Has anyone done this? Is it as easy as switching out the headlight units since the ballasts are built into the headlight unit itself?

 

You are way in over your head on this one buddy. It is almost impossible in terms of factoring in cost to pull off this project.

 

What are you talking about, it is very easy to swap out the system.

Many people have done it and I suggest you do a search because there was a thread two weeks ago about this.

 

I must have mistaken this to be swapping out Halogens for HID Xenons. I just did a search with a variety of different terms and I can't seem to find a thread about someone who went from Halogens to HID Xenon. From what I have gathered, it can be done. There is a lot of work to do since the stock Xenon lights have auto-leveling, which means you will need the sensors and install that (Sensor is mounted on the rear suspension.) On top of this, you will need the entire housing, and that is not cheap.

Do I still got this all wrong? Are you two refering to getting the 'look' of Xenon lights? There are cheaper ways to pull this off, but you get what you pay for.

 

My mistake. I was talking about getting putting OEM HIDs. My first search turned up nothing related because I was just looking in the this section. There are a number in the Tech Garage section. Seems like the easiest solution is to get an HID kit for bulb style that the 8 uses. That maybe the route I go. Retrofitting the OE HIDs looks problematic at best. If there is a post about someone successfully doing this can someone link it. I couldn't find one.

 

Search: HID = https://www.rx8club.com/search.php?searchid=1104621

 

Your link doesn't work for me.

 

I've done a search HID Halogen, HID conversion, HID (most recent and most matches but yielded the most irrelevant results as well). If there is a post about successfully replacing the stock Halogen lights with the STOCK HID lights I have yet to find it. I have found a number of threads that refer to harness issues, auto leveling issues that will arise when trying to do so. And also people that has just put aftermarket HID kits into their existing halogen housings. Here are the most relevant.

https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...&highlight=HID
https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...&highlight=HID
https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...&highlight=HID
https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...&highlight=hid
https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...&highlight=HID

If there is some thread that I missed (Looking at countless pages gets tiresome and I'm bound to miss some plus topic subjects are misleading sometimes) please link to the thread. I would love see a successful conversion.

 

I'd just get the aftermarket HID retrofit kit, I've seen them on the 8, they look fine, no excessive glare either!!

actually that will be my next mod, as soon as i pay off my mounting credit card debts that is

 

and yes, the trickiest part of retrofitting the OEM system is not the headlight itself, rather, it is the whole auto-leveling system that is actually installed on ALL FOUR corners (looked it up on FSM last night, i was like hell no i'm not doing that )

 

Ok, rather than looking it up. I will give you ALL the answers...lol

Yes.

If you buy the stock HID headlamp you can swap it out and it will work. It will not auto level, which means, once you level it yourself....it stays that way. ---That's perfectly fine with projectors.

Don't worry, it's not legal but neither is a retro-fit. The fact is that any HID light in the US must be self leveling.

Buy the stock HID head lights on ebay for about 4-500 and be done.

A retrofit will run you around 300 on ebay, however I would recommend just getting the real HID head lights because the OEM ballast are much better than most of the retro kits out there.

Any ?'s

 

There is no way to make the auto-leveling work?

 

In short, no, not really.

It would cost way more than it is worth.

 

rotary rasp is the lighting king

 

Hey rotary rasp, if u buy the stock HID headlamp and swap out the halogen headlamp do u need to change anything else or is it really as easy as u make it sound. im hoping for answer number 2.

 

I just got the H7 HID retrofit kit from xenondepot. I will be changing out the halogens this week using this kit and mounting into the original halogen headlights.

The kit contains all phillips components (ballast and bulb).

I plan on taking pix of the install including pre and post install shots of the beam pattern.

We'll see how well it goes. The kit itself looks to be high quality.

Merry Xmas everyone.

 

the answer is......

number 2!!!

Your best bet is to find another rx8 with the stock HIDs and compare the two wiring harnesses. If they look the same, they you shouldn't have any problems. I personaly have not done this because I have the GT package which came with HIDs. I have, however, taken them off the car and even taken one apart. I'm pretty sure you'll be fine.

Like I said earlier, you can get a aftermarket kit and use your current lights. The only problem then is that the bulbs will not be phillips. I say this because phillips only make D2S and D2R bulbs. Any of the HXX bulbs are simply jap bulbs or they are rebased phillip bulbs, which may be worse than jap bulbs because they were not designed to be taken apart and rebased. Lastly, you'll be hard pressed to find a ballast as good as the OEM one in the 8.

just my $0.2

 

awsome thanks for the answer! i have recently bought the oem rx8 headlights with ballasts in perfect condition from the wtb forum! another question though, it didnt come with bulbs and im looking for 6000k bulbs, any specific bulb you would recommend? the actual headlights came today on christmas day on sunday .. i have new found respect for usps

 

Have you got the HIDs running yet? I'm considering doing the same thing myself, so I'd love to find out how the install went and any difficulties you've run into.

 

I have oem halogen and bought the OEM HID housings, the fit is good but I have run into one problem....

The plugs on the H7 connector DO NOT match up with the Ballast plug on the OEM Mazda housing unit -- the H7 plug on the car is square-- the Ballast is round. There is probably a way to make a makeshift plug, but I will have to get some help from my cousin who is a mechanic (Mercedes dealership in my area) and get the right polarity on the car's wiring correct.

I will post my findings when this is completed.

 

HID up and running.
H7 Polarity on stock harness is as follow on my 2005

Driver Passenger
Purple + White +
Black / Yellow - Black -

I guess it followed convention on always having black as a negative terminal but I also used a multimeter to confirm my findings just to make sure. On the HID ballast harness there is the round plug you can pull that apart by using a a jewelers screwdriver set and pulling out the white tab inside the harness. Then use needle nose pliers to completely remove that tab out. This didn't damage the harness at all since I also needed to test the reliability of the HID housings that I bought.
Finish it off by making a new connector with spade plugs and wrapping the wires in cloth electrical tape and the HIDs are up and running. (Also you have to manually adjust the lights if necessary since there is no way to get the auto-leveling sensors to work). Not a bad upgrade for something that was purchased off Ebay and it ended up being cheaper than a Xenon kit.

 

I'm glad to hear its working with relative ease. I think adding HID's will be one of my next mods. Thanks for the info!

 

Good to hear it worked. It would have sucked if you proved me to be a liar!

 

I just want to let you all know that I just successfully transplanted a set of OEM HIDs into my 8 as well. Installation was a breeze, and the lights look great!

 

are you sure about this? my friend just told me that his evo has HIDs which do not have autolevlling, as well as his maxima, and our friend's 9-2x aero