Bumper Removal, Headlight Removal, and HID Kit Installation

[KuroNekko]

This tutorial is a photo-heavy mega tutorial on removing the bumper, removing the headlights, and installing a HID kit (with a relay).

Prologue: My car's previous owner had a cheap HID kit installed. It served me well until recently when one of the bulbs stopped working. I decided to replace the entire kit with a more reputable Morimoto HID kit from http://www.retrofitsource.com. I opted for the Morimoto XB35 5000K bulbs with 3Five 35W Ballasts and their Heavy Duty Relay Harness. The relay harness sets this installation apart from many other HID kit installations.
The Kizashi does not have a headlight warning indicator so Can-bus harnesses were not necessary.

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The kit included 2 HID bulbs, 2 HID ballasts (and mounting hardware), 1 HD Relay harness, 2 alcohol wipes, and some documents.

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Tools you need:
- Rubber, nitrile, etc. gloves.
- Several zip ties.
- Needle nose pliers (My Leatherman tool worked great as usual).
- 10mm wrench.
- Philips screwdriver.
- Flathead screwdriver.
- Ramps or jacks to get under the car (optional).

Also note that in many of my pictures, you will see the pre-existing HID components that you will not see in your car if you are coming from the stock halogen bulbs.
However, the installation process is the same.

Step 1) Disconnect the battery then start removing the bumper. Open the hood and remove the 3 silver bolts and the 2 black rubber bumpers shown.

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Step 2) Remove the bolts in the wheel well. One on each side.

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Step 3) Remove the bolts under the vehicle. There are several under there. You will remove all that have a washer on them. Refer to photo.

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Step 4) Gently pull the bumper off of the sides. It should pop off without too much resistance.

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Step 5) Disconnect the fog light harness if you have fog lights.

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Step 6) Gently lift the bumper and then pull it off.

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Continue to remove headlights.

Step 7) Remove the headlight cover panels on each side. Each side is held by 4 plastic clips.

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Step 8) Remove the 2 bolts and 1 plastic clip circled.

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Step 9) Remove the 3 bolts circled.

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Step 10) Disconnect the headlight harness.

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Step 11) Slide the fog light harness out from its retainer clip.

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Step 12) Gently remove the headlight.

Continue to install HID kit with relay starting with Left Hand (LH) side

Step 13) Remove the low beam bulb cap from Left Hand (LH) headlight.

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Step 14) Unclip the H7 bulb retainer and remove old bulb.

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Step 15) Unhinge one side of the retainer as shown.

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Step 16) Drill a 7/8 inch (2.22 cm) hole in low beam cap.

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Step 17) Clean the new HID bulb with an alcohol wipe. It was supplied by The Retrofit Source.

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Step 18) Wearing rubber, nitrile, etc. gloves, carefully insert the bulb into the headlight. You will need to manipulate the unhinged retainer around the bulb's base and wiring.

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Step 19) Once the bulb is seated properly, attach the retainer hinge and clip the bulb into place.

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Step 20) Plug in the positive and negative leads to the headlight's harness inside the headlight. This harness is what connected directly to the halogen bulb. Make sure to match red with red (positive) and black with black (negative).

Step 21) Place the rubber seal in the hole in the cap and have it seated properly. It should fit well and make a seal with 4 wires running through.

Step 22) Cap the headlight and make sure it is sealed.

Step 23) Attached the supplied mounting bracket to the ballast with the supplied screws.

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Step 24) Examine the relay. Note my labels. Update: The label "To LH HID Bulb" is incorrect. This harness actually connects to the headlight's original H7 connector for control input and power.

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Step 25) Remove the harness portion from the connector to the HID bulb as pictured. You will not need this due to the Kizashi's headlight design.

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Step 26) Ground the Left Hand (LH) side ballast harness ground lead to the location shown. I joined it with preexisting grounds.

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Step 27) Mount the ballast here or some place you see fit. I experimented and found this to be a good location for the LH side.

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Step 28) Connect the wires. The large connector from the ballast connects to ground wire and harness wire. Connect the 2 small connectors from ballast to bulb. Connect the harness wire to LH trigger wire (goes to headlight much like bulb wires). Connections are circled.

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Step 29) Mount the Relays. I had a hard time finding a suitable place. TheRetrofitSource instructs you to mount the relays upward to prevent moisture collection. It does not come with a mounting bolt so I opted to zip tie it as shown next to LH ballast.

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Step 30) Run the long wire to the Right Hand (RH) headlight. I ran it in front of the A/C condenser and radiator. Use zip ties to secure it so it does not have much slack.

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Step 31) Remove the RH headlight as previous described and install the HID bulb.

Step 32) Remove the HID bulb's harness with the red and black leads that go to the original halogen bulb harness. Pull the red and black wires out through the rubber seal's holes. Keep the other HID bulb's wires in place as pictured.
You do not need the red and black wire harness due to the HD Relay that supplies the power. You need to omit this part because the ballast will power the bulbs and the ballast is fed from the long harness.

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Step 33) As the picture shows, you cannot mount the RH ballast in the same location as the LH ballast due to the washer reservoir.
Mount the RH ballast in the location shown.

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Step 34) Connect the ballast to the harness. Connect the ballast to the bulb. Ground the ground wire to location shown.

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Step 35) Connect the HD Relay harness' positive lead to the battery.

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Step 36) Once the headlights are wired up, reconnect the battery and test the lights to make sure they work.

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Step 37) After confirming it works, reinstall the headlights and bumper.


Epilogue:
The installation was a bit more difficult than a standard HID kit due to the HD Relay Harness. I had to think about things and how they got wired. Once I figured it out, the challenge was finding locations to mount the components.

The performance of the kit is impressive. The bulbs have very little warm-up time and output a very nice pure white color as a 5000K rating would imply. They flickered purple and pink at first then stabilized to white within seconds. I believe these brand new bulbs need some break-in time. Once on, they do not flicker and maintain a stable output.

I will post some on-the-road photos soon. It was snowing the night I installed these and my headlights were also filthy with snow/salt/dirt residue.

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[honsonwong]

Thanks for sharing, can't wait for the on-the-road photos.

[krell]

Great.... you #1 in my book... me getting a kit this Friday, the Kizashi stay with me tired of going to dealers to test drive you waste the entire weekends with this.

[KuroNekko]

Drove on a pitch black country road for on-the-road photos tonight.
I cleaned the headlights, fog lights, and the windshield so the light output and photos would be optimal. (It was fun watching the warm water freeze on the car before I could even dry it with a towel.) All photos taken from inside the car with the camera on the dash.

I'm very impressed with the performance of this kit. The bulbs are excellent and are brighter than the 4300K Made in Japan HIDs I had in my Mazda which I paid nearly twice as much for 5 years ago. The Morimoto XB35 5000K bulbs truly output a pure white color which is rather rare as most kits jump from 4300K (warm white with tinge of yellow) to 6000K (cool white with tinge of blue).
While the Morimoto HID kit is considerably more expensive than their cheap "ebay" counterparts, there is a huge difference in quality and performance. Remember, I just came from using one of these cheap kits with bulbs rated at 8000K (hey, it was the previous owner's choice). These Morimotos blow them away. The difference is almost like going from halogen to HID. The Morimotos are that good.

While it's known that the Kizashi's projector causes a 'shadow' like spot when using HID bulbs (on the lower left side), it's not noticeable with the Morimoto bulbs. When using fog lights, that 'shadow' area is thoroughly illuminated as you can see.

The Kizashi's projectors do a great job of cutting the beam off to not cause too much glare to oncoming traffic. I have not had anyone flash their high beams at me.

Overall, I'm very impressed with the Morimoto HID kit and would recommend them. The build quality is excellent and the performance is really top notch. The Heavy Duty Relay Harness also sets this kit apart from many other kits.

I truly hope they last a long time, but they come with an excellent warranty and the guys are theretrofitsource.com have an excellent reputation on other car forums for customer service and warranty coverage.

Here are the photos:

HID Low beams only

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HID Low beams and HID 3000K fog lights

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HID Low beams and IPF halogen H7 high beams

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[KuroNekko]

Oh I forgot to mention in the tutorial to be careful not to scratch the headlight when removing or mounting it on the car. The corner of the front fender comes to a point that can scratch the headlight. I scratched the LH headlight a little when re-installing the headlight. The scratch will probably get rubbed out with some plastic polish, but as a precaution, you may want to use some 3M masking tape around the edges of the headlight to protect them during the removal and installation process.

[~tc~]

I have the 35W 4300K

I mounted my ballasts in almost the exact same location.

I mounted the relays to the bolts on the computer, probably would have been better where you did.

I used the ballast mounting bolts for the ground wires.

I ran the passenger side wire along the top, zip tied under the crossmember.

[bootymac]

Nice guide. Only thing I'd recommend is modifying the bulb holders so that the HID bulb's return wire is pointing down. This maximizes the bulb's output as the return wire won't cast a shadow

[~tc~]

More trouble than it's worth. IMHO. I don't really have any shadow

[KuroNekko]

I agree with tc. It's more trouble than it's worth. The Morimoto bulbs don't create much of a shadow on the ground. TheRetrofitSource claims that some of their XB35 bulbs are designed to prevent the return wire from creating the shadow by designing the return wire to be on the other side of the reflection surface. I'm not sure if it applies to our H7 bulbs in the Kizashi's projector, but to modify the bulb holders would probably require opening up the headlights. If you are going to do this, you might as well get a real HID retrofit projector and have the optimum light output with the HID bulbs.

I really did not notice a shadow spot in my test drive tonight and it was pitch black other than for my headlights. While my low-only photo may look like there is a shadow, it's actually the road surface pattern with the salt and water.
Also, as I mentioned, the use of fog lights also negates any shadow issues as they fill that area with light.

Both tc and I have the Morimoto XB35 bulbs (his is 4300K and mine are 5000K) and neither of us have noticeable return wire shadows. These bulbs really are worth the extra price.

Here's the video of TRS explaining the issue and their XB35 bulb.
[youtube][/youtube]

[bootymac]

All that's required is bending two pins and rotating the bulb. Hardly a lot of work compared to the entire install. It's a minor detail that requires minimal work for optimal results