How many people have an HID conversion for their headlights? I'm looking to buy one in the next couple of weeks, and I've pretty much narrowed it down between the Mcculloch and Hella kit. Does anyone have either of these kits, preferably for an H4 bulb. How much did you pay for it, and what are your impressions? Thanks
HID headlight conversion
- Thread starter InTheDark
- Start date
One thing that you need to remember is to get a kit that is specifically designed for your bulb (H4. H7, etc.), that is properly FOCUSED.
Otherwise, the focus will not be correct, and you will end up with a white light that is very mediocre in quality.
Many makers offer conversions that are not properly focused.
Here's a good link to look at.
http://www.hidkits.com/
Enjoy your new blinding lights!
Otherwise, the focus will not be correct, and you will end up with a white light that is very mediocre in quality.
Many makers offer conversions that are not properly focused.
Here's a good link to look at.
http://www.hidkits.com/
Enjoy your new blinding lights!
bmsmith
Enlightened
InTheDark,
While I don't want to discourage you from getting some really cool and bright lights for your car, please read through this site before you make your purchase: http://lighting.mbz.org/
I was going to buy one of those HID conversion kits until I emailed the owner of the site for more information and reasoning after reading the stuff on that site.
If you too feel so inclined, email the owner, Daniel. He knows his stuff if you can take his somewhat "knowitall" attitude.
I ended up not buying any HID lights at all because of what I learned about them.
- Brian
While I don't want to discourage you from getting some really cool and bright lights for your car, please read through this site before you make your purchase: http://lighting.mbz.org/
I was going to buy one of those HID conversion kits until I emailed the owner of the site for more information and reasoning after reading the stuff on that site.
If you too feel so inclined, email the owner, Daniel. He knows his stuff if you can take his somewhat "knowitall" attitude.
I ended up not buying any HID lights at all because of what I learned about them.
- Brian
CanadianGuy
Newly Enlightened
Hi. I'm a car nut, and just wanted to point out an important note:
You said "I don't want to be blinding anyone else on the road, but the stock headlights on my car aren't too good"
If your car is older (1980s or older) sometimes your headlights aren't getting their full voltage. I read a car magazine article where they installed relays on each headlight on a car from the 60s. They did this because the lights were only getting 9-10 volts at idle. This happened because on really old cars from the 60's, the wiring went from the fuse block, through the dash wiring, through the horn relay, then to the headlights (or something similar). This caused a HUGE voltage drop. To fix this, the magazine people would hook up the headlight power wire to the relay's coil wire, and then run a fresh power wire from the battery to the relay. This way, the old headlight power wire would turn on the relay, and the fresh power wire would send full voltage to the headlight. What a difference!
Finally, I agree about the issue of brightness. On the other hand, so many new cars lights are aimed way too high, which I think is the big problem.
You said "I don't want to be blinding anyone else on the road, but the stock headlights on my car aren't too good"
If your car is older (1980s or older) sometimes your headlights aren't getting their full voltage. I read a car magazine article where they installed relays on each headlight on a car from the 60s. They did this because the lights were only getting 9-10 volts at idle. This happened because on really old cars from the 60's, the wiring went from the fuse block, through the dash wiring, through the horn relay, then to the headlights (or something similar). This caused a HUGE voltage drop. To fix this, the magazine people would hook up the headlight power wire to the relay's coil wire, and then run a fresh power wire from the battery to the relay. This way, the old headlight power wire would turn on the relay, and the fresh power wire would send full voltage to the headlight. What a difference!
Finally, I agree about the issue of brightness. On the other hand, so many new cars lights are aimed way too high, which I think is the big problem.
bmsmith,
thanks for the info. Just when I thought I've read every HID website on the web, there's always something new. What exactly was the reason you decided not to get the lights, I'd like to know more opinions. The two main disadvantages I know of are loss of high beams, and glare to oncoming drivers. No high beams I can probably live with, but I know that it's annoying to have someone's lights shining in your face or rear view mirror while driving. I think a lot of lights just aren't aimed properly, or some of these losers just don't care about getting the correct beam pattern and are only getting these lights for the cool "violet" color. I suspect that's the reason why most sites show a picture of what the lights look like in the car, not what they look like FROM the car. I really don't care how they look from the outside, because I don't stand outside my car staring at my headlights too often. Damn, I just realized I've been ranting a lot today, I gotta stop doing this. That's what sitting in two and a half hours of traffic every day will do.
But I would still like to have more light on the road, I'm always double checking to make sure my headlights are on because I can't see them. I'll be doing a lot of night driving in the next couple of months, so I want to get them as soon as possible. I don't want to just upgrade to a higher wattage bulb because of the extra demand on the wiring, plus the bulb life for those bulbs are pretty bad.
CanadianGuy,
Thanks for the tip. My car is only 2 years old, so I don't think that is the problem, but I have another 25 year old car that could use an improvement. I never really bothered to check the voltage going to the headlights, I'll have to do that soon.
thanks for the info. Just when I thought I've read every HID website on the web, there's always something new. What exactly was the reason you decided not to get the lights, I'd like to know more opinions. The two main disadvantages I know of are loss of high beams, and glare to oncoming drivers. No high beams I can probably live with, but I know that it's annoying to have someone's lights shining in your face or rear view mirror while driving. I think a lot of lights just aren't aimed properly, or some of these losers just don't care about getting the correct beam pattern and are only getting these lights for the cool "violet" color. I suspect that's the reason why most sites show a picture of what the lights look like in the car, not what they look like FROM the car. I really don't care how they look from the outside, because I don't stand outside my car staring at my headlights too often. Damn, I just realized I've been ranting a lot today, I gotta stop doing this. That's what sitting in two and a half hours of traffic every day will do.
But I would still like to have more light on the road, I'm always double checking to make sure my headlights are on because I can't see them. I'll be doing a lot of night driving in the next couple of months, so I want to get them as soon as possible. I don't want to just upgrade to a higher wattage bulb because of the extra demand on the wiring, plus the bulb life for those bulbs are pretty bad.
CanadianGuy,
Thanks for the tip. My car is only 2 years old, so I don't think that is the problem, but I have another 25 year old car that could use an improvement. I never really bothered to check the voltage going to the headlights, I'll have to do that soon.
bmsmith
Enlightened
InTheDark,
Basically Daniel convinced me that the halogen reflectors in my car (or any car with halogen headlights) aren't designed to work with the light source arc produced by HID bulbs. The position of the HID bulb in the reflector assembly may not line up the arc of the HID bulb where the filament was in the original bulb. Plus, some halogens have filaments that are axial or transverse whereas all HID bulbs are the same. The characteristics of the arc light source in an HID bulb are different than a filament, including details like different amounts of light coming from the ends of the filament vs. the middle, and halogen reflectors take advantage of this. Installing an HID bulb negates the original design of the halogen reflector and causes grief for other drivers (and you).
Plus you lose the high beams which could be illegal and won't pass inspection.
Since HID bulbs don't have light shields on them like most low beam lamps, you end up blinding other drivers even with careful alignment of the headlamp.
HID conversions (and even HID in general) end up throwing a lot of light right near the front of your car rather than up the road where you need it. This extra light up close makes your pupils narrow, which doesn't allow you to see dark things as well up the road. This is especially bad in bad weather situations.
Depending on your make/model of vehicle, you might be able to buy a new HID retrofit assembly that includes a whole new headlamp reflector assembly. In my case I could have bought a set for $539 + shipping. (I have a 1997 Subaru Legacy GT). Buying a kit that includes the reflector assembly is the *right* way to do it. You keep your low/high beams (in my case I have 9003 bulbs which have both high and low beam filaments in them (1 bulb per side), so the replacement reflectors had 2 HID bulbs per side.). And you get a reflector assembly that is designed for HID use. Why did I chicken out? I decided the money could be better saved for a new car, plus it would have been a hassle to paint the reflectors and install them.
I am now thinking about buying some Osram Sylvania Halogen Xtravision bulbs. They aren't the fake blue bulbs (which actually produce *less* light than stock bulbs) and actually deliver good light. http://www.sylvania.com/auto/xtravis.htm
My local Autozone didn't have them in stock, so I'm still looking.
Everything I said here is on the Daniel's site. Read this expecially: http://lighting.mbz.org/tech/info/bulbs/HID/
I hope this helps.
- Brian
Basically Daniel convinced me that the halogen reflectors in my car (or any car with halogen headlights) aren't designed to work with the light source arc produced by HID bulbs. The position of the HID bulb in the reflector assembly may not line up the arc of the HID bulb where the filament was in the original bulb. Plus, some halogens have filaments that are axial or transverse whereas all HID bulbs are the same. The characteristics of the arc light source in an HID bulb are different than a filament, including details like different amounts of light coming from the ends of the filament vs. the middle, and halogen reflectors take advantage of this. Installing an HID bulb negates the original design of the halogen reflector and causes grief for other drivers (and you).
Plus you lose the high beams which could be illegal and won't pass inspection.
Since HID bulbs don't have light shields on them like most low beam lamps, you end up blinding other drivers even with careful alignment of the headlamp.
HID conversions (and even HID in general) end up throwing a lot of light right near the front of your car rather than up the road where you need it. This extra light up close makes your pupils narrow, which doesn't allow you to see dark things as well up the road. This is especially bad in bad weather situations.
Depending on your make/model of vehicle, you might be able to buy a new HID retrofit assembly that includes a whole new headlamp reflector assembly. In my case I could have bought a set for $539 + shipping. (I have a 1997 Subaru Legacy GT). Buying a kit that includes the reflector assembly is the *right* way to do it. You keep your low/high beams (in my case I have 9003 bulbs which have both high and low beam filaments in them (1 bulb per side), so the replacement reflectors had 2 HID bulbs per side.). And you get a reflector assembly that is designed for HID use. Why did I chicken out? I decided the money could be better saved for a new car, plus it would have been a hassle to paint the reflectors and install them.
I am now thinking about buying some Osram Sylvania Halogen Xtravision bulbs. They aren't the fake blue bulbs (which actually produce *less* light than stock bulbs) and actually deliver good light. http://www.sylvania.com/auto/xtravis.htm
My local Autozone didn't have them in stock, so I'm still looking.
Everything I said here is on the Daniel's site. Read this expecially: http://lighting.mbz.org/tech/info/bulbs/HID/
I hope this helps.
- Brian
Kenshiro,
Thanks for the link.
The focus is one of my main concerns. I don't want to be blinding anyone else on the road, but the stock headlights on my car aren't too good, and I drive a lot at night. Unfortunately, most places I've checked only show the headlights from a frontal view, not what the beam pattern looks like on the road or a wall. I know that the Hella and Mcculloch kit are supposed to be at the same focus point as the standard H4 headlight, at least that's what they claim, but I really want to see it in person before I buy it.
Thanks for the link.
The focus is one of my main concerns. I don't want to be blinding anyone else on the road, but the stock headlights on my car aren't too good, and I drive a lot at night. Unfortunately, most places I've checked only show the headlights from a frontal view, not what the beam pattern looks like on the road or a wall. I know that the Hella and Mcculloch kit are supposed to be at the same focus point as the standard H4 headlight, at least that's what they claim, but I really want to see it in person before I buy it.
Try this site. You use the same base as your stock bulb but he replaces with a HID.
http://www.misterjung.com/
http://www.misterjung.com/
FNG,
I've been trying to get a hold of that guy, but he doesn't respond to e-mails. It's too bad, because he's got the best price on the kits, and I've heard some pretty good reviews of it. But I'm a little worried if something goes wrong, I'd probably be out of luck in trying to return anything under warranty.
I've been trying to get a hold of that guy, but he doesn't respond to e-mails. It's too bad, because he's got the best price on the kits, and I've heard some pretty good reviews of it. But I'm a little worried if something goes wrong, I'd probably be out of luck in trying to return anything under warranty.
highlandsun
Enlightened
I've had the www.hidkits.com Bi-Xenon H4 kit on my car since August. It replaced an SPW Bi-Xenon kit that I bought in June, and hated. (The SPW kit I bought had the 7500K color temperature bulbs, which were annoyingly blue. Marginal illumination compared to quality halogen bulbs, and a lame-*** high beam.)
The hidkits.com kit is excellent. Check out the animated GIFs on their web site to see what they do - the H4 kit uses a custom bulb base with a solenoid that actually repositions the envelope to provide low and high beam. So the arc is in the correct focal position for both low and high.
I should mention that my car (a '97 Probe GTS) came stock with those nasty H4666 sealed beams. I bought Bosch H4 headlamps from Dan Stern 4 years ago to replace those things, and the improvement was definitely dramatic. The HID kit I have now just mounts in my Bosch lamps and works very well.
I've had many long conversations with Dan, and while he's obviously devoted a lot of his life to the specifics of the automotive lighting industry, I think he's a bit more of a stickler than necessary.
H4 bulbs use axial filaments, and HID bulbs have an axial arc. In this respect, an HID conversion is not as terrible as it might be for some other 9000-series bulbs with transverse filaments. It is definitely impossible to attach an adapter ring to a standard D2R or D2S HID bulb and stick it into an H4 lamp and get a proper beam pattern; the arc will be nowhere near where the low beam filament was. The only way to put the arc where it needs to be is with a custom bulb base. Both the SPW and HidKits conversions use custom bases for their Bi-Xenon kits, and they both produce an excellent E-code low beam.
Both of these kits use a solenoid molded into the bulb base to toggle hi/lo beam. The SPW kit mounts a movable shield, that is pulled out of the way to produce a high beam. The resulting high beam is pathetic, it doesn't actually put any more light on the road. The result is less than optimal because the arc itself is still sitting in the low beam's focal point, and an H4 lamp is only designed to produce a low beam pattern from that point source.
Since the HidKits base actually moves the entire HID capsule, putting the arc into the correct focal point, you get a decent high beam as well as low beam. I love it.
I had a web page with my installation notes and pix but it seems to have gone offline. I may try to re-upload it somewhere else in a few days.
There's a limitation with this kit, which hasn't been a problem for me yet - the solenoid takes time to recharge after you trigger it. When you go from low to high, if you drop back to low, it will take 2-3 seconds before you can go to high again. So you can't flash quickly low-high-low-high. Since I seldom flash people, it hasn't been an issue. And otherwise, the transition low-high or high-low is instantaneous.
A lot of people I know with H4s have been looking into replacing them with round projector lights. I thought about it too, but this to me is a far better approach, and far more manageable. I can barely find space for one ballast on each side of the car, if I had to use two separate HIDs for high and low on each side, installation would be impossible.
The hidkits.com kit is excellent. Check out the animated GIFs on their web site to see what they do - the H4 kit uses a custom bulb base with a solenoid that actually repositions the envelope to provide low and high beam. So the arc is in the correct focal position for both low and high.
I should mention that my car (a '97 Probe GTS) came stock with those nasty H4666 sealed beams. I bought Bosch H4 headlamps from Dan Stern 4 years ago to replace those things, and the improvement was definitely dramatic. The HID kit I have now just mounts in my Bosch lamps and works very well.
I've had many long conversations with Dan, and while he's obviously devoted a lot of his life to the specifics of the automotive lighting industry, I think he's a bit more of a stickler than necessary.
H4 bulbs use axial filaments, and HID bulbs have an axial arc. In this respect, an HID conversion is not as terrible as it might be for some other 9000-series bulbs with transverse filaments. It is definitely impossible to attach an adapter ring to a standard D2R or D2S HID bulb and stick it into an H4 lamp and get a proper beam pattern; the arc will be nowhere near where the low beam filament was. The only way to put the arc where it needs to be is with a custom bulb base. Both the SPW and HidKits conversions use custom bases for their Bi-Xenon kits, and they both produce an excellent E-code low beam.
Both of these kits use a solenoid molded into the bulb base to toggle hi/lo beam. The SPW kit mounts a movable shield, that is pulled out of the way to produce a high beam. The resulting high beam is pathetic, it doesn't actually put any more light on the road. The result is less than optimal because the arc itself is still sitting in the low beam's focal point, and an H4 lamp is only designed to produce a low beam pattern from that point source.
Since the HidKits base actually moves the entire HID capsule, putting the arc into the correct focal point, you get a decent high beam as well as low beam. I love it.
I had a web page with my installation notes and pix but it seems to have gone offline. I may try to re-upload it somewhere else in a few days.
There's a limitation with this kit, which hasn't been a problem for me yet - the solenoid takes time to recharge after you trigger it. When you go from low to high, if you drop back to low, it will take 2-3 seconds before you can go to high again. So you can't flash quickly low-high-low-high. Since I seldom flash people, it hasn't been an issue. And otherwise, the transition low-high or high-low is instantaneous.
A lot of people I know with H4s have been looking into replacing them with round projector lights. I thought about it too, but this to me is a far better approach, and far more manageable. I can barely find space for one ballast on each side of the car, if I had to use two separate HIDs for high and low on each side, installation would be impossible.
highlandsun
Enlightened
I'd be interested to see how the AutolampsOnline kit looks. I've just taken some pix of my kit tonight - http://home.attbi.com/~hyc_sub2/light2/
