The Do It Yourself section is used provide assistance with mods and fixes. Whenever you are making a change to your car please take pictures and notes. Let others know what to watch out for and any useful tricks you learn. If you are starting a post in this section from scratch please hold it to a higher standard than you would for other forum posts. i.e. technical detail and even grammar.
Please post about issues or problems in the Technical Support & Problem Troubleshooting forum.
Who hates the oem front parking lights? I sure do. so i disconnected them, and then i took my headlights out and looked at the connector for the turn signal. there is 3 contacts on the plug, and it takes a 1157 bulb.. which is a dual filiament bulb, so one contact is not being used! guess what? this gives you front parking lights! so i just drilled some holes in the plug, and ran a wire to the contacts(from the oem bumper parking lights), soldered those bad boys on and voila!
Btw. those arent DRL's in the first picture, they are just LED 194 bulbs that i got at walmart. All the bulbs have been replaced with LED except the headlights, which is going to get HID high and low beams (i dont like the throw distance of LED retrofit headlight bulbs. Also they arent available in yellow i dont think and i always run yellow headlight bulbs. When i find a new bumper im going to take out the OEM bumper parking lights and fill the holes in so it looks like they were never there.
Nice. I will possibly do that later down the road! Thanks
2012 Suzuki Kizashi Sport iAWD CVT ''Kaijū'' (Black pearl metallic)
Priors:
2004 Audi A4 Quattro 1.8T 6MT ''Audini'' (Black)
1999 Audi A4 Quattro 2.8 AT (Dark green)
1984 Chevrolet Malibu 3MT with a 327 engine lol (Blue)
1996 Acura Integra 5MT (Black)
So I take it that the turn indicators work with a greater intensity? If that's the case, I find it odd that Suzuki put the yellow bumper side markers on. I think the legal requirement is for side markers to be visible from the sides but the turn signals are anyway. The first gen Mazda3 had the set-up of the turn signal bulbs also being the side markers with the dual intensity bulbs.
As for the HID high beams, you'll run into a number of issues. First, HIDs will not be compatible with the Pulsed Width Modulation DRL system the Kizashi uses. They will flicker like crazy. The remedy is a capacitor, but it will also run your HIDs at nearly full power in DRL mode. The second is that HIDs need warm-up and high beams are often used to flash or illuminate temporarily. Even the fastest ballasts need at least 3~5 seconds for a HID bulb to reach full operating output. For these reasons, HID bulbs aren't suitable unless you accept compromises.
LEDs are more suitable for the purpose of a DRL/high beam because they have a much longer bulb life and have instant full power. However, like you noted, they often have issues with distance throw in headlights designed for halogens. It sucks because the DRL/high beams in the Kizashi and many other cars were specifically designed for halogen bulbs only and everything from the power supply to the reflector design work against anything but halogens. However, halogens are old technology and last in the hundreds of hours. HID bulbs last in the thousands of hours while LEDs last in the tens of thousands of hours. Given the royal pain bulb replacements are in the Kizashi, I'm also eager to get rid of the halogens.
The good news is that the low beams with the projector lenses work very well with HID kits. I've had HID low beams since I bought the car. I'll be trying out my 2nd attempt at a LED kit for the DRL/high beams shortly. I really want long-life DRLs and the ability to flash quickly and reliably so HID highs aren't an option for me.
No, if you disabled the DRLs and are only using them for high beams you'll be fine because they'll be at full power when they're on. I did the same and use LEDs for my high beams and love them.
wobki wrote:oh, well i dont need HID highs anyway. even though my drl's are disabled by removing that wire they will flicker?
No, the flickering is only with DRLs. If you use them for only high beams, they shouldn't flicker. However, you'd still have the issue of a long warm-up time with HID bulbs. It's because of how HIDs work; it's basically an arc of light caused by special salts getting melted into plasma from an initial very high voltage from the ballast. However, that process takes a few seconds and that's what that "warm-up" time is. The good thing about LEDs and halogens is that they have instantaneous full power which is very important for a high beam. The good thing about HIDs as high beams is that they will likely be more focused than LEDs for a distance throw while significantly brighter than halogens plus a longer bulb life than halogens. This is what I meant about compromises.
BLyons wrote: I did the same and use LEDs for my high beams and love them.
