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WOW, did HID bulbs and projectors make things better!
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Posted by Ari [Email] (#2847) [Profile/Gallery] (more from Ari) on Tue, 15 Apr 2025 14:16:41 Share Post by Email
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I vastly improved my night driving experience in my 2010 9-3 by converting to HID low beams. The difference is literally night and day.

This car was born with halogen headlights. At some point, I switched out the halogen low beam bulbs for LED bulbs. (If you use the Tech2 to tell the car you have Xenon, then the LEDs don't flash.)

But LED was never satisfactory, even though I tried several different types of LED bulbs. They just don't play nice with the projectors that are intended for halogen. They're bright, but the coverage is lousy.

So I bit the bullet last week, and converted to HID.

The headlight assemblies can be removed without taking off the bumper skin, if you don't like getting under the car. You can remove the three 8mm bolts that connect the bumper skin to the wheel arch liner, pull the clip and the torx screw holding the top of the skin to the cross member in the engine compartment, and then peel the skin away from the fender to access that pesky 10mm bolt that holds in the bottom of the headlight assembly. On top, it's another 10mm bolt and an 8mm bolt, and then you can maneuver the headlight assembly out of the front of the car. There's one electrical connector to pull off.

Then, disconnect the low beam bulb from its connector and remove the four torx bolts that are holding the projector in. You then just pull up on the projector, which unfortunately will break off the beauty ring at the front of the projector. I couldn't find a way around that. You can then use snippers to cut the beauty ring in two, and pull it out so it doesn't rattle around in there.

Then, you install your HID projector and bulb. I used Morimoto EvoX-R 2.0 projectors, which are just bolt in, using two of the same holes that held the original projector in. If you want, you could drill a couple of new holes to use the other two screws, but that seemed like overkill to me. You also need two 50w / D2S: Morimoto XB Ballasts (they come in pairs) and two Morimoto HD Relays for H11/H9/H8/880 bulbs (which also come in pairs). For bulbs, I chose the Morimoto D2S XB 5.8000K 55w HID Bulbs. The color temperature you choose is up to you, but 5800k is what I like, it's very white.

The wiring is straightforward, though because the wiring needs to go from the bulb housing to the engine compartment, you'll have to drill holes in the plastic protective caps that lock in behind the bulbs to keep water out. The Morimoto kit includes grommets, so the bulb housings retain their watertightness.

Although you could probably use the HID bulbs for both high and low beam, I chose to retain my LED bulbs for the high beams, as they work just fine for that purpose.

Don't forget to re-attach the electrical connector to the back of the headlight assembly before bolting the headlight assembly back in. Ask me how I know.

I can't stress enough how much better nighttime visibility is with this setup. I didn't take before and after pictures, but I'm about to do this on my other 9-3, so I'll have the opportunity then, and will post them.


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