Ordered these DEPO projector fog lights for my 2006 X5 from ebay. They came from a seller that was located in Latvia. About two weeks later I got them. Im pretty impressed with the quality thus far. I adjusted the shield inside a little with a pick in order to get a razor sharp beam pattern. I had a spare set of h3 bulbs inside, as well as my 55w ballasts from the original installation I did when I first got the car. I used to run the 3000K kit, but just ordered a set of the 4300K bulbs so the fogs match the headlights as well as the angel eyes a little better. These H3 bulbs I used today were just a set of spares, if I had to guess their temperature if 6000K or 8000K, too blue for my tastes though.
Last night I went outside and took some measurements for the custom harness. The harness allows me to have full independent control over the fog lights. I mounted a switch under the steering wheel. Its triggered off the ignition so even if I was to forget to switch the lights off, once the car is off the lights do turn off. I decided to mimic the factory wiring and used black tape to cover everything up. I gave myself some extra inches on the battery, trigger, and ground wiring so I could make it exact once I got outside to do the actual installation. The harness and measurements took about 2 hours total. I found a nice rubber grommet and passed the wiring through the rear of the cap on the projector so its water tight.
Today I went out an installed the harness, HID system, and projector fogs. Took me about 2 hours by myself. I mounted the relay under the center plastic piece in the engine bay. I am assuming this is the cabin filter area cover. This way its out of site. I drilled a small hole through the battery area so that it is unseen from the outside and this allows me to take power from the battery and feed it to the HID system. The trigger wire goes to the switch under the dash and it is fed through the hole in the firewall. I made all the grounds feed into one single wire and used the chassis ground located on the drivers side of the engine bay. I mount the one ballast on the frame that holds the coolant, and then on the other side on the actual frame of the car, which seemed to be the best area to put it. I got some spare h11 connectors and soldered on a set of resistors. These are plugged into the factory wiring. This way the computer will not think the fog lights are out, basically to trick the system. They do not get hot, so stuffed them away
The installation went great and the final product is basically unseen since I copied the factory wiring harness and zip tied it all together. Overall I love the new fogs. They have a very sharp cutoff. I do not like the blue color but I will post up some updated pics once my bulbs come in a few days.
01-13-2010, 04:40 PM
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