Just posted this on the Lighting thread but as its an S3 it belongs here as well
Fed up with the pitiful output, especially in the rain on tarmac when it was basically dangerous, of the standard HIDs on my 65 S3 8V, I have also taken the plunge and this week went up and bought a kit off Thrups at EM Tuning. Brilliant guy by the way, certainly knows his stuff.
Using Osram bulbs but rather than go for his standard 5000k Cool Blue I went for the same as standard 4300k bulbs but in uprated Nightbreaker form. I prefer the less white light. As it was the first he had used Thrups said that he checked the bulb in a fitting with a lumens meter and its output was at least the 70% over standard, and much more than the Cool Blue. So that was a positive sign for good things to come.
So back home me and my mate, now retired after a working life in bodyshops, set to work in the sunshine yesterday. We set aside a couple of hours to do the job. Although I am an amateur, I have spent much of the last 10 years stripping and reassembling cars, he is not and knows what he is doing but neither of us had tackled an S3 or A3 before but he has worked on other Audis. We also have a good collection of tools including battery wrench, screwdrivers etc.
Due to his past experience with shitshields we decided to leave them in place and just release back to the struts with the front wheels off. Probably a mistake. From inserting the jacks, due to the difficulty of easy access to the bumper bolts, it was 75 minutes until the bumper was free. Now we had a headlight to work on. It took us 15 mins to work out how to release the bulb and much the same to work out the best wiring route, the S3 needs a longer ballast to bulb wire than the EM standard, then similar to modify the housing, silicone seal the cable access hole under the ballast, then trial fit it and test OK, which it was. So that was another hour gone and we wern't halfway. Now we were up to speed the second light unit was a doddle, 20 mins or so. Fitting them took another 10 mins or so. Then it was onto bumper replacement. This was when we really regretted have the shields still in place. Even though we both have skinny arms it was a nightmare not getting a straight push onto some of the bolts. If we hadn't had a magnetic bit screwdriver for the T30 bit I shudder to think how long it would have taken, we really needed the long reach version which my mate had at home, of course. Jacks in to jacks out/bolts tight was the best part of 5 hours!
Talk about a steep learning curve. I would think we could do it again, with that screwdriver, in half that time. Faster with the shields off but I don't know how long it would take to refit them. Think I should have perhaps have asked if Thrups would fit them!
The good thing about it taking so long was that by then it was dark and I could test them. I had previously had the aiming checked to be spot on and marked the garage doors for simple beam alignment. The good news was that the new bulb combination was spot on. Initially the light output seemed to be much as the old was but once they had been on for 20 minutes or so output was rising fast. Now, after an hour or so they are just as I had hoped them to b, same spread but much more light in the centre. There is so much that I adjusted the offside down abit to reduce any possible ahgst from oncoming traffic.
Having recently had a 67 A4 courtesy car with LEDs, which were only marginally better than the S3, I am now a really happy bunny, £300 very well spent.
Clearly, based on my experience, these new light systems are not a patch on the old D1S ones but no doubt a lot cheaper for Audi.
i was tempted to buy some of them rs6 style for the same reason!
