alex harber

hello all! Please help! I am on a road trip and my driver side bulb has burnt out. This is what the internals look like and I'm willing to bet this is not stock Porsche. What bulb can I replace with?! Does anyone recognize this kit?

If you have a link to the new bulb I'll even buy you a beer if we are close enough!! Haha

ZuffenZeus

I believe the OE ballasts for the Bi-Xenon headlamps are manufactured by Kioto/Denso. That's definitely not OEM.

Did your car come from the factory with the P74 option (bi-xenon headlights)?

ekam

Just get a H7 bulb from a local automotive store and that will at least get you going...

TMc993

This ^ ... Don't ruin your road trip obsessing over the exact part. Just get an H7 and plug it up. If it works, buy a second one just like it and put it in your tool kit. It'll make a good "road trip" story later on...

ZuffenZeus

I agree with these two comments. Get a bulb replacement and worry about the other when you return home.

deilenberger

The problem there is connecting it - it has to be plugged into the 12V wiring powering the HID ballast. The photo looks as if the wiring has been hacked, and it isn't clear to me if this might have been an HID headlight assembly to begin with or not. The photos - with the round thing showing in the upper left corner make me think it might have been a factory HID housing retrofitted with an aftermarket HID kit. The round thing looks like a leveling motor (arrow pointing to it) - something a standard halogen housing wouldn't have. I'm also wondering what's hiding under the mess of electrical tape (red box)...

I guess there isn't any documentation that came with the car showing what was done?



The two connections shown in the blue circles - not sure which is which.. one of them might be a 12V source. This is something that would be lots easier to figure out in person..

deilenberger

For some reason your photo over on 6-Speed seemed a lot clearer to me (go figure..) so here is what I figured out:



In the blue box - the black connector goes to the H7 (?) bulb. Disconnect and put away all the other crappola. Someone extended the halogen connector (the messy electrical tape splice) to reach to the HID ballast. Check your owners manual to make sure the halogen bulb is an H7 (my memory says H9, but I haven't looked it up, and dunno the year of your 987, so..)

Good luck!

The light output will look different

TMc993

[QUOTE=deilenberger;17485707]Check your owners manual to make sure the halogen bulb is an H7 (my memory says H9, but I haven't looked it up, and dunno the year of your 987, so..)/QUOTE]

The image in the original post showed the bulb that blew was an H7 (PL H7 6000K). You may want to compare it to what's in the other side just to be sure the problem isn't caused by having an incorrect bulb. If you can find a 6000K bulb, you can avoid the dissimilar light color.

MrMoose

It looks like this bulb at the link would be the correct replacement: xenon H7 6000K bulb.



I suspect you're going to have trouble finding one locally but Amazon has several types.

deilenberger

Are we assuming the rest of the aftermarket HID setup is working? I wouldn't. It's more common for the ballast to fail than the HID capsule to suddenly fail. The typical failure of an HID capsule is the light turns toward violet and greatly reduced output as it starts up.

My suggestion was to eliminate ALL the aftermarket crappola and go back to a halogen bulb - which is powered directly by the 12V feed (which is now powering the HID ballast..)

ekam

True. I've never heard of any HID bulbs "blow", they just get dimmer over time. It's likely the ballast that went.

He can test the bulb by swapping it over to the other side.

deilenberger

I believe he's looking for a quick solution since he's on a trip in the car. The quick solution is to unplug all that crapola and put a normal halogen bulb back in. If he's on a trip it's unlikely that ordering replacement parts via the web is really gonna work for him. My solution he could do in the parking lot of an Autozone.

deilenberger

@alex harber - the rest of the story is?