I did my HID conversion about 4 months ago now and wanted to report as tons of people on here have said you cannot use the plastic ballast and you have to modify the wiring. Well I used the plastic ballasts and I didn't touch the wiring all can go back to stock within minutes, and if you look in the engine bay towards the headlights you cannot tell anything is mondified one bit. I figured I'd give a quick description of how I did it.

What I did, foglights are straight forward put in the $30 Ebay HID kit and you're done, mounted the ballasts and it was complete in about 30 minutes to 1 hr.

Headlights I got a bit creative. I mounted the ballast in a small (albeit very hard to get to area, between the inner fender well and the fender) keeps the plastic safe from the underhood temps that are sooo harmful to the ballast and hides if from view, pluged the wiring into the factory harness with spades (taped it neatly and completely to avoid any issues of the wiring falling out etc...) I also hid this wiring harness as well. I then installed the E39 clip adapters to hold the bulb and in about an hour and a half I was done. I will take pictures of the completed engine bay area for anyone that wants to see but it looks stock honestly. I figured a description would help more.

For the inner high beam small lamps (194 bulbs) that illuminate when the headlights are on, I purchased a 5 LED replacement and installed those as well, very cool look.

I didn't need any re-aiming of the lamps (though I measured and made sure they were correct) and have not been high-beamed by on coming traffic once even with fog lights and head lights on.

Basically this is an easy way to do the HID conversion if you want to do it cheaply and have your car able to revert back to stock.

The entire conversion was literally completed for $60.99.

I also converted all interior bulbs, trunk bulbs, and license plate lamps to LED for about another $30 but that was only that expensive because I bought the bulbs in bulk. Trust me it updates the car like crazy makes it look 10 years newer just with some lamps. Highly recommended.

 

What did you do for your high beams?

I used LED for the parking lamps. They look cool but very very blue.

I just received a set of Nokya 7000 55W H7 bulbs that I will use for my low beams. I will also replace fog light bulbs with 9600 bulbs. Will retain the Hella bulbs for the high beams.

It would help greatly if you could list all the links for the bulbs you bought.

 

This was done to death about 2 years ago on here!

The only issues I recall where the lens cut offs' and depth of the HID bulbs into the light housing, there's a sweet spot, and my god do you know when you hit it.

The other issue is with the 'auto' lights feature, as the hid's need a higher start voltage on key on, one light ignites while the other flickers, a cure with a purpose made relay circuit from the battery.

With interior bulbs they're either T5 twistlock or w5w. If wanting to do the display panels then it gets more involved, soldering with resistors to do the job right. I found just swapping them caused flickering and intermittent lighting, which drove me nuts.

When BMC nut says all I'd be very impressed if he actually did them all, more like the courtesy lights (rear reading, front map etc, door puddle lights?) and not displays or buttons and switches...

 

Sean, I know its a beaten horse. Most of the threads don't post direct links or exact product names. Your posts are one of the most detailed with respects to lighting. I would love to do what you did to your dash back lighting. BTW, I thought the dash lighting was a simpler affair (resistors?).

However, I keep in mind that X308s are laden with computers and are very sensitive to voltage drops, etc. I would not think twice about doing it to my Alfa. In fact, after I get a replacement for my 79 S2, I will redo the back lighting as its practically non existent in the Alfas of that vintage.

I'm ok with the wrench but the electronics make me nervous. Wish you were a lot closer, I'd have you go at my XJR

 

I purchased (1) H7 5000K and (1) 9006 5000K HID kit off of eBay I literally did price and shipping cheapest first and purchase those ones they were $28 each if I remember correctly and use slim ballasts that are plastic.

All other LED bulbs I ordered from eBay as well in bulk it was cheaper but the quality wasn't as good as ones I have bought in the past from www.autolumination.com

I bough 5 LED super white 194 conversion bulbs and that is what is in the parking lamps they look awesome with the HIDs match perfectly.

High beams I left the stock halogen H7s as I never use the damn things with the HIDs being so bright.

I'm going to do more lighting changes on the car in the future and will update as well.

 

You are correct I did the courtesy stuff I do not like at all the conversion on all the lights it makes it way to bright and almost import tuner to me and less classy then the car was intended, however bright it may be its too much, I just wanted to update the lighting when you open the door and use the map lights to look like a lot of the newer Jags.. I changed all the dash bulbs and others with the factory bulbs I bought from Jaguar easy but definitely not cheap.

Absolutely 0 problems with flickering with the auto lamps feature.

I read all the done to death articles and heard all the warnings and the hard nosed guy I am, I didn't listen to anything and decided to risk the $60 bucks and see if I could make it work. And I did. A lot of times in cars, especially modidying them of which I am oh so familiar you tend to over think things which is why I did 0 thinking and just went straight to buying and installing. Worked out perfect, no flickering, no ballast melting, no bulb length issues, no issues at all I will try to find the exact links to the kits I bought, but they have been installed for a while I don't think eBay keeps records that old.

 

Here's a picture with the headlights and fogs on along with the LED super white 194 Parking Lights (hard to see)


And here is one with just the fog lights and the marker lights, I had tried without the marker lights all together but I like them too much

 

A little bit to blue for my liking would prefer more white, is it 6000 or 7000k?
Looks good though, better than standard imo

Edit just seen - 5000k

 

do you have links to the parts used?

 

How about a night picture shining against a wall at 30 feet so we can see the light pattern?

 

The seller I bought my HIDs from is still on ebay though he does not have any more kits, his name was onedaysending

Here is basically the exact same kit I bought for mine, you can choose bulb type and color which was nice, my seller only had the option for 5000K, this one you can do 4300 or 3000 which will be nice and white, where as mine are whitish blue.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/35W-HID-Xeno...item27c89bdfab

This is the bulb holder, I got this link from the original thread about HIDs

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BMW-E39-1-Xe...c4a01d&vxp=mtr

Here is what I used to replace my interior 194 bulbs (disclaimer these particular ones will stay very very dimmly lit, due to stagnant charge in the dimmer modules on the interior lights and will stay dimmly lit on the exterior parking lights for about an hour because of residual electricity in the system) so an alternate source may want to be found but this is what is in my car in the interior courtesy lamps, map lights, parking lamps, and trunk lamps.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/20-x-T10-194...c70ff0&vxp=mtr

Here are the bulbs I bought for the license plate lamps. (you have to squish the metal tangs a bit to get them to hold the bulb tighter but work great and do not hang on)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/10x-36mm-6-L...ba7b35&vxp=mtr

 

I'll do that tonight for you.

 

They don't really look that blue in real life it's crazy ahaha 4000-5000 is suppposed to be white like I prefer as well but beggers can't be choosers I went with the cheapest kits since I thought it was going to be an experiment and not work like I had read.

 

Off topic but can I see a closer up picture of your leaper, thinking of changing mine to a long tailed one...

 

Yeah I'll take a picture of that tonight as well. Any particular angle or anything you're trying to see?

 

Here you go I kinda screwed up this is 30 feet to the front axle centerline so used to using axle centerlines for measurement I did it out of habit.

 

here is my old thread about my conversion

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...version-74468/

planning to do a projector headlight retrofit

 

Nicely done, halos aren't my cup of tea, but can appreciate the work and that you did it yourself. Halos are bimmer thing and I'm not a bimmer fan.

Wouldn't mind having turn indicators in the fenders on mine instead of the little badge.

Also in reading a lot of threads everyone talks about the room for installing.

Just open the hood and give the headlight a good yank it will pop right off of the three balled headlight adjusters, then you can access everything from the front easily and not have to try and work in that little confined space.

 

Question
2001XJR has only one parking light receptacle , this on drivers side.
Looks strange , but no receptacle on right side .
Is this normal?

 

My 2000 has two little twist in receptacles (almost look like spears on the lower side of the headlight), however one of mine was broken so it was hard to see from in the engine bay like I said earlier I popped the headlights out to make it easier for myself to change them out and see everything. I couldn't really see them just by looking in the engine, open the hood then go to the front of the car and give the parking/high beam a gentle tug, should feel it pop off then you can really see what's going on behind there.