my 2cents regarding HID's
 

greetings fellow lancer owner.
-keep in mind that all the things i do utter within this thread is w/ accordance to my experience only.It does not necessarily apply to everybody-

about a month ago i bought an hid kit w/ a fat ballast (no relay harness). i installed em and sure enough they flickered as soon as i released the handbreak. so i decided to turn off the engine, pop my hood, disconnect the bulb from the OEM head light power supply and drove. (daily routine, i unplug during daytime, plug during night-time).

i finally got around into getting a relay harness and installed em right away. i took my time and did it w/ my dad. now the moment of truth.. i turned on my lancer and release the handbreaks.... guess what? it flickered. Checked the relay's fuse, all were in good/working shape.
(note: for the ground, i tried 2 locations, negative terminal and the chassis) no luck. so i decided to undo it all and go back to my original setup. hid kit with no relay harness.

so i decided to go back to my supplier and exchanged it for a digital slim ballast (it was going to cost me an extra 35 to upgrade but i got my ways). i had my fingers crossed so tight during installation it almost blistered. now everything is set, time to test. turned on my car, got my boy long*sly* to check the lights, released my ebrakes (long: no flicker), drove forward (no flicker) drove backwards (no flicker). So far im :). Turned off the car, turned it on again, turned the headlights on, release the hand break, drove back and forth, confirmed that hid works (no flix). turned off the car, celebrated w/ bubble tea ^_^

to sum it all up, if you have the same setup as me during the initial stage and having problems with your kit... switching to DIGITAL SLIM ballast seems to be the way to go.

if any of you would like the same setup as mine, which is: daytime: hids are off but still connected // Night time: hids are on), i could lend a hand and forward you to the appropriate individual.

there goes my contribution.. hopefully this is not a duplicate of anothers' previous thread within our tlc forum.

im no expert, but couldnt you just go with an anti-flicker kit?

Nice write up, will help people looking at HID's. Digital are great for this reason.

Have you tried your highbeams aswell? My Lowbeams (HIDs) dont cut out and stay on as well as my highbeams, great for that open country road or blinding idiot drivers. lol

with the appropriate HID light color, you will have no problems just running with lows.

I would say 4300k or 3000k would be the best since they reach furthest out. 3000k's highlight is that they hit the furtherest when it comes to reflective signs / objects. Something I am going to mention in my review, but actually when your running on 3000k headlights, you can not see any impact when you turn on or off your stock fog lights. The yellow beam is quiet effective at lighting up the road on a wide and long angle. :)

^ Dont have a problem with mine. I find 6000K gives off enough light for driving at nite. I was just making a comment about how highbeams can be turned without the HIDs cutting out.

I adjusted mine to not blind oncoming traffic but with my highbeams on i have a wider angle of light.

To support your information above:

As you go higher in the Kelvin scale, the light output decreases.
3000k - 2800 lumens
4300K - 3200 lumens (definitely the brightest)
6000K - 2600 lumens (a good combination of color and brightness, still MUCH brighter than halogen)
8000K - 2200 lumens

well i refrained from spending anymore cash on top of the amount i did for the conversion itself. i was going to purchase an antiflicker if digital fails but hands down to slim digital ballast... no anti flicker and harness required ^_^.

hahah tru! but yes it does still work and dont see the difference. (my highbeams are halogen lol). their perfectly fine seeing that i did not touch nor tamper with it w/soever during the lowbeam conversion.

^+1 , well said.

haha yeah thats why i did slim digi ballast too from the get go~ where did you end up mounting the ballasts? got pics? :)

Nice thread Rookie. I just installed my HID's myself last week and they are sex! 6000K in lows and fogs. I bought my kits from AutoMoGlow. Anyways, I got digital slim ballasts as well with a relay harness and a DRL bypass. Setup works perfect. 1st position = all lights off, 2nd pos. = city lights on, 3rd pos. = H.I.D on. I'll try to post up some pics tonight of where I mounted my ballasts.

^ Can you turn your lights on to 3rd position while driving? or do you need to have the handbrake up at start? If this is possible its due to the relay harness.

No, I can turn them on while driving no problem. My lights are exact same setup as stock (with regards tohow the switch works) except i have no DRL's and have H.I.D. Get what I'm saying?

Yip. Good for someone to know who want HIDs

mine's like this..I switched to slim digital today hoping to fix the drl problem..anyway, after I removed the orig ballast and replaced w/ the slim one, I set it up the same way w/ my orig ballast (relay attached), HIDs wont turn on plus a rattling sound can be heard if stalk is in off position (drl working) and wont go away til you put it on 3rd position and still HIDs wont turn on..so I disconnected the relay and hooked the slim ballast directly to the bulbs..with engine off, i turned out city lights, it was good, then turned on low beams (3rd position of stalk) and HIDs turned on..I then turned it all off, start the engine (with e-brake still up) turned city lights, all ok, turned HIDs, all ok..now for the next one, i turned on the engine, put down the e-brake, HIDs flickered for a second then they shut off, turned on city lights, on it goes, but turned on low beams, it wont work..

so i guess what i'll do now is if i wanna use the low beams, i turn it on first before i put down the e-brake..atleast i can drive during the day without everything on or having strobe light flashing into the beat of california dreaming..lol

in short, the slim digital worked for me, not entirely, but way better than before!

now i can say, slim digital FTW! lol {thumbup}

xs: still might get someone to move my DRLs to my high beams like the ralliarts..

if you guys just get a DRL bypass, all your problems should be fixed. i have no flicker and i can drive around with my city lights on by them selves or i can have all my lights on or off, no problems. let me know if anyone is interested in a DRL bypass and i can get you in contact with someone who makes these. If I make it out to the meet on thursday, I can show you guys my setup.