Mike in Switzerland

My neighbour just got a 993 and agrees that the standard lights are rubbish. I read that some kits were discontinued. Anybody know the latest re price / quality / availability?

Appreciated.

Rezal

I think they were discontinued only in the US due to legislation. There was a post a few months ago about an outfit in UK selling them (use search).

When I was in Malaysia a few weeks ago, I saw some aftermarket kits selling for as low as USD $220 in the Asean issue of Autoweek (I think the company selling it was based in Singapore) although I can't remember the merchant nor can I verify the quality.

STLPCA

Autolamps' HID Division (UK)

Jeff 993TT

First choice is to the the OEM litronics, imho. You can find those around for about $1200-$1500. There are lots of salvage places you can check, ie LA porsche Dismantlers, Parts Heaven, etc. They also come up on ebay from time to time.

graham_mitchell

To summarise:

OEM is better quality conversion, and includes auto-levelling as required by EU legislation

Autolamps kit is 1/3 the price and works well, although not strictly in accordance with european standards.

Mark in Baltimore

I've been very pleased with the Catz HID's that about fifty of us bought. Maybe they're still available in Europe.

Sachin Misra

Dan,

I contacted these guys awhile back. They will not ship to a US address. It has to be picked up in the UK and then exported by someone. Something about liability if they ship them.

YellowC4S

Ok, which one of you UK guys want's to volunteer to do this?

STLPCA

Sachin
I know that, but the original poster, "Mike in Switzerland" is, oddly enough, ... located in Switzerland

graham_mitchell

I'll do it even though I'm not in the UK. They ship to anywhere in the EU. (I know because I bought my HIDs from them!)

It sounds like more than one of you wants to be in on this. Maybe I could send one package over with 2, 3, 4... kits. And you can distribute them locally in the US. I think that would be cheaper than multiple international packages due to the sliding scale (generally) used by the freight companies.

Anyone in Switzerland (which is outside the EU) would presumably have to pay Swiss import duty and taxes as well. Not such a good idea...

Mike in Switzerland

Dear all

thank you for your help on this. I called Autolamps for my neighbour and they are offering the 4100K H1 kit for £277.41 (+vat) & £9.00 shipping. If you are looking at their website they moved service provider only recently and some pages won't work.

They DO ship to the USA, the lady stated they charge $15 "FOB" (I am not sure what shipping terms mean!)

Another point is that when I asked about high-beam I mentioned things I read here detailing the delay on HID's for "flashing".

She mentioned that the strike time of the lights is 1/11'000th of a second, and they reach full luminance 1.2 seconds from switching the flash on. Basically the lights are fine for flashing since they are already brighter than a normal light from 01. seconds onwards.

On that basis my neighbour wants to buy two, although I've explained to him that there may be a room problem with Ballasts etc.

Has anybody done this? Does it put extra load on the harness? Would different fuses etc be needed?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Mike

graham_mitchell

Iirc, the HID use LESS power than the standard halogens so in terms of load on the harness, it shouldn't be a problem.

I don't agree that the HIDs are suitable for flashing. A flash lasts about 0.25 - 1 second. The HIDs seems to take 2 or 3 seconds before they produce usable light.

WelshChris

The Autolamps kit is a piece of cake to install - I've just done it.

They supply a complete loom with switching relay etc which isn't required. Basically you snip the power and ground wires from the relay to the ballast as near as possible to the relay as you can (this gives the maximum amount of cable to play with).

The brown wire (live) mates with the yellow power feed on the Porsche loom the was attached to your old bulb, and the black wire (ground) attaches to the brown earth feed on the Porsche loom that was attached to the bulb surround. You can do this with correctly sized spade/bullet connectors (MAKE SURE YOU CONNECT THEM THE RIGHT WAY ROUND!). Use heatshrink tubing to protect the connections.

You have to cut a hole around one inch in diameter in the plastic cover of the headling assembly because there is no room to house the ballast inside.

Tip: Get a a couple of old car wash sponges, cut a slit in the end of each with a craft knife and make each one into a 'pouch' to house the ballasts - this protects the ballast from damage, and also stops them rattling around inside the wing (you have to put them in prior to re-seating the finished headlight unit).

One final job - Remove the 25 amp fuses from the autolamps harness, and use them to replace your existing 15 amp fuses in your fusebox.

Job done - The conversion turns night into day!

Chris

Mike in Switzerland

Thanks Graeme. In the last 10 minutes he has ordered 2 kits so we will see!

Best regards

Mike

Mike in Switzerland

Chris, thank you for that. At the risk of going too deep into this before his kit arrives, why the fuse upgrade? I understood from Graham (above) that there is no extra power draw.

Having now done this do you think adding HID high-beam is possible?

Regards, Mike