wwtaps

Hello friends;
I'm at my wits end with this. consider this post a call for help before i trade this car for a honda fit and blend in with every other NPC on the road.
I've got an 03' 350z with those sh*tty orange marker headlights. Not a huge fan. Scooped up a set of OEM 06+ Xenon headlights on marketplace for less than the price of one brand new. Installed them, passenger side worked all fine and drivers side only turn signal/ parking leds worked but not high or low beam. Wasn't too upset because of how cheap i got the set in the first place. bought a ballast/bulb replacement wiring kit for the housing which didn't resolve my issue, to my suprise. replaced fuses for headlight and it still didnt fix. Finally bit the bullet and bought new housing assembly for drivers side and when i went to plug her in this morning, same thing happened where only the turn signal and little orange LEDs. When i put the old 03 headlight back in it works fine, which is what i've been running lately (one 03 headlight and one 06). I unplugged radar and dash cam just to make sure there wasn't some weird power issue with the new bulbs and that did nothing aswell. I've asked numerous people, browsed every forum i could find, consulted my doctor, prayed to the sweet but unfair lord above, and i can find NO discernible reason as to why this doesn't work.
Was hoping for some suggestions from the community. thanks xoxo

g356sp

Sounds like you may have tried swapping bulbs around, but I had a similar issue when I installed sh1tty Bezos special bulbs. I also reached wits end and messaged Morimoto about retrofit options, they mentioned that the ballasts only work with high quality bulbs - swapped in the Morimoto units (~$50/pair) and they've worked/looked great ever since.

Heel Til I Die

iTrader: (2)

I can try and help, but there is some more information needed in order to trouble shoot.

1. Are your '03 OEM headlights halogen reflectors or HID for the low beam and H7 for the high beam?
2. How many pins are on the wiring harness from the Z to your headlight - 6 or 8? Alternatively, how many pins are on the wiring harness from the new headlight to connect to the Z? And/or did you need to wire in a 6-pin to 8-pin adapter on either the left or right side?
3. Are you using OEM ballasts and bulbs or are you using aftermarket ballasts and bulbs?
4. Are the new HID bulbs D2S or D2R? OEM or aftermarket?
5. Have you swapped the ballast from right to left, swapped the bulb from right to left, and swapped both the ballast and bulb from right housing to the left housing to see if the problem follows the swap?
6. I noticed you're in Canada where DRLs are standard on the Canada-spec Z33. Does the DRL function work on the right side '06+ projector and or the '03 halogen projector combination when the ignition is on?

If you can answer those questions, I can hopefully help you get everything working.

wwtaps

@Heel Til I Die appreciate the little checklist + I'll try to give you as much info as I can from the top of my head, i'll have to get back to you on the specific bulb types later. The 03 Housings were the LED/Xenon with halogen DRLS, and the DRLS in these housings worked. Both the car and the new 06 housings are an 8pin harness, which means it should be plug and play- and as i mentioned, it is, as the passenger side turn signal / parking leds / low and high beams work perfectly. Now that you mention it, the DRL's don't come on on that side, but i just chalked that up as a loss immediately and decided i could live without DRL's lol. The driver side 03 headlight all works as it should (including DRL) but when i plug the 06 housing in, only the turn signal and parking LED's worked. Both 03 and 06 headlight sets are OEM, not Depo. The part that's getting me is that when i plug the driver's side 06 headlight (which is the one with no working high/low beam) to the passenger side, it works perfectly (aside from DRLs). This leads me to believe there's some problem with the connection or wiring harness on the car, but I dont understand why the turn signals would work on that housing if the connection was poor (perhaps a pin isn't reaching?) All seven pins out of the eight pin holes are existing in both new 06 headlights. also to your point number 6, when i run the combination of 03 and 06 headlights the DRL's only work on the 03 side. housings, bulbs, and ballasts are all OEM, and the fact that the drivers side housing works fine on the passenger side obviously means that the headlight was reassembled just fine after trying to put the amazon kit in.
Such a strange situation and i'm happy to get you more info. Much appreciate your time

Heel Til I Die

iTrader: (2)

OK perfect. Thanks for coming back. So many times, people will ask a question and then disappear.

Just to summarize things for my own edification to work through this:

You've got an '03 with the OEM HID projectors (D2R/H7 combo) and got some 06+ OEM projectors and you're using all OEM components (harnesses, ballasts, bulbs). On the Canada-spec 03-05 Xenon-type/HID Z33's, the DRLs are operated by sending a signal to the H7 high beams at 50% power since they're wired in series and operate at half illumination. Since you are now using 06+ style, there is no independent high beam to operate at half illumination. The high beam signal that is sent from the harness triggers the internal "flapper" mechanism in the '06 projector to adjust the output through the lens. This is probably why the DRLs no longer operate.

HOWEVER, the fact that the D/S '06 headlamp housing functions properly when plugged into the P/S harness (aside from the DRLs) leads me to believe there is something amiss with the D/S wiring harness. BUT, this theory doesn't check out if all of the functions of the '03 headlamp work as they should when plugged into the D/S.

I can only think that something is wrong with the '06 harness and/or connector on the housing itself. Or maybe the '03 harness connector makes a better connection with the D/S harness than the '06 headlamp harness. It would be quite a coincidence that both '06 housing harness connectors suffer from the same bad connection issue, but that's the only thing I can think of at this point. Probably less probable - the D/S wiring harness has been altered.

Did something break off in the '03 connector which is making contact with the harness when plugged in but preventing the '06 harness from making proper contact?

I've attached the lighting (LT) portion of the FSM for your Z. If you can read a wiring schematic, you may need to break out the multimeter and/or independent 12v power supply to check for continuity across all the pins.

Also, if you check out this post I made a while back, you can figure out the pins to test. (https://my350z.com/forum/exterior-an...l#post10994098) Hopefully, it's something as simple as a bad ground somewhere.

wwtaps

Don't thank me for coming back lol, thank yourself for taking the time to help (its appreciated more than i can put into words). I'm a little late on replies; I'm a student so i only have time once a week to try to fix this stuff and since one headlight of each is working i tend to put this off a bit, but i know it needs to get fixed.

Going forward i'm gonna try a pin test like you mentioned (that guide looks absolutely fantastic) and also will check the harnesses to make sure theres nothing stuck in the 03 harness that's stopping the 06 from working. everything you mentioned about specs of the vehicle was correct. My guess is it has to be bad ground or something with the D/S harness- Both 06 housings work when plugged into the P/S, but neither work when plugged into the D/S. Gonna rip the front bumper off (~40th time, i'm getting quick with it lol) and try a couple more things this weekend; thanks again for your help.

Heel Til I Die

iTrader: (2)

No worries at all. I geek out over lighting and have become quite familiar with the Z's lighting system from years of "tinkering."

I would take a careful look at pins 3 and 4, and 7 and 8 which are located on one side of the connector. Those are the hot and grounds for the lows and highs.

I hope you get it sorted!