Do you have 9003/H4 bulbs and are too cheap to buy real HIDs?

[Pondscum]

10,000K?



That's the colour of light in about five metres of water -- people use it in their tropical fish tanks. What type of bulb are you using?



And since you need a projector retrofit, exactly how are you managing HIDs without projectors?

Projectors aren't required for HIDs. Many stock vehicles have HIDs in basically the same lamp housings as halogens, especially in the early days of HIDs. I believe even Mercedes used to have HIDs without projectors. You can also get retrofit kits for people with standard halogen lamps. What most people don't realize is HID bulbs require a lamp with a different focal point than halogen bulbs. So some retrofit kits actually produce less useable light than the halogens they replaced. Certainly the best lights are those having projectors which were designed for HID bulbs.

 

[NavindraLR]

Projectors aren't required for HIDs. Many stock vehicles have HIDs in basically the same lamp housings as halogens, especially in the early days of HIDs. I believe even Mercedes used to have HIDs without projectors. You can also get retrofit kits for people with standard halogen lamps. What most people don't realize is HID bulbs require a lamp with a different focal point than halogen bulbs. So some retrofit kits actually produce less useable light than the halogens they replaced. Certainly the best lights are those having projectors which were designed for HID bulbs.

you're correct.. but you bring up a good point.. the old benz's did have hids/xenon in halogen type housings, and the new ones all have projector types.. the reason being, b/c you have more control of the xenon reflection on the road, and you can add the controls of the automatic adjustability. also, you may notice on the road when you see the really purple/blue hids, and the closer you get to them, they seem to change colors, thats because of the projector style lens.

 

[Dinzdale40]

HID's are ok in some reflector housings that are designed for it.....but it's not the same as putting an HID bulb into a halogen reflector.....this is the reason why HID kits are being banned in california....because too many people were putting HID's in headlights meant for halogen bulbs....they blind too many people with glare....

 

[JaCkaL829]

I don't think HID's in halogens are that bad, as long as you have a shield on your HID bulbs. If you take note of cars with OEM HID setup with reflector headlights, only the top half of the light is actually lit. My HID kit was built a little better than those knock off ones and had the shield built on the bulb. This gave me really sharp cutoff lines without the glare. I've seen kids running HID bulbs in reflector headlights without the shields and its super blinding with glare all over the place.

 

[GS400]

I don't think HID's in halogens are that bad, as long as you have a shield on your HID bulbs. If you take note of cars with OEM HID setup with reflector headlights, only the top half of the light is actually lit. My HID kit was built a little better than those knock off ones and had the shield built on the bulb. This gave me really sharp cutoff lines without the glare. I've seen kids running HID bulbs in reflector headlights without the shields and its super blinding with glare all over the place.

I can vouch for the validity of this. My headlamps only have the top half reflecting light. I drive a 98 GS400 w/factory HIDs. The GS utilizes a reflector setup. Something I learned just recently is, in fact that the housings are different. I want to replace my orginal housing w/newer used ones. New HID housings from Lexus are expensive. I was told not to use less expensive halogen(GS300) housings because the reflectors are different.



And another point about HIDs that I don't think a lot of people realize. It's been my experience that most vehicles, not all, have headlight auto-leveling computers, which IMO contribute SIGNIFICANTLY to the reduction of glare. I could put 6K, 8K, or even 10K bulbs in my car, and they wouldn't be NEARLY visually offensive as say in a car without levelers (ie Honda S2000). Of course the projector lenses themselves are responsible for that purplish hue at the edge of the beam pattern, not the bulbs themselves. So a 6000K color temp in a reflector housing could look closer to 8000K in a projector housing near the edge of the beam pattern.



If you're gonna convert, do it RIGHT!!!

 

[Pondscum]

HID's are ok in some reflector housings that are designed for it.....but it's not the same as putting an HID bulb into a halogen reflector.....this is the reason why HID kits are being banned in california....because too many people were putting HID's in headlights meant for halogen bulbs....they blind too many people with glare....

They are banned nationwide now. A few weeks ago, DOT issued a ruling that declared all HID upgrade kits non-compliant. This probably won't stop a lot of the fly-by-night upgrade kit manufacturers, but the big names like Sylvania will probably stop selling their kits if they haven't already. SEMA is fighting the DOT ruling.

 

[Roadster J]

Does anyone have experience with the HIR bulbs?

 

[NavindraLR]

If you're gonna convert, do it RIGHT!!!

i think that sums everything up quite well

:up

 

[JaCkaL829]

I though pretty much all aftermarket HID kits were banned and illegal to use anyway. Honestly where I live its so crowded with people and there are so many cars hooked up (most look bad, few look good) with every illegal thing you can think of. If they enforced every law they would be writing tickets all day & night. I'm putting my kit in my Infiniti G20 when I get it this spring. I highly doubt I will have problems with the law. I don't attract attention to myself, and it will pretty much be my only exterior mod, with the exception of it being detailed The only thing that kinda sucks is swapping them out every 2 years for inspection, but I kinda saw that coming.

 

[Galcobar]

No experience with them, but I understand the science behind them if that's what you're asking. However, they're nastily expensive, though not as bad as a proper HID setup.

 

[NavindraLR]

I though pretty much all aftermarket HID kits were banned and illegal to use anyway. Honestly where I live its so crowded with people and there are so many cars hooked up (most look bad, few look good) with every illegal thing you can think of. If they enforced every law they would be writing tickets all day & night. I'm putting my kit in my Infiniti G20 when I get it this spring. I highly doubt I will have problems with the law. I don't attract attention to myself, and it will pretty much be my only exterior mod, with the exception of it being detailed The only thing that kinda sucks is swapping them out every 2 years for inspection, but I kinda saw that coming.

almost every car on the road has hid or xenon lights right now.. i mean even honda, nissan, and toyota have them.. minivans have them now also... i doubt cops will even care, or bother to inspect cars.. but if you're driving like a A$$ and give them a reason to pull you over, then thats a different story.. i'm putting my hids in soon, and i can almost guarantee myself that i will not have problems with cops... i guess it helps that the make of my car has a HID setup in every model except mine, so it kinda looks normal for my car to have hids... :nixweiss

 

[JaCkaL829]

Ya that was my point Navindra that they are so common they'd go crazy trying to figure out OEM or aftermarket. As long as you don't get carried out with the kelvin you should be fine. I see plenty of people with 8,000K+ kits and its way to much color. I have a 6,000K kit and its a perfect blend of purplish/white light for me. Looks just like OEM.

 

[Mazz]

Ya that was my point Navindra that they are so common they'd go crazy trying to figure out OEM or aftermarket. As long as you don't get carried out with the kelvin you should be fine. I see plenty of people with 8,000K+ kits and its way to much color. I have a 6,000K kit and its a perfect blend of purplish/white light for me. Looks just like OEM.

Oem on ANY car would be 4300k that is the brightest light output you can have..there is not one manufac that uses any HID besides a 4399k bulb. Even BMW uses 4300k they only look purple because of the housing design.