Hey guys!

Having some flickering problems with my head lights.
I thought it was the cold when it was happening in the winter, but it's still happening now.
I've had the car for 3 years so ballasts should be ok. I checked the connection and all.

Any help?
Thanks!

 

Do you have "anti DRL" or a inline capacitor to smooth out/bump up the voltage for the ballasts to operate properly? Maybe a capacitor is starting to fail?

 

The below is something I recently found. Maybe even on this forum.

On the base GSR, when the parking brake is down and daytime running lights are activated, a square wave form signal is sent to the low beam to dimmer the lights functioning as DRL. However, the absence of a constant signal causes a flickering problem when aftermarket HID is installed.

I have a base GSR with OEM SSS Projector Headlights/HID swap and my problem is that the ECU still think I have the Halogens and is sending a wavy signal to my low beam as DRL which causes flickering.

The electrical jargon is gibberish to me but my electrician father-in-law understands it. My situation is different only in that I switched from stock halogens to stock Mitsubishi HIDs. So I am thinking that there must be a fairly simple swap between the two headlight systems for cars leaving the factory with one or the other option. My father-in-law thinks it should be a different relay. Has anyone made this change from stock halogens to stock HIDs and can explain what I need to do?

 

Since adding to this thread I have found that the HIDs in 2010 are the same HIDs used in 2014. Same part number. I had thought that maybe since I used HIDs off of a 2014 Evo that it might be the problem. I also checked to see if the wiring harness is different between the Halogen and the HID systems. It is not definitive but it seems like no. So, if the parts are the same why are my DRLs running through the high/low beam or outside lens and nothing is working on the inside lens (where the DRLs are supposed to be)?


What am I doing wrong?

 

The wiring harness and pin layout is a bit different between the HID vs non-HID lancers.

 

No offense but how sure are you that the wiring harnesses between the OEM halogens and HIDs is different? My local source who tells me he has made this switch before tells me that the two systems use the same harness. He made the switch with no modifications. He thinks my harness was either pinched or crimped in the accident. I don't know, if the harness is the same then the 'redirection' of the HIDs from the low beams of the halogens to the dedicated inside lens of the fixture would take place in the electrical part of the OEM HID fixture. If this issue was part of the damage to the car (solely on the left side of the car) then the right side light would work fine and the left would be wrong. That is, unless the damage occurred prior to the split of the light signal from one to a left and right. I am not sure but I think that would be way up by the fuse (relay) box or wherever it originates from.


What do you think? My next step, since the original right side halogen still works, is to hook it up and see what happens.


Also, if the wiring harnesses are different, why would my original OEM halogen harness include the HID only connector to the HID light?

 

Do you have DRLs and he does not? What is the exact issue you're experiencing anyway? You never really said what problem you were having with your headlights.

I'm waiting to hear a response from my retrofitter who did my headlights. He says the harnesses are different but he will go and look at the wiring diagram in about an hour or so and let me know. Just from what I can assume is that the pins are setup differently because a non-SSS lancer is setup to send power to the DRLs in the low beam whereas in a SSS car the DRLs are in a different location in the inner bulb where the high beam would normally be.

 

For the sake of all the info he gave me I'm just posting our conversation here lol

 

Wow, this will take a little time to work out buy I am sure it will help a lot. You and your friend put a lot of effort into this. Thanks.

For clarification, my car came with halogens which one was destroyed in an accident. The right side broke the tabs but is still functional. I figured since I was needing to buy two new headlights I might as well upgrade to OEM HIDs. I thought it would be an easy conversion since my original headlight wiring harness had the extra connector (I think for the dedicated DRLs on the HID system) taped to the harness at the factory. What I ended up with was the HID high and low beams working as they should but with the lights off and the parking brake disengaged the lights (probably low beams) flicker. The lens where the high beams were on the halogen system doesn't have any lights that work. This should be the DRLS on the HID system.

I see that both the low beam and DRLs on the halogen system utilize the same wire so how do you split the signals so you can isolate the DRLs?

 

I believe it's an ECU thing if my understanding is right. The friend that I spoke with on this messes around with the cars computer quite a bit and can disable DRLs.

 

This is a photo of my stock OEM halogen wiring harness.

 

The only thing I could recommend would be picking up the DRL bypass harness that is out there.

EDIT: nvm I think that only works for aftermarket HID kits.

 

Well, my lights finally work correctly. We had to replace the wiring harness under the dash to get them to work though. Yes, remove the dash. Not fun but I didn't do it myself. Since my Evo didn't originally come with HIDs we had to install a wiring harness from a car that didn't. This fixed the HID issue as well as the premium Rockford Fosgate issue. The only remaining problem is that since the replacement under dash wiring harness came from a 2008 my car no longer thinks it is a 2010. The only downside to that (so far) is the door/trunk remote no longer works. I suppose if I had found a SSS under dash wiring harness from 2010 it might work. Not sure though since I had a pretty experienced electronics guy working on my car and he said the replacement 2008 under dash wiring harness had a different VIN assigned to it. He said that is why my remote cannot communicate with my car. He said he wasn't able to update the VIN of the harness to match my car. Not sure why this isn't possible. Any ideas?


Otherwise, it looks like if someone wants to convert their OEM halogen Evo to OEM HIDs then the under dash wiring harness needs to be replaced to match a car with OEM HIDs. The under hood harness did not need to be changed. The ETACS did not need to be changed.