[s-cars] Keeping DRLs with a McCullough HID kit via the fogs? Is it possible?

[Igor Kessel]

Dave Forgie wrote:
> Igor: Thanks for your (and Mark's and Fred's) response.  You're right we   
> don't agree on either headlights or taillights (I hate the loss of light with   
> Euro look-red/blink orange corners and, as you might remember, I    
> converted both rear fog lights to run two filament bulbs in 1999).   

Mmmm Dave, I still stubbornly stand by the opinion that actually my Euro 
tail lenses (look red/blink orange) are brighter and are more distinct 
(read: safer) than the all-red DOT ones found in the American UrS cars. ;-)

As for the rear fogs, I myself have given in and installed the second 
one in the RH side. Moreover, both bulbs are the retina burning 50w 
Halogens. They do miracles shaking the tailgaiters off my tail.

The wife's Allroad already came with the second rear fog light, so all I 
had to do was to replace the incandescent bulbs with halogens. Highly 
recommend if you'd like to gain the upper hand in the urban warfare. ;-)

> I do agree that OEM HIDs are the best but they are WAY too $$$.  Sean
>  D. in our Vancouver club imported a set from Germany. They look good
>  but a replacement bulb/ballast is about US$500 each. In constrast,   
> several of our club members have done an LLTek or McCullough HID   
> conversion (with Euro headlight lenses) and they work about the same as
>  OEM for way less money.

With all due respect to both Sean and yourself I would politely 
disagree. As I was doing my home work and assessing various options I 
myself had looked into the OEM HIDs off a '97 Euro S6+. I promptly 
scrapped the idea due to the two compelling reasons:
a) @ ~$2k/ea. it was an outrageously expensive proposition at the time.
b) as you have rightfully pointed out, the idea of a replacement 
bulb/ballast assy as a whole does not rub me the right way as an engineer.

I also scrapped the cheap'n'dirty approach of installing a $500 hacked 
kit with custom D2S bulbs grafted onto some 9006 bases also due to two 
compelling reasons:
a) a Physicist in me felt that placing the HID hot spot precisely in the 
focal point of a Halogen projector (reflector/lens assy) not built for 
that very purpose was too much of a challenge for a handyman kit maker.
b) I do not like to be bound with an umbilical cord to some obscure 
custom bulb manufacturer.

I'd like to point out that I am not trying to badmouth wholesale all of 
the hack kits out there. It's just those that I've seen with my very 
eyes have failed to impress me with anything other than the blue hue of 
their light.

> The third option that I am looking at is Audi TT HID projectors.  One our
>  auxiliary club members (in Edmonton) has developed a mounting plate to   
> convert OEM DOT headlights to Audi TT HID projectors.  From what I have
>  been told and seen (via jpg photos only) they work fine.  I have ordered   
> a set of plates and might go that way (then I need to score some used TT projectors from a wrecker).

Bingo! The TT projector assy off a Euro TT (or its twin bro: the BMW 
740i) is w/o a doubt the best way to go. I have the 740i ones in my own 
car, bought off ebay.de and brought over here by a friend of a friend at 
my request. I ended up with the proper OEM European HID headlights and 
the whole conversion cost me prolly less than the cheapest hack kit out 
there.

You don't even need a mounting plate. What you need is 4 (four) pieces 
of threaded (4mm) rod about ... I dunno, 100 mm long each. You'll need 
to bend each of them to the shape off a manual crank:
__
   |__
which you'll have to do empirically. They will allow you to mount the 
somewhat wider TT projectors in the narrow eyelets of the UrS headlights.
You'll also need to run the power supply and the earth wires into the 
headlights since the OEM harness is not up to the task. I took the 
power (naturally through two yellow Si marine 30A fuses) off the AUX 
starting post for the RH headlight and off the Alternator post for the 
LH one. One of these days I'll post the pix on my website :)

You also might need to shunt the car battery with a huge capacitor (~ 1 
F) akin to the ones used by kids in inner cities in their thundering car 
stereos. I found that on occasion turning the HIDs on would kill the CD 
mode of the radio. A simple tap-tap on the function button would bring 
the CD mode back, but it is an inconvenience and annoys the hell out the 
perfectionist in me. One of these days I'll find a source of cheap 
capacitors and fix this issue.

The wife's Allroad was even simpler to convert since all I had to do was 
to swap the OEM DOT Halogen projectors for the OEM Euro HID projectors. 
Naturally I also broke off and removed the stupid orange cataphotes and 
as always I disconnected the parking lights from the corner bulbs 
bringing the headlights the the European code with separate blinkers in 
clear glass corners.

-- 
Igor Kessel
two turbo quattros