DEPO HID Headlight Installation on Nissan 350Z!

This past week I got to show some love to my daily driver Lemans Sunset 350Z.

I have wanted to install a pair of these headlights on my car since I first got it in 2012. The car is a 2003 performance model with too many aftermarket parts to count.

Installing the Depo headlights is relatively straightforward and can be done with a 10mm wrench, flathead screwdriver, a jack and jack stands. The car needs to be lifted up to get access to all of the 10mm bolts holding the splash shield to the bottom of the bumper. There are then 3 bolts on each corner of the bumper that attach it to the fenders and body of the car, you can get access to these just by pushing the fender liners out of the way slightly. All that is left now is to remove the pop clips that are along the top edge of the bumper. The bumper can now be slid off revealing all of the mounting hardware for the headlights. Each headlight housing has four bolts mounting it to the car, two along the bottom, one on the side connecting it to the fender and one at the top which you can see with the hood open. After these four bolts are removed all that is left to do is slide the headlight out and unplug the 8 pin connector at the bottom of the housing. The Depo headlights require that you swap over your HID ballast and bulbs, but since I was going from the 03-05 style HID’s, I had to get new turn signal bulbs as well as HID bulbs since the earlier style used D2R bulbs and the newer style, which the Depo is a replica of, uses D2S or D2C bulbs. If you are installing these lights on your 06-08 350Z, you can reuse all of your original bulbs.

We always recommend replacing your old ballast o-rings with new ones any time that you have to remove the ballasts from the housings to avoid leaks and condensation in your lights. Once the new o-rings are on, you can install the original ballasts onto the new housings, making sure to leave enough slack in the cable to be able to insert the HID bulb and connector. With the HID and ballast installed, all that is left is to throw in the turn signal and parking light bulbs. After all of the bulbs are back in, place the headlight into is mounting location and plug in the harness. Now make sure each of the different bulbs light up correctly and the lights function correctly before installing all of the mounting bolts and finally mounting the front bumper. Coming soon were working on a kit to install these headlights into 03-05 350Z’s that don’t have factory HID’s without cutting or modifying the cars original harness.