R56 HID kit
 

I know there are a lot of heated debates over HID kits being in halogen assemblies, but I don't have the funds for a retrofit of OEM Bixenon assemblies.

I've been searching for a few days now, & I haven't been able to find a DIY for installing an HID kit into the R56. I'm not sure if it's just THAT straight forward & I just dont get how to do it or if no one else on this forum has done this.

The problem for me is that "sealing cap" that's on the assembly, I dont want to make an unnecessary hole in it for the wires. I might consider it if that's the only way do it, but I'd like to hear from more knowledgeable MINI owners.

Any & all help will be helpful. BTW, I really love my MINI. It's just I can barely see at night! Probably because I'm coming from a car that had HIDs.

pm me, im running 8500k HID with ballast and everything. there are a couple problems you will run into, but i can explain them to you.

^^^^^ can you post your information here for other lurkers interested in this subject too?

thanks!

ok ill just post the info on here.

it sounds like to me the reason they are running it straight from the battery is because if you run it through the stock wires the computer will kick in and not allow you to run the ballasts. my cousin and i have been working on putting togeather a HID kit for the non Xenon cars and have finally found a system that works for our cars. you dont need to pull apart the light housing or anthting. it would just be like removing the bulb. you plug everything into the stock wires. ill take a pic of the whole system after work today. it super easy to install. doesnt require sodlering, splicing or opening of the headlight unit. its a direct plug.

sry guys. i was still logged onto puma's (my friends account) when i wrote that. so any questions u have contact me, not puma.

so you just hard wired your ballist straight to the battery? i had to do that on my motorcycle. Where are you mounting the ballist?

i actually got a kit off of ebay that worked fine high and low beams with no bulb out code. I have an S but im sure it wouldnt make a difference.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...installed.html

This place seems to have a lot of stuff at a good price. Didnt really look around, but I know of a lot of people using them.

http://www.ddmtuning.com/Products/Ap...Raptor-HID-Kit

Thanks for the input guys. I actually already bought the slim ballast kit from ddmtuning. I'm just wondering if you guys installed the kit without making any modifications to the headlight assemblies or the battery cover, & if so, how did you do it?

I had the ddm for my motorcycle and the ballist was DOA. Total a-holes to deal with trying get an rma.

That's a bummer. Did you install HID's in your MINI?

i installed some hids a month ago. they're working great. my kit was able to work straight through the stock wiring, with slight modification to the wiring from the ballasts. then just had to drill a hole into the headlamp housing cap to run the wires and moisture sealer through. pretty easy and straight forward.

sry bud, been super busy with summer school. i made no holes what so ever. i really dont understand why u need to drill holes and stuff... the wires plug directly into the factory bulb plug...

this is what the kit looks like.
1.so you connect the ecu bulb out override to the stock bulb harness. you just plug it in. so the car will actually let you run the HID. (our cars if you dont have this it will think the light bulb burnt out and not let you run the headlight at all.)
2. connect that to the ballast
3. connnect ballast to the HID bulb.
4. screw in bulb like you would your stock ones.
5.cram all the stuff back into the housing and close it up.
6. ur done! no dis-assembly, cutting, drilling. just straight plugging
*** that other black wire you see bottom right is not a headlgiht wire, its the washer fluid line.***

http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/1751/photo6wv.jpg

i was going to do it the same way you did it, cram the ballast and wiring into the headlamp housing, however i did some research, and with the HID bulb in there with the ballast and possible environmental heat, some ballasts have an auto shut off if they reach 105 degrees. and if they dont, it'll just build up a lot of heat and damage something. not saying that your set up will, but its a risk that not everyone wants to take. Thus drilling the hole with the moisture sealer will allow the ballast enough air to breath, and will not allow moisture to get into the head lamp. moisture in the headlamps is bad as well.

now i'm stuck between 2 installation methods. =\ maybe when the weather gets better, i'll mess around with both & see which one suits me.

Thanks again to brandon & andrew.

but the stock assembly already has an air/moisture purge opening built in.... remove the entire assembly and look on the underside. it has a vent opening.

well there you go. but that doesnt give a definite solution to heat build up. but now that you mention the vent on the bottom makes me kick myself for not realizing it and drilling a hole into the caps of my head lamps QQ

now i know. thanks again

FYI: after brandon told me that the hid kit will not work without an ecu decoder, i went back to ddmtuning.com to order the part. it was $20 + $13 shipping. they wouldn't process the order if the shipping address differed from the billing address & said that it can ONLY go to the billing address. since i work everyday except sunday there's no way that i can possibly get the item.

so i cancelled the order & looked on ebay. i believe i found the exact same item for only $2 + $7 shipping, here's the link http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2-x-H...item27b0a0bb1a

i'm really glad that ddm wouldn't process my order because i believe i got the exact same item for less than the cost of ddm's shipping. i checked the seller's feedback on the same item & everyone said that the item worked flawlessly.

i just wanted to post this up just in case someone else has to deal with ddm.

What the bulb size do I need to order from ddm?? My husband used DDM for his Civic and ordered the 40 dollar kit on a Friday and it came in on the next Tuesday. So I am pretty confident that DDM will do right by me. I just need to know the bulb size.

We just bought an 06 S convertible and we aren't too sure about this type of car haha. I wouldn't mind getting the projector headlight housings, but at 400 dollars a pop for the assemblies online, that might have to wait.

Thanks in advance!

good luck with ddm. I just had to RMA a ballast for my motorcycle through them. Seriously I got the run around soooo bad. It sucks too because their price point is right on, but their customer service never answers, If they do they are going to tell you to did something wrong. Then you will be on hold for 2hrs, then you will have to record the problem and you tube it to prove to them there is an issue, then you will rma it, and they will "test it" and say everything is ok, then you will have to call them and go through the hold shuffle for another 2hrs, then they will tell you it "test fine" then you will have to beg them to watch your videos on youtube showing that the ballast fails, then they will finally come back and say "oh yeah we did get it to fail, then wait another week for them to ship the rma back, in which they just ship a ballast and returned the same bulb.

If you are ordering from ddm, best bet is to order 2 of what you want, because one will fail and you will have to go through what I went through. I guess two of their product is cheaper than 1 of the competitions. Is too bad too, because it seemed like the owner Jim Powell used to really care about his business. I can say for sure he doesn't care about customer service these days.

yeah.. ddm has terrible customer service. their product seems like its of decent quality and at a great price.

i have an '07 justa. the bulb size for me is H13. ddm's kits come with a relay harness that connects to the battery. unfortunately for me, in order to make it a clean installation, i would've had to make holes into the caps of the headlight assemblies and battery cover. i did not want to do this so i went on a search for a kit similar to brandon's. i found it at tspny.com. i haven't had to deal with the customer service but the kit works flawlessly WITH an error decoder that i purchased on ebay for $2+$7 shipping.

i know i didn't answer your bulb size question but i just wanted to warn you about the possibility of having to make modifications in order to install the ddm kit. good luck!

bump because i want to know how the DDM tuning kit install went

I am considering them too now for an '05. I bought a Bimmian Xenoflo kit which worked great for a short while, then I couldn't get one side to stay on anymore. Unlike DDM, Bimmian's customer service is outstanding. They sent me 2 new capsules and 2 new ballasts, no questions asked, in the course of my trying to resolve this issue! In the end I finally gave up and went back to my 65W Osram halogens (which aren't that bad, afterall), and enjoyed the luxury of always having two working headlights...not having to repeatedly flicker them on and off in the hopes that they both eventually light up.

I still don't know why this was happening. It's obviously not the capsules or the ballasts themselves, since they've been replaced with new ones, as mentioned. I don't think it's the wiring, because it makes no electrical sense to me that the the HID setup usually failed on one side and the halogens always worked fine...same wiring--this just doesn't equate. I'm wondering if it's the car's computer, and if DDM's "error decoder" would make a difference? I don't know what differences there are between the two generations of MINIs, as it relates to the computer's headlight control...I did not get any warning lights though.

I can't help you with the DDM tuning kit install as I did not install it. It's sitting in the corner collecting dust.