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So I’m a new owner of an R53 and currently working on getting upgrades. The whole head light situation on xenon halogen ect has me confused. Trying to decide how I can get much brighter lights than my stock 05 r53. Not exactly sure what headlights I have. I saw these from esctuning https://www.ecstuning.com/b-helix-pa...ini01hl-b~hlx/. Would these be plug and play for my car. The other challenge is finding a bright bulb that actually lights up the road. Something around 6500k. My current ones are practically useless anything after dusk. I would like all bulbs to be matching(high beems,driving and so on).
I had Factory Xenon's in my 03 and have had a myriad of different headlights in last 5 years including switching to Halogen style for same reasons you state.
The headlight housings in your MINI now are OEM and cost wise do provide the best lighting when aftermarket bulbs are installed. Your headlight lenses just happen to have what I call cataracts. A hazing of lens that diminishes the intensity of the bulbs. I have your halogen factory headlights ( new set ) equipped with Sylvania ZXE bulbs. They work great and provide excellent illumination down the road at any speed.
This is what I have found so far with respect to headlight housings.
The pre-face xenons (2002-2004) had poor lighting and would overdrive the lights at 70 mph.
The face-lift xenons (2005/06 ) were not much better. At this point I started researching Halogen housings as you have now.
Aftermarket projector headlight housings typically use H1 bulbs. Any unit with H1 bulbs will be just as bad as what you have now with hazed over lenses or worse.
Installing HID kits in housings that have projector lenses designed for halogen bulbs will cast unwanted shadows on the road and always where you want the most lighting. It has to do with the LENGTH of the HID Bulbs being too close to the lenses.
If you are looking for inexpensive way to fix this, I would opt for new set of headlights same as you have now, and the Sylvania bulbs.
I had Factory Xenon's in my 03 and have had a myriad of different headlights in last 5 years including switching to Halogen style for same reasons you state.
The headlight housings in your MINI now are OEM and cost wise do provide the best lighting when aftermarket bulbs are installed. Your headlight lenses just happen to have what I call cataracts. A hazing of lens that diminishes the intensity of the bulbs. I have your halogen factory headlights ( new set ) equipped with Sylvania ZXE bulbs. They work great and provide excellent illumination down the road at any speed.
This is what I have found so far with respect to headlight housings.
The pre-face xenons (2002-2004) had poor lighting and would overdrive the lights at 70 mph.
The face-lift xenons (2005/06 ) were not much better. At this point I started researching Halogen housings as you have now.
Aftermarket projector headlight housings typically use H1 bulbs. Any unit with H1 bulbs will be just as bad as what you have now with hazed over lenses or worse.
Installing HID kits in housings that have projector lenses designed for halogen bulbs will cast unwanted shadows on the road and always where you want the most lighting. It has to do with the LENGTH of the HID Bulbs being too close to the lenses.
If you are looking for inexpensive way to fix this, I would opt for new set of headlights same as you have now, and the Sylvania bulbs.
Thanks for the great response! So if I’m understanding you correctly I shouldn’t get these from esc and install hids? I’d like to stray away from the stock headlight look.
I couldn’t find these headlights? This whole headlight stuff is confusing. What’s the difference from HID and xenon? I thought the projector ones would work fine with HID.
Yep, the HIP/xenon kit used is also in that MAIN link that he used, we dont carry those. But we do carry three versions of the projector headlights in that link.
Looks like I’ll be ordering the blackout ones from ecstunning then. I tried looking for a good HID kit but it’s difficult choosing. I saw these from Kensun https://kensun.com/products/55_w_hid_kit_h7. Any experience with these or a better option for plug and play?
Yep, the HIP/xenon kit used is also in that MAIN link that he used, we dont carry those. But we do carry three versions of the projector headlights in that link.
Would the blackout ones work fine with the morimoto h7 HID kit that are carried by you guys.
