factor here is that E30s use projector headlights (post facelift) so they still produce the correct beam pattern with HIDs. The problems start when you put HIDs in crappy reflector units as fitted to most other makes from the same era. BMW were very quick onto projector lights, and made a big splash about it in the 80s.

[ultralinear]

Aha! Thanks for your help... I have the smoked Hella heads so I should be ok.