| Chrysler 300 HID Bulb/Ballast Install | |
When I purchased my LED Halo Projector head lights from Dash Z Racing a couple of months ago, I suspected that I would probably be looking into HID bulbs for them. I had two conflicting problems with my new headlights. One was that the LED Halos on the new headlights appear to be a more bluish white (like all white LEDs) and the stock 9006 halogens are more of a yellow tint (like most halogens). So at night, the lights seem to be mismatched and do not look very clean. The problem with HIDs are that they require a ballast to work. When I initially researched HIDs when I bought my headlights, there were a lot of complaints about the ballasts going out rendering the bulbs dead. I have talked to a couple of coworkers who have after market HIDs and experienced the same problem with dying ballasts. The common thread seems to be that the people used cheaper Ebay HID conversion kits.
Now that summer is winding down and its staying darker later in the morning, I decided that I would order the recommended 9006 HID conversion kit for my headlights when I ordered my LED tail lights. I got the kit which is made from Xtune and contains two bulbs, two ballasts, and all the required wiring. There is an instruction booklet as well as instructions on the box lid, both of which interestingly enough, are useless (yes useless). I will explain more about this in a minute. Here are pictures of the Xtune HID conversion kit. 
Normally, I am the type of person who throws instructions out without even looking, but since this a high voltage unit and with numerous reported problems with ballasts, I decided I would read through the instructions to make sure everything was done correctly. After going through the instructions that mention everything from drilling 25mm holes into the backs of your headlights, obscure wiring references, and the icing on the cake, the very last line of the booklet... 
which mentions a "kaba" sound (what the hell?), I decided that I would do it my way. After pulling the parts out and doing a quick inventory, I installed the first HID in the passenger side. Despite the wiring diagrams in the instructions, the kit turns out to be pretty much plug and play. There was one little problem with the Xtune kit, the gaskets on the HID bulbs were a little too big resulting in the bulbs not being able to fit into the head lamps. The easy fix was just to carefully swap the gaskets with the original 9006 bulbs. 
The other gotch-ya was making sure that the polarity going to the ballast was correct. This is not mentioned in the instructions, but found this out during my research into HID conversion kits. If the polarity is backwards, the ballast will not fire up. I fired up the passenger side and sure enough, the bulb did not fire. Turning the 9006 bulb connector going to the ballast around fixed the problem. Now that the HID on the passenger side is working, the next step was to mount the ballast. Fortunately on the passenger side of the engine bay, there is a small bracket coming off of the quarter panel that provides a perfect mount point. I wish I would have gotten a comparison shot of the HID versus the Halogen, sorry... 
The drivers side is a little more complicated. In order to get to the head lamp assembly, you need to remove the air cleaner box. The box is just held in place with a single 10mm bolt. With the box removed, we now have some (albeit limited) access to the headlight. 
The drivers side wires up just like the passenger side. The OEM 9006 cable going to the ballast and the ballast wires go to the HID bulb. The hardest part is mounting the ballast. With the air cleaner box, power steering and coolant reservoirs, there is not much room to mount the ballast. Its starting to get dark, so I ended up zip tying the ballast to the frame of the car next to the head lamp assembly. 
Put the air cleaner box back in and make sure all of the connections are tight. I turn on the headlights one more time to make sure they work. Here is the finished shot. I will try to get some night time shots to show what they really look like. 
I have had the units in for a couple of days and man'o man, do they light up. Combined with the projector lenses, these things light up a good 1/4 mile down the road with a beautiful bluish/white light. And best of all, they make the halos blend in perfectly. Back to Chrysler Projects |
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