New member with a question

[Tikigod]

Hello everyone - I just joined up a day or so ago - I've had my Altima for about 6 months now - I came from the 300ZX side of things, I sold it a while back, and couldn't stand the Jeep I was driving in the meantime ... so I traded the Jeep in and bought the Altima - great decision.

I installed HIDs on my 300ZX and loved the improved night vision, so going back to halogens on the Altima was dissapointing. I decided to purchase a HID kit similiar to the one I bought for the Z. The Z install was quick an easy - simply plug and play and I was up and running.

I found one on ebay for H11 and received it today - but it doesn't seem entirely plug and play. See picture below



The way I understand it those 2 silver prongs are supposed to connect into the harness that previously connected to the halogen bulb. I'm not a huge fan of this connection ... or the possibility of having to cut/splice into the factory connection. I've now seen kits that have the H11 male socket instead of the silver prongs, but I'd rather not order an entire new kit.

So I'm curious of my options (I should've done research prior to buying ... but you live and you learn, chalk this one up to a mistake)

1. I've been reading about the relay harness and have decided this would be good insurance so I will be ordering one of these as well. My question is with the relay harness will those 2 prongs connect into something on that end? Or do I need to buy a H11 male socket to connect to it?

2. Dont buy the relay harness, and to avoid a splice into the factory harness - buy a H11 male socket and simply make my kit now plug and play?

Anyone have experience with this? I read backwards several pages and didn't quite find anything that answered my question fully.

Any help would be appreciated - thanks

[zilla19]

http://forums.altimas.org/zero...-help

You'll still going to use those 2 silver prongs with relay harness.

You don't have to splice the wires if you don't want to. You can use electrical tape and wrap it in circle around the 2 prongs and the OEM plugs, then with the same tape, make a wrap in between the 2 prongs and wrap it perpendicular to the 1st circle (looks like a T) and that'll make sure the prongs won't move anywhere. It's not as pretty, but hey, nobody can see it and nobody knows.

[EOrdonez3229]

I connected the prongs with tape and it's been over a year since I installed my HID kit - no problems, and like he said, no one ever sees it. Chances are, you will need a relay kit or else your passenger headlight may not light up.

Also, those prongs are a bit wider than the slot that they slide into. To fit them, I had to slightly wedge the slots from the fuse and also curve the sides of the prongs to ensure a secure fit. Now, I purchased a McCulloch HID kit (I dunno which you got), but you may not have the same issue, but just keep it in mind.

Overall, it is rather plug and play. Most of the time I spent on the installation was increasing the diameter of the dust caps so that I could fit the wider bulb through and retain the dust caps. Overall, excluding the dust cap issue, it took about 20 mins.

[Tikigod]

Thanks to both of you for the advice - I did a quick install this morning just to see how everything fit and worked - your right the connection is more secure than I originally thought. I didn't do a final install because I have a relay harness on its way - its just delayed by christmas holiday now.

Thanks again