What kinda HID kit shall i buy.

[kuruption1983]

I was just driving in the rain tonight and suddenly a damn bright blue light from a car cought my attention, thought it was a bmw or such but came out to be a nicely done new Accord. That interested me in HID kits and since i saw one tonight on DJPRO's car, i thought i should buy one as they are universal and i can take and intall it on another car if i sell this one, so no loss.

So now tell me which kind i should buy as i was looking at several 9004 8000K kits on ebay. Are they any good since they have a price of 300-500 $?? what should i be looking for and such; help a fellow out.

[Steeb]

8000k is not going to help you see at night imo. then again i dont know if your dropping that cash to be able to see better or to have colored lights.

[marshmallow15]

i LOVE my phillips hid kit. i have a comparison pic against a garage that i can show you. just drop me a line @ aim whenever.

[millionflame]

I'd suggest for you to NOT waste your money on such blatently stupid products like HID "kits."

Not only do they only function as a low beam, they're illegal, produce HUUUGE ammounts of glare, but the HID light isn't even being used properly and the beam pattern produced is ****ty to say the least.

For the same ammount of money, you can buy OEM LEGAL projector assemblies and retro-fit them into your stock housings. It requires a bit more work, but the results are worth it.

If you want pure lighting performance, then get OEM optics and stick with bulbs in the 4100K (pure white) to 5000K (white with a hint of blue). Anything above 5000K bulbs and you're going to be losing too many lumens, plus blue light is useless to see with since our human eyes can BARELY see it anyways.

OEM optics such as a Hella Bi-Xenon projector or Bosch Bi-Xenon would be an awesome idea.

If you don't want to spend the money on OEM HID optics, then you can get Hella 90mm halogen units which use H9 bulbs (the best halogen you can get at 1900 lumens).

All this requires you to retro-fit these projector assemblies into your housings, but it's NOT hard at all. It requires time, and patience.

There's also many forums dedicated to this topic that have many knowledgeable people that are willing to help you with it as well.

[Taras]

You know, this has been discussed in great length. So I shall not repeat, I and Aiden are just getting tired trying to convince people regarding various aspects of HID.

Just a few mentions. Philips does not make HID kits..... HID in Halogen optics suck at best.... and they will more than suck in 9004 optics... 4100K - factory HID
6000K - daylight
25000K - ultraviolet
where do you think 8000K fits in?

Please do not waste your money and get proper optics first. If you are in US, HID kits has always been illegal. Now NHTSA is enforcing a few things, ant it will not gonna get any better.

[mx3frik]

Hello all:

It seems like there is more than enough info for the lighting department to make a FAQ? With some topics and issues starting to repeat themselves already...

I can sort of put together something if no one else has the time and have the guru's out there to have a looksee before I post them?

Just my 2 pennies worth,

Eugene

[The_Great_Tonge]

imo do what you want, cause your the one driving your car and no others. i got my HID's at lexus when i worked there. i like the look of them better because unlike the HID kits that are out there, there bulb color is different from bulb to bulb. my lights are a nice white, while my friend with a HID kit in his gs-r are a purple-ish color . You can find balast and bulbs on ebay fairly cheap sometimes and all it takes to wire them up to our harness is splicing into a power and ground. fitting them into the sockets is easy to. its all about what you want, not wha others think

[Taras]

Great Tongue, I wish you would not post misleading info. What you are describing are your experiences with HID. What I just want to say is that that may not be a right way to approach HID conversions. It is not just as simple as stuffing Xenon capsule into your headlight housing and splicing a ballast feed into your stock wiring. Besides the fact that HID in 9004 Halogen housing is the worst nightmare in lighting guality. Ballast heed to run through a proper fused and relayed harness with at least 14ga wires, ballasts need to be mounted properly to avoid exposure to water, headlight housings with your Xenon bulb in there also must be water proof'ed.

The other issue that you are mentioning is colour. That depends on a few factors. Age of your HID capsule, make of the capsule Philips being bluer than Osram. And not to be forgotten are the optics. Projectors vs reflectors, different projectors produce different prizm effects and different reflectors have different shielding. How does that matter. Well, the bottom part of your HID capsule produce yellow light. Different reflectors may let in some of that yellow to mix with the rest. That is OEM projectors and reflectors talk.

No proper shielding in 9004 will mix in that yellow much more. And given that 9004 use 360 degrees of the reflector to produce light, you definitely are getting all spectrums. It hard to compare.

But, again, I think that it is one of the worst options to stuff HID capsule in your Halogen 9004 housings.

[The_Great_Tonge]

well hey thats your opinion but i though he was asking about HID's and what kind to buy. ive seen your attemps to making different housings for our head lights and i give you a big for doing what your doing. me on the other, college is my number one concern right now and i got a heal of a deal ($150 for bulbs and ballast) so i took it. everyone might not be as a n a l (not being rude) as lighting as you are. both white fish, jademx3turbo and i have bulbs from lexus veichles and djpro has a drop in kit and we all love it. so like i said before its up to you...cause unless you have the time and money to invest in making a proper hosuing you make due with what you got

<small>[ November 25, 2003, 12:01 AM: Message edited by: The_Great_Tonge ]</small>

[Taras]

Originally posted by The_Great_Tonge:
imo do what you want, cause your the one driving your car and no others.... its all about what you want, not wha others think

But you would blind people. Consideration still should be given to others on the road.

[The_Great_Tonge]

hey thats true but when you past a bmw,audi,acura, or any other car with a factory HID setup you will still squint, just not as much. it all depends on how bad you want it..

[millionflame]

Originally posted by The_Great_Tonge:
hey thats true but when you past a bmw,audi,acura, or any other car with a factory HID setup you will still squint, just not as much.

Well, that's wrong too.

If a vehicle with OEM HID is aimed properly, then you would NEVER get any glare from them, nor be blinded. The problem is, in North America 99% of people driving on the road are ignorant to aiming their headlights properly. They just think that aiming them as high as they do is good enough, and who cares about anyone else.

Originally posted by The_Great_Tonge:
it all depends on how bad you want it..

Well, there's a GOOD reason why HID kits are illegal anywhere in the world.

They blind other drivers on the road because they cause HUGE ammounts of glare.

If how you want it is a cop pulling you over and giving you a ticket, which you deserve, then that's fine, but in the end it's cheaper to go the better route since you wont have to pay hundreds of dollars to fines and fixing the lights.

It's something to think about for you, since you seem to be so ignorant to what Taras is trying to tell you.

Next time someone's brakes fail because they didn't fix them properly and hit your car, causing you to be hurt and go to the hospital, just remember that it's perfectly fine - FROM WHAT YOU SAY.

[Taras]

Just for the record: Lexus HID Xenon capsules are no different to others. I bet they are Osrams too. That will make then less blue, which is not a bad thing.

[mx3frik]

If I may say, I don't think this is a matter of being anal about lights but doing what's right and not just what works, otherwise we'll all be cutting springs and running on low pressure tires just to save a few bucks.

Seems like you did get a decent deal for the parts, why not spend another hundred or so and get some really nice projectors?

Plugging in HID bulbs into any stock housing will look impressive because almost 3-4 times the light output, but because of our DOT pattern this also means about that much more glare to the other traffic. This implies you're wasting quite a bit of the output from the uneven cutoff to disturb other drivers.

Try to park your car at light, leave the lights on, step out of the car, walk way up front and see how your HID in stock housing looks like. I would bet a minced meat pie that you've to squint a lot more then driving by an Audi, BMW, Merc etc.

Shop around, sometimes you can find bixenon projectors pretty cheap too. I wouldencourage you to get a pair of projectors since you've gotten the ballasts and bulbs already, why not go all the way? Be a retrofitter and not just a ricey trend follower. Keep in mind that it's due to the number of improper conversion of headlights that they're enforcing compatibility laws, and the more drivers with those type of conversions the stricter they'll become.

My pennies worth, but at least think about it.

Cheers!

Eugene <- in university too, but squeezed out enough to make a proper ecode conversion

[The_Great_Tonge]

Ok here we go...

Aiden: STFU you idiiot. wow your suffering from some serious hate. wow not only are you trying to bash me, but i think it goes like this " The problem is, in North America 99% of people driving on the road are ignorant to aiming their headlights properly." And yes if you have ever met a car with a proper HID setup on a dark road you will squint. Bright light + dark = squinting if your in the way...

JDM: Yes they are Osrams bulbs

Eugene H.: I dont know about you but school isnt cheap here states side. What ive done with aimed the lights down to the firthest point and added washers to hold down the lense. its better from what it is was before but it still has a funky looking beam pattern. Ive had them for awhile so i dont think it would fall under that ricey area, espically since my bulbs dont produce purple or a navy blue type of light.

Oh ya for Aiden " Next time someone's brakes fail because they didn't fix them properly and hit your car, causing you to be hurt and go to the hospital, just remember that it's perfectly fine - FROM WHAT YOU SAY. "

that is one of the worse examples you could give, two subjects that are on the completely different from one another. for someone who is anal about lighting such as you it might be, but a normal person it isnt. the fact of the matter is i doubt you or JDM have seen an mx3 with HID's, you have both stated youve seen HID in a 9004 hosuing, but not a mx3...just because you have seen one, doesnt mean youve seen them all.