Litronic headlights question

[jinijazz]

For those who installed Litronic headlights (not factory installed), is it worth to connect all the wires to get the extra feature? or just plug and play and be happy about it?

[geoff]

Yes, I think so. I installed the Litronics a few weeks ago myself. It's a pain, but worth it. It took probably 4 hours to pull the inside trunk apart, do the wiring, and put it back together. In the process, I learned a lot about how my car is put together. I figured why bother getting the Litronic headlights, then losing the full high beam functionality.

I still need to align the lights (they're aimed way too high as received), but quite a bit brighter

[Tool Pants]

We have done the retrofit on 2 cars. We installed the control unit and the wiring harness both times.

[BobMarley]

Extra Feature? = High Beams?

For those who installed Litronic headlights (not factory installed), is it worth to connect all the wires to get the extra feature? or just plug and play and be happy about it?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[jinijazz]

Extra Feature? = High Beams?

Yes high beam. As far as I know, you cannot retrofit auto leveling feature anyway.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

So Jeff or geoff, what happens if I turn on high beam with no wires installed? No highbeam at all???

[Tool Pants]

If you have the retrofit kit in the kit is a black control unit and a wiring harness. If you do not install this and just install the headlights the low xenon beam will not rotate up a few degrees to fill in with the high halogen beam when you select high. Both beams will still work, just not the beam rotation when you select high.

We filmed the complete install for the DIYer DVDs and the run time is 42 minutes.

[phrankandbeanz]

ijust plugged and played...i didnt want to splice all those wires because when I sell my car I want to sell the litronics on ebay and put back my haolgens

[geoff]

If you do the wiring and plug in the control unit, when you turn on the high beams, the (HID) low beams rotate up a few degrees to fill in the light below the (halogen) high beam. The same thing happens if you momentarily flash your high beams.

If you're a spaz, mechanically, like me, the wiring is a pain. The good thing is you can use the lights without the wiring, then decide later that since you spent so much $$ on the lights to take full advantage of them and hook up the control unit :)

My wife just got a new 997 last weekend, and I started reading the owners manual. The autoleveling feature sounds like it only makes adjustments when the car is first started, based on weight loading, and is not dynamic when driving.

Extra Feature? = High Beams?

Yes high beam. As far as I know, you cannot retrofit auto leveling feature anyway.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

So Jeff or geoff, what happens if I turn on high beam with no wires installed? No highbeam at all???

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[SRA2005]

what the hell?? porsche boxsters and 996 are equipped with bi xenon . which means its high beam and low beam .. i know for sure bosch has put a solenoid which starts the shutter to open and lower the shield on the projector itself. You need to create a harness to your car to activate a high beam with a relaw so that the shield can stay on during high beam requiring a "hard ground" and a soft ground .

autoleveling feature is very hard on retrofitting. you need to have about 4 sensors on the control arms and the autoleveling motors too. good luck on trying to find parts on that for I have not seen one good retrofit yet. I have done retrofitting and its wicked easy. THERE IS NO SUCH THING as plug and play. for those who purschase plug and play devices are worthless piece of equipment. poorly designed and create tons of glare to oncoming drivers. dont buy 8000k kits otherwise ur just loosing valueable light than with an OEM 41000k kit. which all bmws porsche and audi uses.

[cease]

For those who installed Litronic headlights (not factory installed), is it worth to connect all the wires to get the extra feature? or just plug and play and be happy about it?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

jinijazz, I know you've gotten some answers already on this subject but I thought I'd pass my "black box" installation experience on to you. I bought the DVD set which describes in detail how to install the control unit; excellent info on how to DIY. I installed the Litronics, w/o the unit a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday I took on installing the control unit. Took me about an hour. What saved some time was not removing the trunk liner completely. I just loostened the top parts, and worked with it that way. Another thing I didn't do was drill a hole in my front trunk, rather I used the exsting rubber gasket and simply pushed the harnesses through each as described on the DVD. I found the rubber gasket easier to work with by popping them out, then pushing them backinto the fender hole; took a little effort getting them back but was easier than trying to force the wires through while in place. The control unit makes a huge difference when using high beams; rotation of the beams (up) really fills the field of vision; definitely worth the extra effort to install. BTW, I didn't solder anything or pop the pins. I simply used wire taps you can get anywhere. Makes for a very clean, easy installation. Do the install; it's not hard and well worth it.

Edited April 2, 2005 by cease