jimlab

1. Low beam? High beam? There were no instructions with my kit. I'm assuming that the round lights are the "low beams" and the oval lights are the "high beams". Anyone know differently?

2. Connecting to the stock wiring harness... I'm assuming these draw a pretty significant amount of current, so relays will have to be used with one of the headlight plugs as a "trigger". If you installed your own kit or know how it was done, did you splice into the OEM headlight wiring, or is there a plug available which will plug into the stock connector?

The RE Amemiya light kit includes wiring that has its own relay system, and has a plug which goes right into one of the stock headlight plugs, is why I ask. Wonder if these are available anywhere? I'd like to avoid cutting the wiring harness, if possible, but at this point, it hardly matters. Not like I'll ever have stock lights again.

3. Aiming the headlights. Did you just "best guess" during the install, and/or did you go back and try to align them better afterward with the covers removed?

The reason I ask is that they don't appear to move left or right easily, and the beams should be focused slightly to the right to avoid blinding oncoming traffic. Did you end up pointing yours down farther to avoid people flashing you? I would assume that since there is no cut-off of the top of the low beams, that oncoming traffic might get irritated.

4. Tickets. Anyone ever been pulled over for having the C-West kit, since this kit is not DOT legal?

5. Light quality. How pleased are you with the lighting provided by the kit? Bright enough to see by, but not perfectly focused. How easily can you out-drive your lights at night?

Basically, I'm just tired of screwing around with the headlights and the shop that was supposed to be producing the prototypes hasn't been quick to come up with anything and I'm tired of hassling them. I have a C-West kit (my fourth light kit... RE Amemiya, C-West, East Bear, and back to C-West) at the moment, and I am just thinking of painting it body color and installing it, since it has the best mounting scheme of any of the light kits, in my opinion, and doesn't look that bad.

I originally objected to the "bulge" of the covers, but it's not really that noticeable on the car. I also wanted better lighting, but now I just don't care any more, or I'll worry about it later. I need to cut back on the side projects and start getting some things finished up.

Crashunit

1) Yeah the bigger one is suppose to be low beam, and the oval one is high beam. I drive with the highbeams, cause the lowbeams suck ***.

2) I spliced into my stock OEM wiring harness, dunno about any plug in connectors.

3) Mine are all best guessed and aimed low, since I was told if the fog light were to touch the lens of the kit, it would melt it.

4) havent had it long enough to be pulled over yet, but I hope not.

5) Bottom line, lights look great, but functions worse then OEM. Low beam is worthless.... it lights up 5 ft in front of you and thats it.... total darkness around. Hi-beam lights up like 1/2 as much as my PIAA "HID wannabe" lights did. And I was thinking of running both on together, but Im afraid the heat might melt the lense. But like I said before there is an H3 HID kit that will bolt right into the CaTz fog lights, which I will be looking into.

Trx7an

I had the C-West Kit but sold it for an HID kit for the stock lights. Here's my experience if it helps..

1. I used the smaller ones for low beam. I was always used to seeing the outer lights as low beams on most cars. I could never get the larger round lights to aim high enough so I used them as additional driving lights switched by the fog light switch. I was concerned about having both lights on at the same time causing too much heat, but it never became an issue.

2. I just connected the smaller (lowbeams) to the stock light wire output, never had a problem. I soldered some male pins on to the catz lights and plugged them into the stock female plugs. For the larger,inside lights, I wired them to the fog light switch, using the catz relays.

3. Best guess for aiming... I did enlargen some mounting holes to adjust horizontally as needed.

4. Never got a ticket and passed many cops. I think as long as you don't blind anyone... they wouldn't know or care... well at least in Oklahoma. Cops here wouldn't know if they were DOT legal.

5. Light quality was OK, better than stock and better than my friend's RE kit. With both catz lights on, the lighting was very good. BUT, I had a craving for HIDs since my 330Ci has Xenon and everytime I drive my rx7, the lighting seemed like candles compared to the bimmer.

Hope that helps.

LT1-7

Hey Jim, "when" you decide to change to some other headlight kit, keep me in mind

jimlab

Sure thing.

jimlab

Crashunit, do you have a link to the H3 HID kit for the (I'm assuming) MSC lights? I'm wondering if, although the light output would be greater, if there is any change in the design of the bulb which would focus the light output better. I believe that the problem might be the housing.

I'm also wondering now, if a Hella HID 90mm light will fit in place of the MSC lights. The low beam Hella housing would be ideal, with an HID upgrade.

The MSC is 3.54" (height) x 3.54" (width) x 3.43" (depth). The Hella low beam is 3.56" x 3.56" x 4.125". Considering the space behind the MSC light in the C-West kit, I think it'd fit without modification, or very little, but the mounting would be interesting.

jimlab

OK... more research.

The CATZ MSC uses an H1 bulb, not H3. The bulb in the XLO is not replaceable, the unit is fully sealed.

I found several HID kits for the H1... SPP kits (Philips bulbs and ballasts) come with instructions and wiring, and are available in 4300k (bright white) - $479, 5000k (sharp blue) - $499, and 6000k (blue/purple) - $575.



Philips branded (I believe) kits are $575 for the 4300k H1 kit with free shipping.

http://www.supremepowerparts.com/xenon.htm

Here's another source...

http://www.coolbulbs.com/HIDKits_body.asp

And another...

http://www.xenondepot.com/INTorderonline.html

jimlab

Oops... doesn't look the like the bulb on the MSC is replaceable either, without sawing off the back of the housing.

Crashunit

Always leave it up to Jimlab to answer his own questions .

jimlab

Yep. Back to the drawing board.