well you can move up the color temp scale

normal xenons i think come in 5000-6000k which is slightly yellow

7000-8000k will give you a blueish

10000k will b intense blue
and 12000k will be purple

 

My Xenons are low beam only with halogen for high beam; bi-xenon are both high and low beam, not sure if avail on older 996

 

halogen: normal headlights. conventional type light bulbs

xenon: hid, filled with xenon gas and just diodes instead of the usual filament that halogen lights use (correct me if i am wrong)

litronic: the porsche name for porsche made xenon headlights.

some of the color prism from hids are due to the projector. if you just drop in xenons into the halogen reflective headlights you already have and do not get the porsche litronics that have projectors built in, the color will be a tad duller and not sparkle. 4300k is the usual oem temperature and is the temp that gives off the most light. this is the bright white color with a hint of blue. anything less is yellow. 6000k is a deeper blue color. this has less light output than 4300k but still better than normal headlights. the higher the temperature, the more blue/purple the lights become, and the less actual light you put out.

also, 4300k lights closely mimic the temperature of the spectrum of sunlight, so it is less fatiguing on your eyes and is a more natural light than the other temps. it also cuts through rain/snow more and doesnt reflect off of it as much, allowing you to see better in incliment weather. finally, xenon bulbs get a little bluer with age. it takes about 100 hours (i think) of burn time for xenons to reach their real color.

go to xenondepot.com or one of the big online retailers and look at pictures, they have pictures of all the different bulb temperatures side by side so you can compare the color.

 

So can I buy 6500K bulbs and put them in? Any risk of heat or wire issues? Probably wont spend the $ for fn headlight coloring, but just curious.

 

yes, the higher temperature bulbs are completely interchangable with different temperature bulbs. hids run much cooler than halogen so no heating worries. so yeah you could if you really dug the color. they would be less functional than the stock 4300k but if you are mainly doing it for an appearance mod it is easily done

 

Very good summary of the various terms.

The light in a xenon lamp is actually created by an electrical arc in the xenon gas. The reason there is a higher initial power requirement is that the lighting system pulls more current (which is stepped up in voltage by a transformer to ~50kV or so, I believe) during the time it takes to achieve the breakdown to create the electrical arc. Once the electrical arc has been established the power/current requirement drops because maintaining the arc takes much less energy than creating it.

It is similar to the way you can use a high voltage probe to pull an arc from the flyback supply that drives the deflection coils of a CRT. One of the byproducts is the generation of O3 (ozone), which has a very unique clean-air smell. You can also destroy the tip of your newly-bought $50 high voltage probe that way. Big $ for a college student putting his own way through school back in the day.

 

yeah i tried to note the initial higher power consumption earlier but might have missed it, but certainly could not go into as much detail as you did. thanks for the enlightenment.

 

Hi guys,

I just finished installing the conversion kit. @ 12000K

really happy with the results. it only took me 1.5 hr total

The only thing that was hard was making a hole on the back plate and wiring within the car.

I'll take a picture in my garage tmr and post it in this thread if anyone is interested.

P.S. Does anyone know how to adjust the angle of the light?

 

Read that these work: http://www.ddmtuning.com/Products/DDM-HID-Kit-Slim-Ballast-35W-or-55W

Has anyone tried this kit? It's only $50 for the 55W version and for me, I would pick the 6K bulb.

 

Anyone have experience with LED light bulbs? I would like LED reverse light and fog light bulbs of appropriate brightness for my 996. Any recommendations on a store or a website?

 

I have a kit very similar looking to that one that I got from ebay for close to the same cost. Mine are 6ks as well and I've been running them for 9 months now with no problems.

 

I have xenon's in my headlights and fog lights. No problems with the headlight housing. Much needed on the dark roads with no street lights in my area. Much better view of the road.

 

I went ahead and ordered from the link I posted above and got them in today and put them in.

This is passenger side installed:


This is with both installed:


Seems worth it for the $50 I paid. Let's see how long they last!

 

I installed a similar kit I got off amazon today. Went really well considering it lacked instructions. About 30 mins to figure out the first one and 15 mins to upgrade the second one. The output is great, for the ~50 if they last a year I'll be happy.

 

Anyone have problems with flickering from their HID kits? I purchased the slim ballasts and installed them inside the housing. I've bought several kits over the years for other cars, and never had a problem. But on the Porsche, I get a slight flicker, almost like movement from vibration, but I get it even when my car is turned off. The lights themselves work fine, because I switched them out with another vehicle. Could it be that I have a bad battery (even though it holds a charge and acts normal) or do I need a voltage regulator?