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JW Optical Chameleon Fog Lights

('14-'18) 
13K views 52 replies 9 participants last post by  jkoppee 
#1 · (Edited)
So I was selected to do a formal review of the new color changing chameleon fog lights from JW Optical. There's a lot of info on them put up here from @VarcoRep and they sound like an awesome idea. I'm currently running the Morimoto XB LED's with a yellow Laminex film. These are way better than the stock lights and I really like having the yellow fogs for when conditions require them but that is a limitation of current fog light systems is you can't have both.

Now that JW Optical has released this new Chameleon system I can have both. I decided to go with the HiD's since I've already had LEDs and I would like to see the difference. Plus when you have a 90 mile each way commute in NJ (land of bad drivers) anything that makes my car more visible to others is a huge plus. Also there have been several days, especially within the last 2 weeks, where I've seen clear skies, rain, fog and snow/ice all on a single commute to work.

So I've received the new fogs in the mail over the weekend and man was there a lot of tape on the outside box but it got here in mint condition with not even a dent on the box.



Now to the inside. Snapped a bunch of pics and hoping to install them this coming weekend. note: the one corner being messed up is from me being little kid excited and got over zealous ripping the outer packaging off.





 
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#2 ·
Now on to the inside:

Pretty sweet packaging job





Looks like plenty of wiring and mounting to be done but should be straight forward and easy. I'm betting the LED version has a lot less wiring.







Also I've ordered myself a tripod phone mount so I'll be doing some video reviews of these to over the next couple weeks. If there's anything specific anyone wants to know before, during or after the install let me know.
 
#4 · (Edited)
So put together several videos of the installation of the HiD version of the kit.



Wiring up the system
As you see in the video there's an extra harness on the HiD version and the way I explain it in the video was the correct way. You'll notice the connectors are marked + and - (don't show this in the videos) so make sure you connect the wires correctly



After installing the system I'd say the HiD version is almost guaranteed to be more difficult of an install than the LED version just because of all the extra components. Here's some videos explaining what I did to mount those components.



On the driver side the opening at the bottom of the washer fluid reservoir makes a really convenient place to mount one of the pieces associated with the HiD ballasts which you can see in this video

 
#11 ·
so had a question since I'm new to the HiD fogs and maybe @VarcoRep could help. While looking over the system it appears the fogs have a glaze/haze on part of the lenses seen in the pic below. I'm guessing that part goes on top when they're installed and that's possibly to help with beam cutoff? In my mind that's right and it makes sense but want to confirm before installing them.

 
#15 ·
When I installed the morimoto ones I didn't have to either but with these HiD's I have to mount the ballasts somewhere. That may prove tricky with the bumper on but I should still be able to get it done.
 
#17 ·
and now for some action videos



showing where the beam cutoff is. Might raise them a tiny bit but I think they might be perfect where they are


first test drive around the neighborhood



showing the switch itself



how they look from a car in front of you, not a great representation considering the wife's car is a GMC Acadia so it does sit really high but you get the idea

 
#23 ·
@jzmtl is correct that you can't have fogs on without headlights however I did notice this morning (sorry was out of state all last week) that the fogs actually stay on for a couple seconds after turning the headlights off. With that I should be able to get a short clip of them on by themselves. Or I can cover the headlights with something.
 
#25 ·
yeah I will definitely try to do that this weekend. We're supposed to get a nice storm this week so hopefully I can get some action shots during the bad weather as well.

But for anyone wondering, these are bright!

If anyone else has any questions or wants to see any specific action shots/vids feel free to ask. And if you're in NJ and want to see them in person I'm usually all over central and north NJ during the week.
 
#28 · (Edited)
My HID set arrived. Not in the neatest way - foam inside the box was displaced, fogs won't facing up and were on an angle. Box didn't look damaged, so maybe it was knocked around which made the fogs and foam move. Haven't wired them up yet, so we'll see if they've sustained any damage.

Also having never upgraded fog lights before, is it typical to have the projector glass exposed to the elements like that? I thought maybe a film or a cover over the top of the housing to protect it from flying debris/small rocks etc from cars/trucks in front?

Mine had a green connector that had come off the remote harness and found it's way onto one of the ballasts harness that caused me confusion here.
 
#29 ·
There really isn't a wiring diagram for the HiD version. The main difference as you can see is the extra wiring for the relay. Basically you're going to plug the + and - of that harness to the battery. Then you need to put it in between the control box and the fog. So the stock wiring plugs into the harness on the control box, then other connector on the control box plugs into connector on Hid relay harness. Then there's 2 identical plugs on the harness with different lengths, these go to the fogs themselves. The plugs are marked with positive and negative but they don't have a notch to keep them from being reversed so just watch for that. Hope that makes sense. Any other questions you can hit me up at my Gmail, which is just my username here @gmail
 
#34 ·
Thanks for the diagram! Very helpful.

My only comment is on the remote harness at the top you have connect to factory fog light wire but this should be the remote control connection that controls the colour switch, and the bottom of your drawing you've got two connections, on the bottom where you've got be sure to verify... That looks like where one of the stock fogs is connected. So only one stock fog is connected.

Please tell me if I'm wrong?

hopefully this will help



link to bigger version https://flic.kr/p/Rt1Jp9
 
#31 ·
so I've used the supplied washers to raise the driver side. Wanted to do one side at a time to get some pics on the difference. I've also taken some pics with the headlights covered so you can see the fogs by themselves. Contemplating rewiring the fog switch to work without the headlights but need to look into how difficult this will be.

With headlights to see what the offset is between headlights and fogs. Also you can see the 2 different lines that will show the difference between the standard position and the raised position (easiest to see on right side of garage)



Now a zoomed in pic of just the fogs on. Again you can see the difference in height between the two. The washers raise them a decent amount, but keep them still under the headlights so they shouldn't shine at any other drivers.



Street shots of just the fogs (headlights covered) of the 2 different colors. I'll try to get some better longer shots of just the fogs later on.



 
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