do you know if theres a big diff between 55w and 35w ballast?

 

From all my reading and research 35 watt ballasts are the way to go. Gives fantastic light output in our cars, over 3 times more than the halogen bulbs. The 55 watt from my understanding can put stress on the cars factory wiring harness, generate more heat in the headlight housing and can cause road visibllity problems by washing the road closer to the car with so much light that the driver's pupils contract, thus lowereing his light sensitivity to objects farther down the road near the limits of his headlights.

If you reasearch, not one auto manufacturer in the world from Rolls Royce, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Mercedes, Porsche, Aston-Martin etc, offer 55 watt xenon lights on any of their cars no matter what their price. Believe me, these auto companies and most others have done extensive research on automobile headlights. If 55 watt ballasts provided any visual advantage to the driver they would offer them.

The same thing applies to the bulb temperature. Virtually all manufacturers supply their xenon lights with 4300k - 4500k temperature bulbs. These bulbs provide the highest light output in lumens thus giving the driver the farthest visibility. As xenon bulb temperatures go higher the light output (number of lumens) declines. Also as the temperature rises more blue light is put out causing glare for the driver as well as for oncoming drivers, thus reducing the visual clarity of everyone on the road I know some people buy these higher temperature bulbs because they think it makes their car look "cool". In exchange for a bluer look they are cutting down the effectiveness of their lights and very often, in my opinion, wind up with a very "ghetto" look. Not very appropriate for a BMW, I'd say.

 

This.

It's not often that this is mentioned, and I thought about typing that out the other day but got lazy.

The reality is that 55w HID puts way too much light in front of you, and ends up causing your eyes to be focused <100 feet in front of you.

If I remember correctly, optimally you want to be able to see 300 feet out ahead for safety (without burdening your eyes).

 

Would this be assuming that you're running the stock kelvin rating? By comparison I get about as much light output as a premium 35W kit with my 6000K 50W kit because of the loss of visible light. So in theory, this concept would only apply if you were to use 4300-5000K 55W HID's and not so much if you went 6000K or higher??

 

my kit works 100% no problems. retail for $160. send me a PM.