Litronic upgrade WITHOUT wires ???

Hi guys, I'm looking for clear headlights (another thread) and someone is offering me a set of litronic headlights for a good price. However he tell me " I will explain the wiring harness to you, and why it is not necessary .". I've not yet spoke to him and wanted to throw the question to you guys before that. What do I lose by not installing the wiring harness as I upgrade to litronic ? BTW my car is a 1999 996 C2.... thanks in advance !

Think they're hot?

Huh ?? Do you mean in the photograph on the left just below your name ?? Hell yeah !! About the lights ... I don't think so ...

Yes that is hot... About the lights, though, all the wiring harness does is give you the self-leveling feature, so if you don't have it, you can still just plug them in like your old ones and you don't need anything else.

Sid, The self leveling feature (mentioned in another response) is available only with factory installed Litronic lights. It does not work with the retrofit kit, even if one does install the wiring harness. What the wiring accomplishes in a retrofit is to provide the feature whereby the HID low beam bulbs rotate upward to join the high beam halogen bulbs when you select hi-beam .... giving you a brighter hi beam. I tried it both ways, just out of curiosity. I was going to install the wiring in any event. To these old eyes, there was a significant difference in hi beam when the Xenons rotated up to join the halogens. It was certainly worth the half-hour extra effort. I believe you can purchase the wiring portion alone from Porsche.

hmm ... it appears that without the extra wiring harness and control unit, I lose the ability to rotate the lithtronic bulb to put it in "high beam mode". As per my understanding, the lithtronic system has 1. one HID/xenon bulb in low beam position. This rotates to become high beam 2. one halogen bulb in the fog lamp. This is purely a fog light. So am I right to say that without the extra wiring there wouldn't be any high beam at all, right ?? That'd be bad ! I could switch on the fog light, but the basic trajectory of the high beam would be missing ... Please correct me if my thinking is awry ... thanks, Sid

Kim, so you're saying that these is a 3rd bulb, 3. one halogen bulb in main lamp area. This is the high beam bulb which gets help from the HID bulb in high beam mode ??

Sid, will sell you my clears, excellent cond. $450. shippped, or, $400. pick up (I am in the Inland Empire, but can meet you in Elsinore, Canyon lake area, possibly Temecula. Otto [phone removed]

There will still be high-beams without the harness, it's just that it'll be halogen-only highs with the HID still on as a low-beam, as opposed to the halogen high combined with the HID high (since the bulb would move up to join the halogen). There may be a difference, but so far I haven't seen the need for the harness (so I haven't installed it). Kim, you mention that it only took you a half-hour to add the harness - did you install that yourself? Is it difficult?

Sid, I gave you the wrong impression. The Litronic has a Halogen high beam and a Xenon HID low beam. That is all this discussion is about. With the wiring installed, the HID low beam rotates upward when Hi beam is selected .... to aid and abet the Halogen High beam. Without the wiring, Xenon HID low beam stays in the low position when Hi beam is selected, leaving the Halogen Hi beam to do the job on its own. There are also fog and turn lamps in the unit, but they are not part of this discussion.

Yes, I did it myself. It was the first mod I performed on my car. My prep amounted to reading the DIY on the Pelican Parts website: Pelican Litronic DIY I did find this article to include some drilling in the fenders that I did not find necessary. Then, setting up my laptop in the garage to run the very nice and clear DVD that is sold by Tool Pants and some of his gang over on RennTech: Instructional DVD These are great DVDs that these guys filimed in someone's driveway while performing the actual mods. Bedsides the Litronics retrofit, they include the 4-stalk OBC and, I believe, a short shifter installation among others. Having it right there by the car, able to stop and start at will, after gathering the tools mentioned at the beginning, made the job a breeze. Last caveat. I was already very familiar with wiring work on Porsches (former 928 owner), and at home doing pin swaps in connectors. A wiring beginner would surely take a little longer, and, don't forget, you can splice wires instead of doing the pin changes.