Several years ago, I replaced the stock headlights with the European T84 enclosures with H4 bulbs. Now I just installed an H4 Bi-Xenon HID kit. The kit's wiring harness has a single controller that plugs into both ballasts and just a single connector to plug into the car's wiring harness. I've installed it such that the controller is plugged into the passenger side headlight connector, and the driver side connector is simply unplugged.

With this configuration, the headlights pop up and the HIDs light up when I switch the on the headlights. However, when I switch them off, the driver side headlight does not turn off or lower. After fiddling around with various setups, I've discovered that plugging the original H4 bulb into the driver side connector, leaving the HID controller plugged into the passenger side connector, lets the headlights work normally; i.e., motors up/down and lights on/off as expected. Specifically, it's the original bulb connection across the low beam circuit that makes the system work as expected. I've temporarily mounted the bulb inside a metal outlet box and left it plugged into the wiring harness.

I'm checking with the seller whether there is another HID wiring harness for my car, but I want to be prepared if the answer is 'no.' I tried various resistors jumpered across the driver side low beam to see if I could get the system to work without using the original bulb. None that I have on-hand will work. The bulb resistance is very low, somewhere around 1 or 2 ohms, and the lowest resistor I have is 150 ohms. Do you think a 1 ohm resistor capable of handling 10 amps jumpered across the low beam will work?

BTW, these lights are terrific! I highly recommend upgrading the stock headlights.

 

i can't help with your questions, but i'd like to see pics of your setup. you have a very rare housing/bulb kit and it would be cool to see how it looks...especially bi-xenon.

 

After the install I left on a road trip to Indiana, I'm sitting in a hotel in Memphis right now, to let Rodney at RPM transmissions do an A4 to M12 swap. I'll post some pics when I get a chance. I can tell you from last night's drive that the HIDs are great, both low and high beams.

 

I also have European T84 enclosures and woul like to do the same.

please post pics of your set-up and who did you buy it from.

I was looking at them on ebay but those bi-xenon bulbs look a little to large on the back side.

How did they fit ?

 

Sorry for not getting any pics up. I've been traveling a lot, and when I'm home there's always something more important to do than mess with the car -- at least the wife thinks so.

I bought the kit from nissangtrpower on ebay for about $200, and the fit and quality are good. Only time will tell if the ballasts and bulbs hold up, but I'm currently very pleased. I did rig up something that fixes the issue with the single connection to the car's wiring harness.

For the headlights to shut off and the headlight doors to close properly, there has to be a closed circuit across both sides' low beams. Obviously, with the HID controller plugging into just one side of the wiring harness, the other side is left open. In my case, the HID controller is plugged into the harness on the passenger side, and the driver side is disconnected.

I originally tried wiring the driver side low beam in parallel with the passenger side so they're both plugged into the HID controller, but this didn't work. It seems like this should have done the trick, but maybe I was doing something wrong. Anyway, I decided to temporarily mount the original bulb in a metal outlet box and plugged the driver side wiring harness into it. This let me go on my road trip, but having a bulb burning inside the engine compartment when the headlights are on isn't a great solution.

For a permanent fix, I thought of using a resistor across the driver side low beam, but this wouldn't be much better than using the original bulb. It would have to be a low-Ohm, high-current resistor, and that means a lot of heat. After some more tinkering, I finally realized the driver low beam only needs to be connected when the headlights are switched off. This lets the headlights turn off and the motors energize and close the doors.

I had a 12-volt 5A relay lying around, the kind you can get from Radio Shack, and I rigged it up to make things work. The relay coil has a resistance of about 150 Ohms, so the current flowing through it is about 800 milliamps, and there's no problem with heat. I connected the relay coil to the low beam circuit on the passenger side, and I connected the low beam circuit of the driver side to the 'normally closed' contacts. When I turn on the headlights, the relay breaks the connection on the driver side low beam. When I turn off the headlights, the driver side low beam circuit is closed, and this allows the headlights to turn off and the doors to shut. I'll try to make up a drawing and post it so it'll make more sense. I'll also try to finally shoot some pics this weekend if you want to see the installation.

I'm sure you can tell I know just enough about electricity to be dangerous, so all you EEs don't give me a hard time I do wonder why wiring the driver side low beam in parallel with the passenger side didn't do the trick.

 

why not a controller for eack ballast ?

Could it be that you have the ballasts to close to the GM factory headlight control module ?

Magnetic induction from the ballast could cause problems too.

Even with a burn out bulb the headlights are supposted to open and close, so connecting something to the driver side should not affect it.

who knows...

 

I don't know if it's usual for the H4 kits, but mine has a single controller that connects to both ballasts. I called the seller and asked if he had another setup that included separate controllers, but he didn't. As far as the headlights working with a burned out bulb, I wonder if either the low or the high beam circuit works to close the doors. Perhaps having both burned out would cause a malfunction. Anyway, if you decide to upgrade your T84s and run into similar circumstances maybe this will help.

 

I have not order anything yet but I contacted the ebay seller, I had bought my fog hid kit from him aboout 8 months ago.

maybe two motorcycle H4 kits will do it, they for sure have separate controllers

 

You need a resistor kit. 55watt 5ohm. the better hid companies have them to fix this problem. i had the same problem with my hid's. even know i didnt do the conversion you did, but my lights went up but when i turned them off they didnt go down, the computer senses the 55watt draw going on and off and puts the lights up and down, the hid ballast only draw 35 watts, seem it only happens on the z06 the problem doesnt happen on a regular vette, i put the 55w 5ohm resistor and it works fine,

 

All c5's have the same headlights and the same problem...

I was just looking to resolve this issue myself (as i am sick of putting the highbeams on to close the lids) I have had HID's for 4 years and i am just getting around to doing this!

Where can i get this said "55w 5ohm" resistor? and does it just wire into the power for the driver side headlight?

Thanks!

 

Considering HIDs for the headlights and Driving lights. This is a very informative post!

BC

 

How about heat with the 55w 5 ohm resistor?? Won't it get too hot???

Jim Taylor: would you be so kind to tell me the relay model you used instead of the 55w 5ohm resistor??

Thanks everyone!!

 

I would really like to see more pictures of this setup! what do the HID by-xenon H4 bulbs look like? I thought that was a dual filament bulb?

 

Sorry for the late response.

GUILLERMOGC, I'm out of town this week so I can't get the exact specs of the relay. It's just a 12v relay that will handle a couple of amps -- basic Radio Shack stuff.

MCGILES, I originally bought a high current, low ohm resistor to use across the driver-side low-beam circuit. I wasn't happy that current would always be flowing when the headlights were on, and also that the resistor would get very hot. During the original HID install I could always make the headlights close by shorting across the low-beam driver-side circuit after I turned the headlight switch off. That's what led to the relay wired as shown in the diagram above. I have never had a case where the headlights didn't close immediately when the switch is turned off.

The Bi-Xenon bulbs have a single filament. In the low-beam position they point slightly down toward the road. Switching the to high causes the bulbs to move up and point straight down the road. There's really no more light coming from the bulb, it's just aimed differently. Since the original post I've swapped the fog lights to HID, so now I'm at 6000K all around.