35 watt vs 55 watt hid's

[twiztids4]

i am looking into getting slightly brighter bulbs for my 2000 s4. i believe they come stock with 4300. i have 6,000k in my silverado ss and i love them. my question is should i just buy different color bulbs or is it worth getting the 55 watt hids with brand new ballasts etc? money doesnt really matter i want whatever is going to be brighter and look better. my other issue is i want to make sure whatever i do the light transition between switching from low to high beams has no warmup time. stock hids in my car are awesome and it takes zero time to warm up and if i switch from high to low its instantaneous. the ones i have in my truck which are aftermarket take about 5 seconds to warm up and if you switch from lows to highs while driving it takes about another 5 seconds to warm up so you kind of lose the value of using your high beams b/c you cant see anything for the first few seconds doing 60 (not really the smartest idea). looking to buy asap please let me tell me what you think and reasons supporting. thanks

[97B518TQM]

The temperature doesn't make them any brighter. In fact, 4300K color gives you the best light output. It's a combination of wattage and lens that determines how bright they get. I'd stick with 4300 if you want the brightest in stock form. If you go with 55w HIDS then they will be brighter for sure, unless you get 8000K+ bulbs, which have a significantly lower output.

[Aureus1]

I've been wondering this too because I just bought a 35w kit for my S4 and I'm thinking I just wasted my money if its the same as stock.

[EuroFreak]

97B518TQM is right regarding temperature. I personally stick with 4300k bulbs and wouldn't go past 5000k as the actual usable light output diminishes.

I've replaced stock Hella ballasts+bulbs with a DDM 55w kit in my BMW and the increase in light output was trivial; disappointing actually. Side by side, the only thing that was obvious was the slight color difference of old bulbs vs new.
A lot of lighting performance is dependent on the design and size of the projector lens/reflector. For instance, my roommate's A6 with xenon e-codes and my S4 with xenon e-codes both have stock ballasts+bulbs yet his larger lenses outshine mine by far... huge difference. Switching from the stock 35w to a 55w kit hasn't really impressed me enough to do it in my S4 despite having a 55w kit laying around that I could use. I might actually just slap it in the fog lights when I have no other repairs to do. lol

And by the way, most automotive xenon bulbs are still based on 35w systems. If you get a 55w kit, you are still likely to get 35w bulbs with 55w ballasts even if they don't tell you this. This is how they are able to get significantly brighter output within reasonable cost. Despite the shorter lifespan this set up works well.
If you want to spend much more cash I'm sure you can find some true 55w systems but I personally wouldn't bother.

[WikiWiki]

installed DDM 55w 6000k this weekend on my car- much brighter- to the point I feel as tho if a squirrel ran out in front of me at night it would vaporize



and I like that

[userbob0001]

The reason its instantaneous is because the B5 S4 has independent halogen high beam bulbs. The low beams stay on when you turn on the high beams. That is why it doesn't have to warm up when you change back. I had a B5 A4 with 55W lows and 35W fogs. It was daytime in front of my car. Some nice halogen high beams would help a bit.

[JCN83]

installed DDM 55w 6000k this weekend on my car- much brighter- to the point I feel as tho if a squirrel ran out in front of me at night it would vaporize



and I like that

hahah, priceless. i just installed this kit, too...and my feelings are similar. huuuge improvement.

have you had any issues with your 55w ddm kit though? if i turn the car on, and then the lights, there have been two occasions now where only one ballast / light fires up. i have to flash the headlight stalk a few times before they both come on. i heard that if you turn the key one click, power the lights up, and then start the car - that there are no issues. seems to work for me so far - but i keep forgetting and starting the car first!

[mys4.org]

I've been running the 55w DDM kit for almost 2 years now and they are brighter by maybe 25-30% vs stock. I first used 4500K but just recently switched to 6000k. The 6000K give a cleaner white look. It even looks brighter on dry roads. The problem is that the color is lost in wet road so it can feel a little darker. So in the winter I like to run with the 4500K as it tends to have a slight yellow to the color. Also I installed 35w 3000k in the fogs which helps a lot on wet roads.

[Snow]

Not sure if there is a more recent 55watt HID thread but here is my question anyways...

Recently I switched from a 35watt vvme kit to a 55watt ddm HID kit. My issue started with the passenger side flickering, followed by it not even turning on. I thought it was the ballast, however it turns out the two prong wiring harness inside the headlight assembly itself started to melt.

With that, can I wire in a relay, or do I need to beef up the wires to handle the increased wattage?

[USAF Long]

I'd beef up the wires and add a relay. Better safe than sorry.

[Mr. Merk]

What did you guys use to wire in the 55w ballasts?

[gmx]

hahah, priceless. i just installed this kit, too...and my feelings are similar. huuuge improvement.

have you had any issues with your 55w ddm kit though? if i turn the car on, and then the lights, there have been two occasions now where only one ballast / light fires up. i have to flash the headlight stalk a few times before they both come on. i heard that if you turn the key one click, power the lights up, and then start the car - that there are no issues. seems to work for me so far - but i keep forgetting and starting the car first!

I have the same exact issue. My radio will chuck a spazz too.

In my case it only got worse and the left will not come on 90% of the time. I think if I do it again, I'd go with 35w.

[Mr. Merk]

6000k, 35w on left, 55w on right

[twiztids4]

I installed new 55 watts hids last weekend. Night and day over oem. I would have had them in a year ago but ddm sold me a set with BOTH igniters bad. I went with them for their lifetime warranty. Those pricks wouldn't cover it so I dropped about 95 on a german set instead of their crap and never looked back.

[S4 00 2.7]

If any of you guys have pics that would be cool.

[WikiWiki]

only photo I have of them taken with a cellphone at night in snow



car is sold but im installing the same kit on my 350z next week- loved it never ran hot, clean and crisp,

[Telaikai]

Yeah. I've had this problem too from the very first day they were installed. I used to think you had to turn the lights on and off to get it to come on, also. But after messing with them for a bit, I realized that if you let the right one warm up, then the left one will come on after flicking the switch off/on again. lol It's really strange. I do think it's the wiring, though. It seems that the car cannot handle that much power at the initial turn on off both lights. That's why there's ballasts in the first place, it's much more power than regular headlight bulbs. I'm thinking that 35 watt HIDs would be better, but they definitely aren't as bright. They also burned holes through my new housing. :/

[Mr. Merk]

Mine do the same thing

[Amsterdamned]

I kept it safe with 35w 6000k lows and fogs.

[julex]

I have zero problems with morimoto 50w ballasts. They fire up every time without any issue. Their design incorporates ramped up low-power bulb ignition to avoid wiring issues. It takes a moment for the bulbs to come up to their ful bightness but it takes no longer than 10s or so.

Cheap ballasts just fire up and consume crazy amount of current. Even the slim ballasts fire up with up to 8-9amps consumption on 35w bulb which makes the whole system to suck around 100w per ballast. If the current is too high for the wiring, you will experience considerable voltage drop and most ballasts don't fire up right on anything considerably below 12v. The voltage drop can easily bring the voltage to below 12v - hence the flickering and why if one fires up and you let if run for a short moment, you can flick the switch off and on and have the other one fire up properly. This is because the first ballast doesn't require as much current to fire up hot bulb than cold one...

You get what you pay for I guess.

[udcc11]

I am wondering how long it took you guys to get your kits from DDM? I ordered mine on the 2nd and still haven't got them. They have been sitting in chicago since monday.

[Ejr]

The temperature doesn't make them any brighter. In fact, 4300K color gives you the best light output. It's a combination of wattage and lens that determines how bright they get. I'd stick with 4300 if you want the brightest in stock form. If you go with 55w HIDS then they will be brighter for sure, unless you get 8000K+ bulbs, which have a significantly lower output.

Reviving an old thread. I want to ask what is the wattage on the stock ballast of the B8s? Of course on the models with HID. I mean if should be 35W right? So if you put 55W HIDs will you truly get the max output of the bulb with a 35W ballast?