Need advice on my Euro Ellipsoid project...

[uflnuceng]

Ok... I think I am officially confused as all hell on the whole concept of lighting. I also apologize on how mangled this post is, but hopefully you can see the point. If I understand it correctly (which I don't think I do) it goes like this.

1. US Projectors are the lowest of the low and suck on top of that. Something about the DOT being idiots.

2. Euro Ellipsoid Projectors are not "DOT Certified" but what idiot at an inspection station actually checks that out. They require a conversion kit of sorts (either DIY or buy from a retailer).

3. Depo or Umnitza projectors are low quality replacements for US projectors and the glass isn't blast treated and tends to crack and yellow easily.

4. Hella is the sh*t.

Now... when it comes to bulb choice with an ellipsoid projector you can either go for H1 bulbs (although there appears to go all the way up to H7 bulbs?) or you can go for HID (a.k.a. Xenon) systems. My car currently has Umnitza projectors that look horrible and are already cracked. It also has a prolumen 5000K xenon kit. I have zero understanding of what the hell 9005 and 9006 bulbs are.

My issue is the install of a xenon kit to me throws off the "cleaness" of the engine compartment. The dust shields behind the headlights have been hacked to death to make room for the wires and the ballasts have been screwed to the body of the car.

I just got smoked Hella Euro Ellipsoids, smoked TYE turn signals, and smoked Hella tail lights. If I want to go back to regular-non-xenon lights, but something that is brighter than OEM US lights, what the hell kind of bulbs do I get? Turner has PIAA Xtreme White Plus 9006 Low Beam Bulbs and PIAA Xtreme White Plus 9005 High Beam Bulbs that supposedly put out like 4150k light. Is this what I would want to put in there? What about the HID kit that is in there already... did wires have to get cut and spliced to put them in there. Am I looking at a wiring nightmare if I want to go back to good old fashioned filament bulbs versus xenon high intensity discharge bulbs? Mainly this all has to do with me wanting the engine compartment to look clean and having spliced wires everywhere and ballast boxes screwed to fenders doesn't do it for me.

I'm going to go back in the corner, put my dunce cap on, and start sucking on my thumb. I'm scared and my brain is starting to hurt.

Oh... and what bulbs should I get for the turn signals so that they don't look orange?

[liquidtiger720]

Do you know if you have h1 bulbs or 9006/5 xenon bulbs? They are not interchangable.

9006/5 bulbs are used in the OEM projectors.

BTW...us projectors arn't THAT bad.....just the freeform ones.

[bfd]

For the US ellipsoid, another bulb option to the 9005/9006 are the Toshiba Halogen Infrared (HIR) bulbs like these:

http://www.hirheadlights.com/

According to test in Roundel, *superior* to 9005/9006 option:

http://www.bmwcca.org/members/AM/Tem...e_Be_E36_Light

[uflnuceng]

Do you know if you have h1 bulbs or 9006/5 xenon bulbs? They are not interchangable.

No idea... how do I tell them apart?

BTW...us projectors arn't THAT bad.....just the freeform ones.

Sorry... I'm from the E30/E36 world where US lighting was short changed.

According to test in Roundel, *superior* to 9005/9006 option:

http://www.bmwcca.org/members/AM/Tem...e_Be_E36_Light

Cool article... I definitely get the feeling I want to convert to the Euro Ellipsoids and whatever "stock" bulb setup they use. Opinions seems to be that they give a decent amount of light output and I think it will look much nicer on the car.

[Patrick]

I think you answered your own question if you want to use the Hella euro ellipsoids -the bulb that fits those is the H1, 12V -the 100W would work fine.
I know the 'Optilux' bulbs are made by Hella. You might check out www.hellausa.com for more info.
As for your wiring question, I guess it all depends how much OEM was removed to install the HID kit. (I wired an HID kit into my euro ellipsoids with custom made connectors so I wouldn't have to hack the OEM wiring to ****.)The connectors for the H1 setup shouldn't be prohibitively expensive or hard-to-find to get it to OEM euro.
The euro ellipsoids are supposedly an vast improvement over US OEM so you won't go wrong there either way.
Hth.

[Tiger]

I got that Hella unit you bought in 2001. It is still perfect today. It is the best headlight you can get for E34. Original Hella is sh*t as the lens are incredibly pitted.

I also installed HID at that time too. This Hella unit is european code and use H1 bulbs for both low and high beam. I used a H1 HID kit and that is zero modification to the headlight unit. The only modification you need to do is to drill a hole on the back cover so the HID bulb wire can come out... and use a grommet in that hole to seal out dust... the grommet have two holes for wires to come out.

That is it. Since you already have a HID kit... why not contact the seller of that kit for just the H1 bulb and use your original ballast.

[uflnuceng]

Looks like this is the kit that got installed in my car... old group buy post with pics.

I think I need to take the front of my car apart and start playing around. It might just be a plug and play kit so I should be able to maybe even do a comparo between the 5000k HID and some H1 bulbs... so this leads to the next question...

What H? bulbs do I use... H1.. H2... H3... H7? What wattage?

[liquidtiger720]

h1 bulbs:




9005/6

[Tiger]

H1 and get 4000K instead.

[CharlesAFerg]

For the US ellipsoid, another bulb option to the 9005/9006 are the Toshiba Halogen Infrared (HIR) bulbs like these:

http://www.hirheadlights.com/

So I could buy these and just plug them in without any modification to my US projectors+fogs?

Who here has bought JUST bulbs for their US low and high? What brand and model did you buy for each low and high...(ALSO FOGLIGHTS) An ebay auction for each would be awesome, I just don't want to buy the wrong bulbs...
-Charles