How do you fit the Elise HID kit?

Ask Yvo. He's a great guy and will be very helpful.
Are you in the US? If so, HID conversion kits are now illegal.
This means that it might be a bit harder to find a reputable company here to sell them to you. If you aren't in the US, then Yvo is the guy you need to talk to.

I'm in Australia...who is yvo???

Yvo is the owner of Elise-Shop.
A good guy and very helpful.

Alexandros said:

I am considering buying the HID kit from the elise-shop.com

http://www.elise-shop.com/en-us/dept_5.html

How do you go about 1. Attaching the ballasts to the body...do you have to drill holes somewhere?

2. Which colour wires go to what?

Can anyone explain step by step...my auto-electrical skills are non-existant?

Thanks,

Alex

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installing HIDs is not very hard, basicaly you need to find a spot to drill some holes to mount the ballasts and the wires are just all plugs. HID bulbs use less power than regular halogens it should be plug and play, only driling needed is to mount the ballasts. But sometimes theres difficulty placing the bulbs inside the housing, but im sure this kit makes it easy.

Thanks!

Keep in mind, that just because you can insert HID "conversion" bulbs into the light housings, it doesn't make then HIDs. The light optics are completely different between HID, and regular bulbs, and although you may get a bright light out of the lights, it probably will not have the proper pattern, and may cause a great deal of glare to other drivers. A brighter light with a poor pattern is not necessarily better than a good light with a good pattern.

Here's a good explanation of the evils of HID conversions.

Problems with HID lights.

TimMullen said:

Keep in mind, that just because you can insert HID "conversion" bulbs into the light housings, it doesn't make then HIDs. The light optics are completely different between HID, and regular bulbs, and although you may get a bright light out of the lights, it probably will not have the proper pattern, and may cause a great deal of glare to other drivers. A brighter light with a poor pattern is not necessarily better than a good light with a good pattern.

Here's a good explanation of the evils of HID conversions.

Problems with HID lights.

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yeah the higher you go in temp (k) the less you see of the road. I'd use 4300-6000k bulbs nothing over 6 cause it usally looks purplish 4300k is white and is what most lexus cars come with.
I believe bmws come with 5000k or something higher than 4300k.

also if you look at cars that come with HIDs they have a reflector inside to make sure the bulb doesnt go everywhere i dont know much about this but i know they are different from halogen housings. Also picking the right bulb size makes a difference also like D2S or D2R

well, I dont know about the technicalities in the article above...all I know is the HIDs are much better than the std lights.

The guy who wrote the article wouldnt happen to sell a competetive product would he? ....(cynic mode on)

Anyone know what brand/model of bulbs the Elise comes with?

I upgraded the bulbs in my Passat to Phillips Vison Plus units from powerbulbs.com. These aren't legal in the US, use the same wattage as stock and do shoot a brighter, longer beam down the road.

Johnny B said:

Anyone know what brand/model of bulbs the Elise comes with?

I upgraded the bulbs in my Passat to Phillips Vison Plus units from powerbulbs.com. These aren't legal in the US, use the same wattage as stock and do shoot a brighter, longer beam down the road.

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Go to www.m111.net
Click on S3 in the upper left corner.
Component/Lights

It doesn't have a lot of detail like they do for the other models, but I think it's a work in progress.

Nice site

Johnny B said:

Anyone know what brand/model of bulbs the Elise comes with?

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I think they are H1 bulbs for the low beams. I upgraded them and, despite experiencing a slight improvement, am still not satisfied. I just don't feel safe driving at night where there are no streetlights. I might have no choice but to pay for an HID upgrade

Derek said:

I just upgraded to OSRAM silver stars... Pretty big difference. I will post some pictures later.

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Those are supposed to be pretty good bulbs.

Every one just needs to be aware that the US version of the Sylvania/Osram SilverStars are the blue tinted "HID" looking lights that don't put out as much light as the "real" European Osram SilverStars (like the ones in the picture).

Where do we get the European ones?

NtflBlueLiz said:

Where do we get the European ones?

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You have to "mail order" them - or get them off the 'net. The ones they sell in the stores in the US are usually marked "Sylvania" and are the "blue" SilverStars. Osram bought out Sylvania, and the company is not Osram/Sylvania - but the market name in the US that is well known is Sylvania, so that's how they are packaged. Unfortunately, marketing in the US says that people want the "blue" bulbs for show, so that's what they sell here (and apparently they are correct for many people). The European spec SilverStars do produce more light (and are not colored blue). You just have to order them from someone that imports them. Apparently epimports indicated in the picture above imports the Osram bulbs. This place - [url]www.suvlights.com[/URL] seems to have them also...

You just have to search for the Osram bulbs...

thanks tim, found them in the SUV lights sight

What is the maximum wattage bulb that can safely be installed?

Most are 55/60, but I have 90/130 bulbs on my other car, and it is a huge improvement. But the plastic socket that the prongs on the bulb goes into started to melt so I replaced it with a heavier gauge but the glass still gets extremely hot.

Would the lenses cover melt since it is not made of glass or would a headlight relay of some type keep the temperature down if I installed tehm on the Elise? Would the bulbs be pulling too many amps and blow a fuse?

xxxotic said:

What is the maximum wattage bulb that can safely be installed? <...>
Would the lenses cover melt since it is not made of glass or would a headlight relay of some type keep the temperature down if I installed them on the Elise?

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No idea what the maximum wattage that a bulb could be.

A relay will do nothing to reduce the amount of heat in the light - if anything, it may make it hotter by allowing more current to the light. A relay can help the factory wiring from getting too hot if a higher current bulb is installed, but I do not know the limits on the factory wiring.

I would suspect that the higher wattage bulbs could be a problem. I'm considering the Osram SilverStars...

TimMullen said:

Keep in mind, that just because you can insert HID "conversion" bulbs into the light housings, it doesn't make then HIDs. The light optics are completely different between HID, and regular bulbs, and although you may get a bright light out of the lights, it probably will not have the proper pattern, and may cause a great deal of glare to other drivers. A brighter light with a poor pattern is not necessarily better than a good light with a good pattern.

Click to expand...

Projector-type lenses actually do quite well with HID retrofits. The Elise as well as my E36M3 with european ellipsoids have these type of lenses. If you examine the distance between the base and the gas capsule of an HID bulb and compare it to the distance between the base and the filament of a H1 bulb, it's very close. Of course, the quality of the kit depends on how well the manufacturer guts the D2S HID bulb and glues it into the H1 base. When I retrofitted HIDs in my M3, I decided to modify the base of the lens that held the bulb (H1 based HIDs weren't available back then). I paid very close attention to the distances, etc and I can say with a pat on my back, the beam pattern is very even...no bright or dark spots, etc. I also bought three pairs of HID kits back then for $1100, used one and sold the remaining two on ebay to this pilot dude who wanted to put them on his airplane for $1020 (he even provided shipping)....$80 HID retrofits rock!!!