HID/Xenon on Legacy BE

[Legacy89]

I just got a H1 Xenon kit for my BE. But how do i get it to work?

I hooked up the ballast to the bulb and tested it on the battery. And it works as it should.

Now, when i connect the positive wire(blue) to the green wire(Highbeam)
and black to black it wont light.

Have i done it wrong or is the black wire in this case 12V+?

And how many bolts/screws are keeping the headlights in place?

[dodik]

PM SilentRacer he had HID kit before he might know.

[SilentRacer]

https://sl-i.net/FORUM/viewtopic.php?t=4527

You must disable your DRL.

The headlights are held on by 3 screws and a clip on the bottom corner.

[deadlydave]

I'll probably be doing this mod soon. Visibility is the suck. :-(

[Legacy89]

What is the DRL?
daytime runnning lights?
I have 3 selections on the light control.
Off - Everything is turned off.
Park - Parkinglights are on and fogs can be turned on.
On - Parkinglights, lowbeams/highbeams are on. Fogs can be used.
What will happen if i disable DRL?

Edit: The Xenon is for Highbeam Only.

[SilentRacer]

Daytime running lights. It causes problems when you try to run HID in the lowbeam. Might possibly do the same in high beam. Do you have a photo of the kit?

[HeresMyMind]

2 things,

1 you should be running an external wire harness to prevent electricity from running into your column.

2 subarus have a negatively charged harness. they share 1 positive, and the low/high beam wires are a GROUND switched. I highly recommend putting it to your DLR, so when you turn on your highs, or flash to pass. they don't flicker, this will prolong the life of your hid bulbs...

-B

[Legacy89]

No pic, but i got the link to where i got it:
http://vvme.com/product/detail-20023.html
H1(Highbeam) 6000K slimballast.

"1 you should be running an external wire harness to prevent electricity from running into your column. "
Do you mean that i should get new kables, relay and a button? Running it separatly from everything else in the car and using the Higbeam power as remotepower?

Im going to install it the usual way and test it for a couple of days until i can afford a auxilary light cable set.

[HeresMyMind]

a seperate wier harness yes. no turn on button. have the "switch wires" tapped into your running light. so that way they are on with yoru lows, and when u turn on your highs (normally lows turn off) they will stay on. so both lows + highs will stay on at same time. alot safer for flash to pass. for a good wire harness goto www.theretrofitsource.com (http://www.theretrofitsource.com) tell Matt that Branden or "heresmymind" sent you, im sure he'd hook u up with free shipping or a good deal.

-B

[SilentRacer]

He doesn't need a harness. No one here who ran HIDs on a BE has ever needed an aftermarket harness.

[Legacy89]

My lowbeams are on with the highbeams.

[HeresMyMind]

Wire Harnesses:

For Hid Applications a separate wire harness is highly recommended, one that draws power from the battery itself and uses the stock wiring as a trigger through a relay to turn on. Many PnP kit dealers claim extra wires are just engine clutter and aren’t needed since hid uses half the wattage than halogen. WRONG. When HID ballasts are first turned on they require a higher AMP/Wattage to ignite the bulb. Having thicker wire with power drawn directly from the battery is a much cleaner smoother current for the HID components to work. Many times when people use PnP kits and hook them directly to stock wiring, they turn on their lights and they flicker. The bulbs are un able to ignite and ultimately kills the life span of the bulbs when they flicker. Think of a grounding mod for your car. A smoother cleaner ground connection allows for your cars electrical components to function smoother, Lights don’t dim when high wattage stereos are used, smoother idle, faster rev response. The same goes for hid wire harnesses, although its not technically needed, it is much safer and much more efficient. Stock harnesses especially on older cars tend to have thinner worn out wires for headlight. Not to mention all the power runs into your center console and who wants a fire in car? I certainly don’t.

Taken fom my HID write up

-B

[Legacy89]

That was my plan.

[dubkeith]

Heresmymind, I can't really understand what your talking about. Its very confusing. Are you talking about a Relay harness?

No relay harness is needed,the balast works just the same as a relay where it switches the high current on from the ballast to the bulbs, not a straight through amplifier. You cannot run HIDS on daytime running lights on BE/BH's as thecurrent to the Daytime Running Light is reduced and they strobe.

I've got three years and 40k on my $100 ebay HIDs using the std plug and play install method.

Maybe second gen Legacys use a different lighting sys. ie: DRL's off highbeams etc???

Legacy89, to try to nswer your question, one of my ballasts was wired wrong from the factory i guess so on my right light, my black ws possitive and ed was negative. I heard a couple people say they had the same issue.

Hope this helps.

[rougeben83]

he means a relay harness. The stock wiring is OK, but you'll get better performance with a harness with bigger gauge wiring (14g or 12g is the usual).

What youre trying to do is to not overload the stock wiring when the ballasts first starts up; that's the point when they draw the most amperage to create the arc in the bulb. At the very least, use bigger wires for the ground lead to the ballast instead of wiring it back to the plug. For USDM this solves two issues; low beams going off when switching to highbeam, and potentially overloading the small (iirc its 18g) negative wiring.

Ive tried all three with various HID setups; all stock wiring to the plug, upgraded neg. wires, and a 12g relay harness I made. The stock was acceptable, but the negative wires alone led to a slightly brighter light output and shorter warmup from the ballasts and solved the lo-beam issue. Obviously the full wiring harness was better than just negative wires alone.

OP, my first suggestion is that you may have just crossed the wires on the ballast - try connecting the two wires in the opposite direction. That usually works. You don't need to disable DRL for hibeam; on 99% of cars DRL only turns on the low-beams in low-voltage mode. This case works ONLY if you have separate bulbs for your hi-beam and lo-beam.

[Legacy89]

Havent checked this thread for a while but i know what to do.
I was working at the local ford shop last monday where i installed a couple of Hella Comet 200 Xenon on a Ford Focus for a customer.
I kept the Thicker gauge wire and the relay that was left over.
Im going to install it the same way i installed those.

Using stock highbeam wiring as the remote to turn on the lights.
So no need to remove DRL.

Thanks for your help

[subarurunner]

No pic, but i got the link to where i got it:
http://vvme.com/product/detail-20023.html
H1(Highbeam) 6000K slimballast.

"1 you should be running an external wire harness to prevent electricity from running into your column. "
Do you mean that i should get new kables, relay and a button? Running it separatly from everything else in the car and using the Higbeam power as remotepower?

Im going to install it the usual way and test it for a couple of days until i can afford a auxilary light cable set.


that is a invalid link,, do you mean this h1 6k slim ballast hid kit http://www.vvme.com/digital-slim-h1-hid ... h=44_45_14 (http://www.vvme.com/digital-slim-h1-hid-conversion-kit-p-28.html?cPath=44_45_14) ????

there is no relay harness in your VVME H1 hid kit cos they use two power cables attached to bulbs instead of relay harness.. so if your h1 bulbs cant work well, you can try to use relay to hook up your ballast steady and make it work normal\

refer to this installation diagra- the h1 hid kit installation guide

http://www.vvme.com/images/h1fix.jpg

[Legacy89]

The reason it didn't work was because the BE has a different system than the BC.
I naturaly tought the red and green wires was the positive wires and that the black one was ground.
Realized the red was negative wire for lowbeams, green was negative for highbeam and the black was a positive wire for both.

Im used to the more conventional system where the positive wire is put on/cut of when you turn on or off the lights.

And btw, this is a 2 year old thread and i got it fixed within a week after i bought it.

[subarurunner]

The reason it didn't work was because the BE has a different system than the BC.
I naturaly tought the red and green wires was the positive wires and that the black one was ground.
Realized the red was negative wire for lowbeams, green was negative for highbeam and the black was a positive wire for both.

Im used to the more conventional system where the positive wire is put on/cut of when you turn on or off the lights.

And btw, this is a 2 year old thread and i got it fixed within a week after i bought it.

yep, the red wire for low beam, green wire for high beam and black one for ground.....anyhow, different hid kit models has different wire colors.... even different factoried produce different wire colors.....

all we do is just follow the diagram that included in the hid kit

[Legacy89]

yep, the red wire for low beam, green wire for high beam and black one for ground.....
Other way around.

Black = +12v for both high/low
Red = Ground Lowbeam
Green = Ground Highbeam.

[Robinson]

yep, the red wire for low beam hid kits (http://www.robustbuy.com/lighting-system-hid-xenon-kits-c-492_645_653.html), green wire for high beam and black one for ground.....
Other way around.

Black = +12v for both high/low
Red = Ground Lowbeam
Green = Ground Highbeam.
However it is old post. But your concept is valuable.