I received my HIDs today. I ordered the kit on Thursday, it arrived to California on Monday USPS. First impression was that this is a very nice kit. The reason why I liked this kit is that it came with a relay harness and I refuse to install HID kits without a relay kit because it is simply not safe to do so unless you can be guaranteed that your startup draw does not exceed the stock bulbs. It comes with everything you need, zip ties, loomed wires, ballast brackets, etc.

I wanted to keep the installation as stealthy as possible so I spent a good 15-20 minutes trying to lay it all out given the constraints of wire lengths, etc. I decided to go mount the main bundle of wires with the relay between the airbox and the fuse box as shown in the picture below. Believe me, there are other places but I chose this location for several factors such as accessibility to airbox, maintenance, heat, etc.



That gave me good access to where I would route the wires to battery and the 2 ballasts. The spade terminals for the battery were a great fit and all you need to hook it up is a 12mm socket.



I like to keep the ballasts as hidden as I could. So given the cable lengths, the best place seems to be behind a bracket near the front of each fender, behind the headlights. It's symmetric on both sides so here's a picture of one.



The ballasts came with nice metal brackets. But I chose not to use them. I secured each with only a ziptie for now, I will come back and use molding tape and a zip tie later. Ballasts in place, you can see I ran the wire to the bulb into the fender and out of view. There is enough length to connect it to each bulb without a problem.

The long cable run to the passenger headlight ballast runs near the firewall and you can see it in the picture below. It is strapped at each end with a ziptie and floats.



Now time for the results. The picture below shows one side HID and the other side halogen. Can you guess which is which?



The next picture I tried to park at the same dark spot and shoot the same photo settings.



My overall impression is that the kit is great. Very pleased and if it were not for all the layout and planning, it should only take about 15-20 minutes to install with just a socket wrench and something to snip the zip ties.

The biggest difference with the HIDs is that the coverage is very wide and bright. I see things clearly along the sides of the road now that were at best dimly lit before. Cutoff is nice and there is some scatter but it is very minor and I believe that it's the projector and not the kit's fault. The color is a very nice white at 6000k, I was worried it would be that awful greenish blue that McCulloch 6000ks tend to have.

I have some more pics at this URL if you are interested. http://www.pldlawyers.com/bp/scion/xb2/hid/

 

Very nice write up!

Would you mind me posting your photos on the official site?

 

No problem Cliffud, thanks for the kit.

One other thing I wanted to add, if you look at the before and after pictures, the beam pattern is the same, except it is just more pronounced and intense with the HIDs.

 

Have any wall shots?

 

How about these?

From inside the car


From outside the car


Beauty...


And just a few videos. A few times during the clips, I turn off the headlights so you can see how dark it is...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=397Wa0WK45c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFxEse91BYE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLZUCW6Iv3s

 

holy cow - sweet videos! i'm really really loving that digital speedometer.

i can see how that little bit of spill over light in the middle comes in handy when you're driving down the road.

Very very very impressive.

You're the man!

Thanks.

Clifford

 

Hey MalibuRapper/cliffud, I was wondering if the HIDs replaced BOTH the high and low beams. I know that they go into the low beam projector housings, but I'm not exactly clear as to whether they replace or work in conjunction with the existing high beams. It would be kind of silly to have nice white HID low beams and yellow halogen high beams or the other way around.

 

TimmahTao - the HID bulbs replace the low beams and high beams duties are taken care of by 9005 bulbs. If you want HID low and HID high, you'll need 2 kits.

I agree that it might be moot to have high beam halogen bulbs but most people don't want to upgrade bulbs that they'll only use less than 5% of the time. Also, keep in mind that the low beam HID setup is like 3x brighter so most people don't even feel the need for high beams after the upgrade.

Thanks!

Clifford

 

Well I do live in the boonies, so I use my high beams quite a bit.
Is the brightness/coverage of the high and low beams more a function of a reflector than the bulb used?
If I were to install HIDs in the low beam projectors would the high beams still be brighter than the HIDs, using the regular bulbs, or would I have to use a second kit to have real high beams?

 

For the 08 xB, you will have a very strict cutoff for your light output. Above a certain height, you will not have much or any light. This is where your high beams would help.

You are correct, your beam pattern (coverage) of the low and high beam are more of a function of the reflector inside the housing vs the bulb used. The HID bulbs simply echo the same pattern but emit 3x more light.

If you were to install the HIDs into the low beam projectors, your high beams would likely shine ABOVE the cut off line and would help with illumination above the line. If you want to go with the HID high beams, that would be ideal since you'd then have the beam pattern from the high beam reflectors AND the light output of HID.

If you live in the boonies and you use your high beams a lot, go for both and you'll be amazed.

Thanks!

Clifford

 

How much was this HID kit and where did you order it from?

 

It was $170 delivered. Go to http://www.mobilehid.com/scionlife.htm or PM Cliffud. Great kit, still love it!

 

Seems like a good value. I noticed you got the 6k color temp lights. How do you like them? Which color temp (6k, 8k) do you think most closely simulates the HID lights from BMW and Mercedes?

 

Do the 2nd gen's use 9005 or 9006?

 

I received the kits yesterday and installed them, I placed the ballasts in the hollow areas on the extreme left and right of the engine bay just forward of the wheel wells. I ran the 12V output from the relay to the right ballast across the front of the engine underneath the hood latch (Car battery is on left when looked at from drivers seat). I attached the 12V and ground wires of the relay directly to the battery. Instructions were sparse if someone did not know how to wire the relay. One of the main challanges is how to securey attach the ballasts to the body. I connected the left headlamp plug to the relay input whose connection doesn't seem the most reliable (i.e. no latch to prevent it vibrating off) it is also a single point of failure if the fuse for the left headlamp supply fails.

That said the light output is very good with the 5000K H11 and if I was to purchase again I would choose the 4300K as there might be a few percent increas in the lumens. As my xB color is nautical blue the 5000K is a good color match. As good as the projectors headlamps are giving a giving a cutoff, I think the DOT regualtions call for a certain amount of light to be thrown upwards to light road signs, so I think Scion design their projects to do this, which results in a little too much light being thrown upwards (probably still less than 1%) when using HIDs. This may be interpreted as glare to oncoming drivers, but I'll have to do some experiments to see if oncoming drivers see this light above the cutoff. hopefully this small amount of light is only upwards and to the right and not into oncoming drivers eyes. The photos in the post from Malibu_Rapper show this very well in his photos of the lights shining on the garage door. I might be able to attach a small piece of black tape to the headlamps to eliminate this problem at the expense of healamp attractiveness.

Overall there is a very nice even distribution of light on the road and the cutoff can be clearly seen as you drive. There is a small amount of EMI interference to distance FM stereo reception, even thought the antenna is located at the back of the xB, however I retrofitted a 20" antenna which dramatically increases reception sensitivity including the EMI from the ballasts. As I say this EMI is not too bad.

Timewise the installation took about 35 to 45 minutes including cleanup.

Photo added June 18th


Left Ballast


Right Ballast


Connection to Battery


Resultant light output before glare reduction measures added.
See my other post https://www.scionlife.com/forums/vie...2060&start=742 for more information

 

Do you have any pics of your install process and the finished product? I'm also interested in getting either the 5000k or the 4300k. In your opinion, do your 5000k's look more like factory HID lights like those on BMW's or Mercedes, or would 4300k come closer? How much blue is there in your 5000k's?

Your write-up will help me in installing mine and I'm sure if you provided photos it would be even more helpful!

 

I'll try to take some photo this evening. Actually the 5000K do have the BMW look and they do produce a very nice white light on the road surface, but I wouldn't choose anything above 5000 as you would have less lumen out put.

I'll try to outline some tips that could aid in the installation. I'm just about to show my collegue that also has a new xB, in a few minutes, the installation I did so I'll see what he thinks about.

 

Still using 9005 for High beam. H11 for low beam in the projectors.

 

Nice! I will deffinately be ordering these when my new B shows up

 

As probably many of you know, when the high beams are swithched on the low beams remain on as well, unlike many GM and Ford products, for example.

This gives a very bright road ahead espicially with the HID lows.