Evo Soul

Maple Mitsubishi recently had their grand opening event here in Toronto as the latest Mitsubishi dealership.  Some say this dealership was built by Mitsubishi for Mitsubishi.  I took a tour earlier this week and found it to be a great looking building.  Still has that new building smell. hehe

Well at the Grand Opening event I decide to unveil the Xenon Depot kit to everyone and even attempt an install.  Will / didnt exactly volenteer to install the kit, but when I offered to get him a slice of cake from inside the dealership he said sure.  I asked how long the kit would take to install, “about 20 minutes”.  Lets do it.

The first thing that caught everyones attention was the fact that the kit comes with gloves.  Not just any set of gloves.  Nitrile dipped gloves  What does the mean you ask?  I have no frigging clue LOL…. but I do know it makes handling the bulbs incredibly easy.  All joking aside, Xenon Depot describes these gloves as ….

Nitrile stands up very well to oils and the nylon shell allows for form fitting.  The combination gives a bare hand feel with barrier to oils.  Micro pores in the surface of the palm channel oil away from the surface improving grip and consistent dexterity.  The nitrile carries with it high abrasion resistance protecting the hands when manipulating parts and tools.  These gloves are excellent for assembly work, parts handling, mechanical work or any type of maintenance where dexterity and protection are needed.”

To sum it up, you want ot wear these gloves if your the clumsy type.  (99% of males fall into this category.)

That said, when we reached into the box we took a look around and liked what we saw. The kit came with everything advertised and some handy zip ties.  Just before we found the zipties in the box will said ” Damn, I dont think I have zip ties with me.  Oh wait, here we go,  Perfect!”  Everything was in the box even the instructions we didnt bother to look at…. errr until we got lost and confused, then we looked at it.

The 3000k Bulb….

The bulb was something to behold, looked like something right out of star wars.  Like a light saber or something.  And thats just holding the bulb.  Most bulbs I am use to are old school Halogens.  Most of them are generally coated yellow to produce the light.  With these HID Xenon bulbs you can tell that it was using current generation technology.  Just look at it.

Looking at the bulb was great, using the gloves felt even better, gives you a steady grip and you dont lose your sent of touch either like you do with big winter time mittens we wear as kids.  

Old Kit vs. New…. 

Well, first we had to remove the old Volt kit that we bought XenonDepot.  It was nice, but like I said in my previous post, I love yellow light.  So I was eager to make the upgrade.  But that said, for those looking for a nice white / hint blue kit,  the 6000k Kit is right on the money.  All for 120 bucks US with anti flickers.  Thats a hell of a deal.   This upgrade kit has a little better setup, which justifies its higher price.  Right off the bat you will notice the Relay kit included.  This will make the operation of the DRLs and On position lights much easier.   Much better then using the anti flicker solution with the Volt Kit.  The difference is simple.

With the Xenon Depot Volt kit you need to make sure you keep your headlights in the ON position at all times.  The main purpose of the Antiflicker fix kit that cames with the HIDs it to prevent your bulbs from flickering if they are in the wrong position.  Unfortunately, if you do happen to have them in the wrong position, such as on DRL or off.   When you start you car, there is a chance that your HIDS will fail to ignite.  Not because they dont work, not because there is a problem, but its the nature of the fix.   The headlights must remain in the on position.   Now thats not a problem for most people, but say for example your Uncle visits from out of town and asks to borrow your car.  He might be in the habit of turning off the lights manually when he gets out of any car.  if he does that, and then starts the car later on.  The lights might fail to ignite.  To him it might appear that the headlights are out, DRL or on position will not work.   But the fact is, the headlights must remain in the on position while you start the car.   Remember your headlights turn themselves off automatically when you open the car door.  So there is no need to play with the HID switch.   

Looking at the Xtreme HID kit, with a Relay kit, all those problems go away.   Your kit will ignite on demand when you switch them to the own position.  With the engine running or without.  Doesnt matter, works 100% of the time.

Installing the kit

Installing any kinda bulb into the Lancer is a pain in the ass.  I always wished that manufacturers would simplify the install by using an easier design. but … sigh… that will never happen.  Here is a look at what Will had to get the driver side bulb in there.   Will’s face isnt turn red out of joy,  he is in pain.

That Injen intake doesnt make things any easier.  But eventually we get thru it.  After you get the bulbs in, we move on to the mounting of the ballasts.   Now with the volt kit, thats easy.  We used Zip ties at both sides of the engine bay and then presto, all done.  In this case with the new Xtreme ballast is about 2.5 times larger then the ultra slim Volt kit.  And when we tried to close the hood,  it was a no go, the kit was too tall and prevented the kit from closing properly.  

So we scouted around for alternative locations to mount the kits.  And found them. Here are the two pics.

Perfect.  The double sided adhesive worked great for mounting it to the ECU housing and zip ties for the passenger side.   In order to make the install look clean, we did need to remove the cover that hids the bumper screws along the nose of the engine bay.  We ran the wires under that so they can be run to the battery.   Install looked really nice.  And we did it in about 30 minutes, if you factor out all the breaks we took to either eat, drink pop and talk about other crap.

More pics to come to show off the end results.  But all I can say is I love it

Proper