i now have hid-age!
had a poke around with the lights yesterday afternoon, traced all the various points where i could get a tap off the negative wire and found out that EVERY, and i mean EVERY Calibra forum or owner who has ever written a guide on how to fit HID's to a calibra is wrong. there is no need for soldering, crimping, cutting terminals etc as said. the ground wire goes to 2 points on the light, every forum reccomeds either tapping into the wire or removing it from the second bullet terminal and removing the spade connector so you can either A)stuff the black wire into the bullet on the cars wiring, or B) fitting a new bullet that you can connect to the old bullet connector.
everyones missed something very obvious! LMAO!, where the brown ground wire comes out to the side of the bulb, theres a little copper connector that attatches the ground wire to the light itself so it can take the draw from the bulb. as this isnt getting used on an hid (hence the need to tap into the wire), you can just bend the spade connector to a slight curve and wedge it in between the copper connector and bulb holder. wire tapped, job done
so much for it supposedly being half an hour per light, once id fathomed that out, i had the kit fitted on both sides in under 10 minutes
the difference is just phenomenal in terms of lighting performance, to put it into perspective just how appaling the standard lights are, i measured last week the light beam only stretched 7ft on the ground from the car and if you stood 20 foot in front of the car it would barely light up your trousers., now with the hid's the light beam stretches about 25-30ft on the ground and projects the light so much further that even at 50ft away from the car in the dark, your trousers are still luminously bright, lol
next mod possibly planned is to de-grill, im not sure tbh, i cant decide if it looks better or not, heres a photo mock up...thoughts?
i ripped off the plastic honeycombe mesh behind the v grill a few days ago to get more cold air into the engine bay, and on doing that i've developed and induction noise without an induction kit
the car feels noticeably sharper at low revs too, i wouldnt say it had gained power, just a better throttle response, maybe that would change with better induction marginally.
future jobs, exhaust will need done, just need to get teh stainless steel one off the cali in the scrappy, and im away to but some braided brake hoses because i have a ballooning brake hose as is making the brakes feel mushy right now, not nice.
think that just about covers the updates at the moment
