[d0ugmac1]

I guess the Gen4 3.5 SR Sedan flavour of Altima came with factory HIDs. They are reflector design not projector (thanks Renault), but it was a fun project...so why not

Highly recommend getting a decent pre-fab harness to start with. A dual-relay morimoto harness is all of $30...well worth the peace of mind. I modified mine a little, adding bigger ground rings, a high power waterproof fuse holder and some extra heatshrink and nywraps. I cut the battery cable to size before adding my fuseholder so I didn't have 3' extra of 'heater' cable that might one day short the whole thing out.

You can go about getting the parts a number of different ways. Nissan parts from the junkyard would be ideal if you are that lucky. TYC makes OEM quality replacement parts and they are available new from a number of online vendors. I purchased a used pair from a forum member.

Most 'cheap' assemblies don't come with the ballasts. The Altima assemblies take Gen2/Gen3 ballasts by Matsushita and they will screw to the base of the assembly perfectly. They have metal braid shielding on the power wires feeding the bulb, and the assembly includes a gasketed dust-cover door. The ballasts seem to be available now for about $40 a pop new (on their own).

Bulbs are another decision point. Web wisdom says Sylvania/OSRAM, Philips or Morimoto (per pair, they run about $120, $80, $50). I went with the latter for now. 4300K apparently is optimum light output, I would go as high as 5500K, but went 4500K for now. Make sure you order D2R's and not D2S's, the latter don't have the metal shield on the glass tube to reduce glare and won't work as well (and will blind oncoming drivers). As always, don't touch the glass of the bulb, oils on your skin will stay, burn with the heat, turn to carbon which will get very hot, melt the glass and the thing will explode. For longevity, colour, brightness...you get what you pay for.

I removed my bumper to do this. It wasn't hard and it gives you great access to see everything as you work. Remove the spray cover under the engine, 6-7 poppers and it will drop. The poppers along the front that attach to the bumber are bigger/heavier and seem to fill up with silt--so be patient when you try to open them. Once the underpan/tray is out, remove the 3 philips screws on each side, under the bumper lip. Push the fender liner away from the bumper skin all the way up until reach the seam between metal fender and plastic bumper skirt. There is a bolt/screw inside that holds the edge of the bumper to the edge of the fender, remove it using a PHilips screwdriver, or 10mm socket. Repeat for opposite side. If you have them, unplug the fog light cables on each side--pull the little prong slightly outwards and pull down, they should release. Now raise the hood and remove the 6 poppers holding the top of the bumper to the car (almost in a line from headlight to headlight). Believe it or not, that's all that's holding your bumper+grill on... To release the bumper, reach inbetween the fender line and the edge of the bumper where it meets the lower front corner of the fender, pull slightly towards the tire and then outwards. The bumper skin should unsnap, repeat for other side. Once both sides are release, grab below the license plate and infront of the hood latch and remove the entire grill/bumper/license/foglight assembly from the car and set it down somewhere soft/clean.

Removing the stock halogen headlights is easy. There are 4 10mm bolts on each one, two along the edge of the hood, one between the grill and the headlight, and the last is on the side right below the front tip of the metal fender. Once those bolts are removed, you can work the headlight assembly loose enough to start removing the harness plugs from the assembly. You will also unsnap the harness that runs around the front of the lamp.

You will remove the turn signal plug (grey, slide down red locking tab, push down on release tap and pull to separate). The side marker light is easier to remove by unscrewing the whole bulb assembly and using a small screwdriver to release the locking tab before pull apart. Reinstall the bulb assembly. Both the high and low beams have a very similar connector, same as the fogs in fact. Pull out tab, pull down and connector will release. You can now remove the assembly. I noticed there was a lot less harness slack on the driver side compared to the passenger. Take it slow and don't break anything. Repeat for opposite side.

You are now ready to install your HID relay harness and rest of the pieces.

(to be continued)

 

[d0ugmac1]

Installation

Pick a good spot for your relay block. A good spot is defined as one that is protected from water/spray, is close to the power source and the first headlight, and ideally is easy to get back to. I settled for the first two and located it on the vertical metal behind the horns and just below where the negative battery cable runs. Not wanting to risk snapping a bolt head off, I opted to make a new hole for a self tapping bolt, plus it allowed me to place the relay assembly perfectly. I applied a liberal amount of water resistant silicone grease to the relay socket and bracket, connected the harness and bolted in place. My larger crimp ring allowed me to use this bolt as a solid ground for the driver side ballast too.

As a general note, I soldered all splices and used heatshrink tubing to waterproof. I get a lot of wet salt and your headlights are important (also a reason the dual relay approach is good). I used silicone self-adhering wrap for any non-gasketed connections and/or connectors no longer in use. Nywraps were liberally used to keep wiring in place and reduce chances from chafing/mechanical fatigue.

With the relay in place, next up is the battery feed. This is important, because, depending on your ballast type and wattage, these things can draw over 10A each on startup (igniter phase). There is another post on this forum where a member measured startup/steady state currents. I'm pretty sure the Mitsu ballasts were something like 6A/3.5A each. So in theory I could run with a 15A fuse and circuit and wiring. I am currently running a 25A setup so if I decide to go 55W ballasts in the future I don't have to redo everything. The above is the single biggest reason why you shouldn't use factory wiring to power your ballasts. Your 35W halogen bulbs max out at 3.2A each, your 35W ballast has a startup current of over twice that, and who knows what if the ballast fails/shorts. Protect your car's factory harness, use a relay+harness. I opted to use a crimp O-ring and fit it on the starter cable stud (12mm). I really wanted to use those mini-fuse 'Add-a-Circuit adapters, but I could only find them rated up to 10A (and those be Chinese Amps too). I could have done a full custom harness and fed each relay with it's own 10A A-a-C, but when I investigated what circuits were available in the IPDM, I realized I risked overloading the fusible links supplying things like the ABS or engine controls. There was no easy way to tap into the headlight power/relay circuits. So I used the crimp O-ring direct to battery. I trimmed the battery feed to size, spliced in my heavy duty waterproof fuse holder, heat shrinked the join, put wire loom over to protect, and zip tied (nywrapped) it in several places. Voila. i have power.

Next up is the control signal. This harness is designed to take the power for the driver side low beam and use it to activate both relays. Since we use H11 bulbs for our halogen low beams, you need the mating connector for this to work. TRS allows you to order their harness with H11 connectors, my used harness came with 9006 connectors and they don't fit. The vendor was great and shipped me some H9/H11 extensions (about 10" of wire with male and female H9/H11 connector). I splice the H11 male from the extension onto my harness (just like fuse holder above) and connected it to the chassis harness low beam plug. I wrapped this connection in self-sealing silicon tape for mechanical and water safety.

Before you plug in bulbs and re-install the assembly , pick a good path from your relay block to the passenger side. I chose to follow some IPDM loom to the edge of the radiator, and then followed the loom that traverses above the cooling fans over to the passenger side. To do this I remove the two-piece air intake assembly (passenger side bolt first 10mm, remove top piece), then remove central and driver side 10mm bolts and remove the plastic duct to the MAF housing. You will now have great access to nywrap your passenger side wiring in place. Re-install intake pieces when done.

Remove and re-insert needed bulbs from the halogen assembly into the HID assembly. Make sure you have marker, turn signal and high beam bulbs. A note on that, since these aren't bi-xenon and I don't believe in blinding folks...just dazzling them ...I kept the halogen highs (H9), they are instant on when you need them, cheap to replace, and no additional wiring is needed. FWIW HID's hate short duty cycles....they take time to come up to full bright and the short cycle kills them prematurely. So using them for highs...which I mostly use to flash those folks who prefer to HID glare oncoming traffic would just be an unnecessary expense--not to mention making me very hypocritical. The driver side harness is tight, not a lot of spare wire, and so it is easiest to insert all the bulb holders first, and just connect them up during install.

In my case my assemblies came with D2S?! bulbs, so I had to swap them out for D2R's with the shields. Pop the dust cover door latch, lift and remove. 1/8 turn of the ignitor plug to remove from back of the bulb. Push and squeeze the retaining spring and rotate out of the way. HID bulb may now be removed. Insert new bulb with keyway oriented up (bulb frame wire down). Reverse to complete install. Make sure the foam rubber gasket in the door cover is well seated and will seal...you don't want water and/or in here! Don't touch the bulb. Really.

You can now start to fit the assembly back in. I connected the ballast connector to my harness first, then turn signal and marker lights, followed by the high beam. I had to unwrap some harness tape to get enough slack to allow me to get the H9 connector on without strain. Wiggle assembly into position, until you have rough alignment of the original 4 bolt holes. Finger tighten and check for position, alignment with body panels etc. Tighten into place. From underneath tidy up wiring, use zip ties/nywraps liberally.

At this point you may notice there is actually a 5th mounting bolt for the HID assemblies. There is a metal tab directly in front of the ballast and a corresponding bolt hole in the chassis. Since this will be impossible to get back to without removing the bumper again, I used the one of the upper bolts and snugged this up. This may be important for thermal, ground, mechanical or even electrical interference reasons--4 good reasons anyways. Mine was tight because of the rust in the threads...so I used anti-seize for installation.

Repeat for passenger side. I used the middle upper bolt for my ballast harness ground ring as it bolts directly into frame metal. You have a lot more slack wire on the passenger side and can literally assemble on the ground and lift into place already connectored up.

At this point a test would be a very good idea. Go ahead, turn your low beams on and check out your progress!

 

[d0ugmac1]

Here's the link to my mod to my mod (adding the voltage/time delay control)

http://www.nissanclub.com/forums/20...7170-best-path-hids-09-sedan.html#post5387585