Xenon lighting

[RichardLW]

OK - here is my view on the Xenon kit which I had fitted last week. Camtune did the work as I have neither the time nor skill to deal with it.

The lit cost £260 inc VAT and was from HIDS4U - who everyone has been talking about lately. It comprises the bulbs, wiring and ballast units. It utilises the original bulb holders with additional connectors being used for the new fittings. That price included the pCGB member discount - ask them.

The ballast units are fitted adjacent to the headlights but in the boot, with cables fed through a (suitably protected and grometted) aperture in the wing/headlight bowl. The ballast units are pretty small and fit under the standard carpet easily enough. I don't know if the back of the bowl has been drilled or not - this was necessary on the kit from 9meister I understand.

The bulbs are a standard H4 fit and come with dip and main beam via a mechanism which moves the bulb or part of it's surround - we are not quite sure..

The bulbs take a few seconds to achieve full power from cold but when they are warm on/off is instant. The light is HUGELY better then before, even over the fancy halogen bulbs I had fitted. Reflective objects (police cars!) are picked up, probably, over a quarter of a mile away on dip beam and further on main beam. The area immediately in front of the car is extremely well illuminated with pronounced loss of illumination ocurring only well beyond the previous distance.

Main/dip transition is instant and impressive as the beam pattern is so very different. Funnily enough, the effect on main is not so marked as on dip but the improvement is very clear nevertheless.

My lights need a little fine adjustment to get the dip beam at its optimum as I now have an annoying bright patch right in front of me which could, usefully, move to the left a little. The left hand beam could also move to the right a bit, but these are silly issues which were already present but, simply, less obvious. Overall, I would not contemplate going back to the standard lighting on any car, let alone this one.

Camtune took fours hours to fit the kit (making a beautifully neat job of it too) and that cost me another £230 plus VAT. Even so, the overall cost is still less than the Xenon option on many new cars (and I accept that they will be better and more sophisticated). Anyone with the skill and competence to do the work could, therefore, achieve a massive improvement in headlight quality for less than three hundred squids which, in Porsche terms, is naff all really.

 

[bones]

Thanks for the write up Richard , it's something I will be fitting when time allows.

 

[RichardLW]

No problem - happy to help anyone who is interested.

 

[Guest]

Richard,

I posted an enquiry on another forum about this very subject and must have got directed to Camtune whilst they were working on your car.

Always amazed at how helpful they are.

Couple of questions. Do you know if the kit can be installed in the 930 type (89 3.3 Turbo Cab). I believe the 964 has similar units.

Did Camtune check that they are road legal and will pass the MOT?

Can you say how much of an improvement they are. I had to almost stop on an unlit section of the A3 recently after a rare night time outing in the car. If I am going to keep it, the lights have got to be improved!

 

[RichardLW]

Topcat

They should fit your 930 as the headlamp bowls and wings are the same and the fittings are H4. I mentioned this to Tim - the service director - and he felt that all earlier cars would be no problem.

There was no problem at all with the MOT. Are they road legal? I imagine so apart from, maybe, the lack of automatic height adjustment but that will be a Construction & Use issue so very unlikely to come up unless you really upset plod somehow.

When I picked up the car late on Thursday evening, I drove home around the A25 - the scenic way - and I was truly amazed. The improvement is enormous; as I said to someone the other day, its like taking 20 years off your age (back to the time when night vision wasn't an issue). On dip beam on an unlit A-road they are worth 15/20 mph - catseyes are visible at least 30% further ahead for instance.

The other point is to make sure that your lenses and reflectors are in really good nick - mine are all less than 4 years old (don't ask) and this makes a big difference. Also, get the lights aligned after fitting to maximise the light where you want it - in front and leftish - and minimise the spread on both sides.

I am going to the TIPEC meeting in Wrotham on Friday evening if you are in that kind of area and I live in Bromley so if you want to see before deciding just get back to me.

 

[Garry Steele]

Richard - interested to hear what you have done. I have a LHD 1992 wide body 964 Cab, which I 've had for a few years now but the lights have always been crap. I even changed the bulbs for some halogens but the light output is still crap. Scary trying to drive fast at night I can tell you!

Seems like you have found the right solution - will make some enquiries myself.

 

[Sundeep]

good write up there Richard, finally a non-993 takes the plunge ! I knew I should have got a commission from HIDS4U when I started this all off ![] doh !

on the MOT side, they are not an MOT failure, as long as they are aimed properly, and cleaned properly.. so this isn't a problem

from DOT, where the law is somewhat grey... (only the final point 3 is MOT relevant from what I am aware of)..

______________________________________

from The Department of Transport.........


The situation for Gas Discharge (HID High Intensity Discharge) (commonly known as Xenon) headlamps is complex.

I attach links to the Road Vehicle Lighting Regulations 1989 which regulate the situation in the UK.
Under these Regulations Xenon headlamps are not mentioned and therefore they are not permitted according to the strict letter of the law.

However you will be well aware that new vehicles have Xenon headlamps. This is because they comply to European type approval Regulations. The UK cannot refuse to register a vehicle with a European type approval. These are to ECE Regulation 98 (for the Xenon headlamps which are tested on a rig in a laboratory) and ECE Regulation 48 (Lighting Installation on the vehicle).

For the aftermarket, a used vehicle cannot obtain type approval because it is only applicable for new vehicles. However we feel that saying "Xenon is banned in the aftermarket" would not be reasonable. Instead we should make analogies with new vehicles. It would be reasonable to require Xenon in the aftermarket to meet the same safety standards as on new vehicles. The same level of safety should apply.

Therefore a Xenon headlamp sold in the aftermarket should:

1. be type approved to ECE Regulation 98 as a component.
2. when fitted to the vehicle should enable ECE Regulation 48 to be complied with (although no government inspection will take place).
3, Comply with RVLR as far as "use" is concerned.

In practice this means:

1. The headlamp unit (outer lens, reflector, bulb) shall be type approved to ECE 98 and be "e-marked" to demonstrate this. That can only be done by the headlamp supplier - Hella, Valeo etc. who must test the headlamp in an independent laboratory.
2. Once fitted to the vehicle it must have headlamp cleaning and self-levelling (which can be for the headlamp or can be in the vehicle suspension - some expensive estate cars have "self-levelling suspension" and that is adequate). Also the dipped beam must stay on with the main beam.
3. The headlamp must be maintained in good working order, kept clean, and aligned/adjusted correctly like any other headlamp.

_____________________________________________

 

[RichardLW]

Sundeep

Funnily enough, I found HIDS4U via Google and just bought the kit. It was then I discovered all the stuff on the 993 board.

But you should have sorted out a deal.....

 

[kevin]

So how does the self levelling part fit into the scheme of things, all the kits I know of are not self levelling, and the suspension most certainly isn't so..........................

 

[Guest]

Thanks again Richard. Sorry, only picked up your message today as I don't use the PC at home very often.

Sounds like the solution I'm looking for so I'll get the kit and go to Camtune as soon as I've got some other issues sorted by the garage who last worked on the car.

Sundeep .... you should run your own forum, then we'd know to go for all the answers .[]

 

[oceancarrera]

ORIGINAL: slider

Crikey! They ripped you off for 4 hours labour!!!!???
These things are a Xenon bulb in an H4 carrier connected to a 70mm x 60 x 10 mm ballast via a cabling set. This will mount inside the boot. If the headlamp assembly comes out and goes in again the whole job should take even a hamfisted twit about 20 mins all told.

Form a Q outside my house for 2 hours labour cost!!!

These were my thoughts as well. Imho, this speaks volumes about Camtune - that they'll happily charge 4 hours labour for what should not take longer than 1 hour tops... I'll be very careful before giving them any work to do (if I ever do!).

 

[kevin]

I think that's a slightly unfair comment, some of the HID kits I've seen are longer than the normal H4 lamp fitments, If, If this is the case then the headlamp bowl needs to be drilled out to facilitate this. I know because I'm looking at kits right now, specifically to avoid drilling the bowl, and preferably not solenoid operated.

kevin

 

[oceancarrera]

Are the 964 light units really that much more complicated than those of a 993? It took me a very leisurely 45mins all in to do the install on my 993.

 

[Guest]

Didn't Phil Raby fit these (or something similar) to his 964 while he was writing for 911 & Porsche World?

Article here

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

Brian,

Phil's excercise was years ago and, I believe, he DID use the kit with the long bulb holder which required the rear of the headlamp bowl to be drilled out. I know RLW used a more up-to-date kit from hids4u and I have a sneaky feeling that his DIDN'T need the bowl cutting. Maybe Richard could confirm that?? There seem to be a number of systems on the market - some of which only provide HID lights on dipped beam (as did the kit Phil fitted I believe) and some (like Richard's) use a solenoid operated reflector to provide HID light on both main AND dipped beam.

Just to comment on some of the remarks above, I believe the 964 headlamp is COMPLETELY different to the 993 in that it's a very simple round unit which fits closely into the body mounted bowl. There is very little clearance between the back of the headlamp and the bowl - and this gives rise to the need to open up the rear of the bowl for the kits which use longer bulb holders.

Incidentally, although it doesn't affect most 964s - I believe it is illegal to retrofit HID lights if the car does not have headlamp washers. I know it is also a requirement for OEM fit for the car to have self levelling suspension or auto-levelling headlamps but this is not a requirement for after-market retrofits. My car doesn't have headlamp washers so I am particularly interested.

Regards

Dave

 

[kevin]

I'm interested in this, and am currently researching the new Halogen/HID hybrid. I have pictures of teh new lamps which are only 1cm longer than normal. But twin lamped. Hopefully I will be given a kit to trial soon, I'll keep you posted if interested, though I know little of the timescales.

kevin

 

[Bazgillie]

HIDS4U kit fits without cutting the back of the headlamp bucket all I had to alter was the size of the holes from the boot to under the wing so that I could get the plugs through to behind the lamps. I opened the holes up to 25mm and fitted some larger grommets to the holes. O/S ballast fitted under the carpet but N/S will need a small bracket making to hold the ballst away from the battery.
Not 4 hours work even taking the lamps apart and cleaning the glass and reflectors.
This was all on my SC.
Baz