I first looked into upgrading the bulbs; however, it seemed like higher output H11 bulbs were kind of expensive for a slight bump in intensity, and they seemed have short lifespans. I didn't want to spend $30+ on bulbs that I would have to frequently replace.
I also looked into modding an H9 bulb to fit into the H11 socket. While it doesn't seem that the extra wattage would harm the wiring or housing, I was slightly concerned about how those components would fare over the long term with the extra power draw. As with the high output H11 bulbs, H9s also seem to have a short lifespan.
I thought that a plug-n-play HID kit would probably be the way to go; 35W 4300K. I narrowed it down to the Morimoto system from The Retrofit Source, and the XenonDepot system from KB Carstuff. I heard that both companies had good repuations. The two kits ended up being close in price, but I decided to go with the XenonDepot system because the company sponsors another forum I frequent.
It took me most of the day to perform the install. This time, I didn't forget to bring the camera to the garage to document the process.
I took this picture of the stock halogen lights on my garage wall. This picture was taken from inside the car. This was before I started the installation.
Here is another shot of the stock halogen lights, taken from outside of the car.
To get to the headlight assembly access area, I removed the fender liner on the driver's side. You'll see later on that I probably did not have to remove the entire thing. At the time, I didn't know exactly where I was going to mount the ballast. Also, I wanted to make sure I could see everything and have enough room to access everything if needed.
The relay power wire wasn't quite long enough to reach across the front; if I routed the relay wire that way, there didn't appear to be a good place to mount the ballast around the front grill area. So I ran the wire behind the plastic trim by the firewall. The wire was just long enough to reach one of the spots where I thought the ballast could be mounted. I used some fishing tape to pull the relay power wire across the firewall area to reach the battery.
There were two clips that I needed to remove in order to get the relay power wire and fuse behind the black trim. Here, I am pointing at the location where I removed one of them.
This is where I ran the relay power wire. It seemed like a good spot for the wire to sit under. The hole to the left of the wire housed the second clip I had to remove in order to fit the relay power wire fuse. With the two clips removed, I was able to lift up the plastic trim enough to fit the relay fuse box underneath.
Here is a shot of the rear of the low beam access. The big light gray circle is the low beam bulb access cover. The relay is the black box on the beam in the top center of the photo. I used a couple of zip ties to secure it to the white unused plastic retaining clip.
The low beam rear cap needed a hole so that the HID bulb and connector could fit through. I didn't have a drill bit that was big enough, so I had to improvise by cutting away more material with the drill (hence the not so round hole). I trimmed away the flash (excess plastic) with a utility knife.
Halfway done. Here is a comparison shot of the HID beam and the halogen beam against the garage wall.
These are the two spots on the driver side that I secured the relay power wire to. At the top of the photo, I used two zip ties installed perpendicular to each other to secure the wire to the clip retainer.
I used a zip tie to bundle some excess wire length. A little to the left and down off center there is a small black box that is part of the ballast wiring. I secured it to the rail with the white zip ties. I grounded the relay at the grounding point behind the stock wiring (a little bit up and to the right off center).
I mounted the ballast near the fender using the supplied 3M foam tape and a pair of zip ties around the plastic conduit on each side of the ballast. The strut top mount area is on the other side of the stock wiring.
Here is another shot of the mounted ballast, secured excess wire, and black box from the ballast cable secured to the rail.
This is a closeup of the relay mounted on the rail. If you look to the left, you can see the black box from the ballast cable and the wires running into the back of the low beam area.
Another shot of the relay and the low beam rear cover. The bulb wiring has a rubber grommet that is intended to hold the wires in place and close up the headlight assembly.
This is a picture of the passenger side stock low beam bulb with the rear cover removed.
On the passenger side, I did not remove the entire fender liner. I just removed one screw and a few of the clips, and I moved it aside just enough to gain access.
Here is a photo of what's under the hood. You can see the ballasts mounted on the right and left just outside of the top strut mount areas. (I know, the engine bay is a tad dirty)
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This picture shows how the HIDs appear from the inside of the car. All done.
A couple of notes:
-Aside from trying to plan out how to mount things and run the wiring, removing and reinstalling the fender liner on the driver side probably took up most of my time.
-While I removed the front wheels, it might not be necessary. There should be enough space to work with if the wheels are turned all the way out with tires off the ground.
-I think spent at least 20 minutes trying to figure out how to remove the front grille. But when I saw that the wire length didn't allow for a good mounting point in the grille area, I decided to run the wires behind the engine. I'm used to having the battery up near the driver side headlight, but I guess it's near the passenger side windshield in most of these Infiniti's.
-I didn't take photos of how I connected the relay power wire to the battery. Originally, I wanted to attach the relay power wire terminal to the power block that is attached to the battery's positive terminal. However, the diameter of the relay wire's ring terminal was too small for the bolt on the power block. So I just hooked up the ring terminals directly to the bolt of the clamp on the battery's positive terminal. I cut away a small opening in the red plastic cover of the battery terminal to make some space for the relay power wires.
-The passenger side has a little bit less room to work with because the filler neck of the washer fluid reservior is there.
-I had a bunch of zip ties on hand, but they were white (the kit came with only 4 black zip ties). However, I didn't have the time or see the need to run out and buy black ones.
-Being that I had limited time to work on the car and didn't find any detailed procedures on installing this kit, I would have done a few things differently. Besides the issue with the fender liner, I would have bought the proper size hole cutter for my drill. I also put some tape around where the rubber grommet and bulb socket cover interface. I'll probably remove the tape later and replace it with some silicone sealant.
-I performed the install during daylight hours, so I didn't take before and after pictures of the car outside in the dark.
While I couldn't see the difference right away because I didn't drive the car in the dark for a while, my wife noticed a significant improvement. She was very happy with the increased light output.
I installed this mod in January, so I may have forgotten or left out some details. This is probably my first time installing an aftermarket modification myself, as most of the automotive work I've done was related to maintenance or simple repair. This was a learning experience for me, and I'm open to comments on how I could have done things a bit differently. I'm also willing to answer questions.
happy owner of 2008 EX35 AWD for 3 weeks 
, i have most packages that i can imagine, but hid lights. my last 2 cars had them, so im use to them. Im really surprised how bad stock low and high beams on the car like that. i did my research before purchase and was debating between ex and g. test drove many G35x and all of them had bixenon, i assumed that on EX is standard as well. looks like only 2 of them in the market that are match combination $$$ and quality morimotos from TRS and those xenon depot. please let me know if both of you guys ran cambus? and XIS did you drill hole in the cover as well. can i squize my hands under the hood without taking fender cover?
. Today i replaced interior lights for led, exept trunk and foot lights, im going to order those today. im thinkig about replacing parking lights in head light. they are easy to replace and i belive its huge visual improving 
