H4 HID conversion kit

So I recently picked an H4 kit up online. I did not hook up a relay and wiring harness. I just hooked it straight up to my stock wiring. It seems to turn on fine and be very bright. What's the point of the relay harness? BTW, I have a 99 Jeep Cherokee.
 
The wiring harness & relays have lower resistance.
Think in terms of exhaust or plumbing, if you prefer: rough bends and gravel in the pipes would mean that less air / water could get through the pipe in a given amount of time.
So it is with thin, crappy wiring: less power makes it to your headlights, which makes the bulbs dimmer than they should be.

Go with heavier wiring, your lights get brighter. If they are already as bright as you want, don't worry about it.
 
Actually I picked up H4's and H3's for the fog lights, supposedly the same color, 5000k. The fog lights are hooked up to the hella relay wiring pack, and the headlights are just stock wiring. My fog lights look blue compared to the headlights. Would crappy wiring be the cause of that, or did I maybe get the wrong color?

BTW, when the H4's turn on, they look light blue at first, slowly dimming to a bright white, then dims to like a yellower whitish color. The H3's are light blue and they don't dim as much.
 
I have no idea what to say about the dimming / coloring -
Well, maybe this:
I think the color has to do with the temp. of the bulb. If it is fading, that indicates one of two things to me: Voltage drop (wiring?) or crappy bulbs.
Anyone else?
 
Id say rewire it just to be sure its not that hard i replaced all of my foglight wiring but hooked it back up to the stock switch inside. the wires going to the switch dont have to be a very big gauge since the relay keeps it from drawing all the voltage through the switch.
I used 12 guage on my wires which is a bit overkill but it works really well. my kit came with 18 guage which in my opinion is way to small.
 
get a voltmeter, preferably digital. Attach the leads to the pos / neg sides of the light. Turn on the light, watch the readings.
I'll bet there are some good basic electric articles online if you google search for them.. I seem to recall learning a lot of my basics that way.
 
If you bought an h4 kit online, like said in the other 12 pages of info, it's probably a shitty Chinese made one, and the colors most likely won't match. Price ya pay.

Bad color comes form
a.) having your bulbs for a loooooong time. But even then it is barely noticable when compared to a new one.
b.) Shitty bulbs

Voltage drop has nothing to do with the Kelvin of the bulb. Whether it has tons of resistance or none at all, it's not going to change the color temperature. Maybe make the balast, but not affect the bulb color.
 
DanMan2k06 said:
If you bought an h4 kit online, like said in the other 12 pages of info, it's probably a shitty Chinese made one, and the colors most likely won't match. Price ya pay.

Bad color comes form
a.) having your bulbs for a loooooong time. But even then it is barely noticable when compared to a new one.
b.) Shitty bulbs

Voltage drop has nothing to do with the Kelvin of the bulb. Whether it has tons of resistance or none at all, it's not going to change the color temperature. Maybe make the balast, but not affect the bulb color.
Click to expand...

Good to know!
 
Skimmed through this thread and haven't seen this issue at all, maybe someone can answer it for me.

Just added an HID conversion kit to my XJ. All plug and play stuff. Hooked it all up and flipped on the headlights, bulbs flicked on and flicked back off. Checked all my connections and everything seems good. Seems like they don't want to kick on. After a couple tries, after I turned off the headlight switch, something was buzzing from under the dash (thinking a relay) and they wouldn't stop flickering until I unplugged them from the stock harness. I then ran a ground directly from the battery to the ground on the HID harness, and they came on fine. But even then, I flipped the headlight switch off and they started flickering and buzzing again. Any idea's or input? I just want to get these baby's on! :(
 
No, I don't. Atleast I don't think I have that. It's only a pull out to turn on, push in to turn off switch. I did see a fuse for daytime running lights though. But they never stay on by themselves. Only after I shut off the truck, then turn off the lights they wil stay on for a minute or two.
 
ok. here's what my buddy said about your situation. He's forgotten more about retrofitting than I'll learn in my lifetime.

HID flickering on and off is not because you live in Canada, or because you have DRL. Bulb flickering on and off means that either the bulb or the ballast is bad. Even the OEM bulb do that after couple years of usage. The reason why the aftermarket are more commen to flicker, because they are poorly built. Now to test if the ballast is bad or the bulb is bad, you will need to use the working ballast and bulbs, and test the none working bulb with the working ballast. If that fixes the problem than you have a bad ballast. Now if you swapped the ballast and the bulb still flicker, than I would suggest to take the good bulb and connect it to the ballast the the bulb flickered. If the good bulb starts to flicker than it is your bulb that needs to be changed. I hope you understood what I was trying to say. Usually bulb flickering happens due to not have a wire harness, or just the ballasts and bulbs are poorly made.
Click to expand...
 
He also said this about harnesses

The OEM harness is made to provide 3-4 amps to the halogen bulbs. If he connected the ballast directly to the OEM plugs without using a harness, than that explains why the bulb flickers. When you first turn the ballast on, they reach up to 10 amps for the first couple of seconds, than it goes down to 3-4 amps. For example, I use a battery jumper to turn on the projectors, when I mount the projectors in the headlight to check my aim. If my battery jumper volt is below 12 than my bulbs flicker on and off also. Not until I charge the jumper over 12 volt that the bulbs turn on normal again.
Click to expand...
 
w0mps said:
I hooked it up directly to a relay and 12v switch. At this point, I just want it to work with my headlight switch.
Click to expand...

So, it works now, but you have it wired into a switch other than the head light switch and using a relay? If so, have you tried to put the positive from the headlight socket to the relay instead of your switch?
 
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