HIDs and Speakers

[markcanderson]

hi just back.. been off in the highlands of scotland for three weeks... not much internet access available..!.. Ferry was rather choppy yesterday.. and got delayed coming in to zeebrugge.

Anyway....
Had the Vagparts HID H1 conversion kit delivered to my parents house.

Have fitted them.. along with a rather nice Cerwin Vega component speaker upgrade to the RS2, along with some other niggling jobs, like repainting the brake calipers, fixed a small hydraulic leak, got an English language RS2 manual, a new spare tyre, fed the leather, greased the doors, and re-secured the bottom under-tray.

The difference the HIDs make is awesome.. far better light contrast and it's nice that when you approach a car from behind at night, they seem to get out of the way faster not one flash from another motorist.. so they can't be too annoying or glaring... I secured the ballast controls to either side of the plastic trim piece in front of the hydraulic reservoir, behind the headlamp assembly.

Did some fantastic driving.. in some very poor road conditions... the RS2 is fab in snow.. and did some 1000miles over the holiday with the car never putting a foot wrong.

Here are some piccies of the HID installation.... you can really see the difference in contrast between the Xenon beam and the Halogen beam of the front mist lamp.







The speaker upgrade is just one of those things you have to do... I already have a fairly decent head unit ( Becker Mexico Pro CD ) but the stock speakers had little bass and distorted very early. I replaced the dash and door speakers.. in total 6 speakers with Cerwin Vega units. 4 inch in the dash, and 6inch plus tweeter component in the doors. What a difference they make!

Great thing is.. like the HID conversion it looks absolutely stock...

I also discovered that my car has at some time had a suspension upgrade... it's running on Eibach springs.. and has red coloured dampers... but I can't make out the manufacturer of the dampers... anyone any clue who makes red coloured dampers that would be paired with a set of Eibachs?

[GlynRS2]

Glad to hear the HID kit is worthwhile. Mine is still sitting in its box until I get time to fit it next weekend.
Did you change any of the other bulbs or have you stuck with standard sidelight & main beam bulbs at present?
Polar Silver RS2s with very bright headlights are multiplying fast [img]images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[GlynRS2]

Fitted my H1 HID kit today - wow what a difference!! [img]images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]
Fitted the ballasts in the same place as Mark - the second white switch wire could have done with being about 20cm longer to make things a little easier - but then again I could have moved the ballast.
Fairly straight forward to fit following Martyns excellent instructions on the VAG Parts site.
Just need to change the side light bulbs now to a better colour match. Will probably go for the PIAA Xtreme White sidelight bulbs (£9 for the pair) and try Osram Silverstars for the main beam (£19.50 for the pair).
Whilst fitting the kit noticed that the lenses could do with replacing, so might do that too - I guess it should be fairly straight forward. Just sometimes prying off the old lenses can be a bit interesting [img]images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]