antfarmer2

Sorry I was talking about useable light for me to to see for driveing not blinding the guy 50 feet in front of youThe most dangerous part of the attempt to "retrofit" Xenon headlamps is that sometimes you get a deceptive and illusory "improvement" in the performance of the headlamp. The performance of the headlamp is perceived to be "better" because of the much higher level of foreground lighting (on the road immediately in front of the car). However, the beam patterns produced by this kind of "conversion" virtually always give less distance light, and often an alarming lack of light where there's meant to be a relative maximum in light intensity. The result is the illusion that you can see better than you actually can, and that's not safe.

It's tricky to judge headlamp beam performance without a lot of knowledge, a lot of training and a lot of special equipment, because subjective perceptions are very misleading. Having a lot of strong light in the foreground, that is on the road close to the car and out to the sides, is very comforting and reliably produces a strong impression of "good headlights". The problem is that not only is foreground lighting of decidedly secondary importance when travelling much above 30 mph, but having a very strong pool of light close to the car causes your pupils to close down, worsening your distance vision...all the while giving you this false sense of security. This is to say nothing of the massive amounts of glare to other road users and backdazzle to you, the driver, that results from these "retrofits".

antfarmer2

That is like wearing someone elses eyeglasses if you put HID in them

TorchTarga94

Not even real projectors. Those housings can be had on ebay for $40. Would love to see a pic of the sharp cut off you say they have.

crowz

Having several cars with factory hids Im familiar with the correct cut off, light bleed and light pattern requirements.

The part I was referring to on the you cant see them part is spot on in front of the vehicle aka lumens. If these didn't have a clean cut off I wouldn't be able to use them as bright as they are.

The part I worry about is lifespan on these. As bright as they are Im wondering how long they will last.

My "test" for hids is simple. I have a smaller compact car I use to aim them with. When behind that car with whatever vehicle Im adjusting the lights on I want to see ZERO light on the headrest of the target car at x feet. This keeps from blinding oncoming traffic and it keeps from torturing people at drive thru fast food places. Win win.

Adjusting car headlights isn't that hard. Adjusting truck hids is the tricky part.

crowz

You are correct, not true projectors. But they do work which I found quite strange. The only weird part with them not being true capsule projectors is a strange pattern they throw going up my driveway where the trees form a canopy. Not going to have traffic blinding issues straight up or straight beside the car though

rocco16

I went with Hella lenses and Philips 100/80W H4's.
They look stock, but with twice the light output.
They are a stock replacement/bolt-in, and no issues with wiring or switches.

1984Z51auto

I've had the Hellas with 55/60 Watt bulbs for years and for DD use, they are fine with long bulb life and a decent cut-off of the low beam. I'd want a lot more for night rallies but, too old (Corvette, not me of course) for that now.

AGENT 86

Also very happy with my Hella E-code and Hella 100/80 H4 bulbs using stock wires and switch.
$90 well spent

BigMac2395

I should have been more clear (no pun intended My lights are BOSCH and they are a glass lens and housing....they seem very sturdy. They take a H4 replacement halogen bulb. it is a 50/65 watt light. I have the PIAA 'Extreme Plus' bulb in them which is a 4000k halogen.

Russell

crowz

I did that on my 86 coupe not long before I sold it.

Better than stock still felt weak on the lighting. But I figured out what was causing the effect. The vette is so low to the ground that the headlights just don't really get out there very well on low (spread and effect of the beam). That's why I went hids this time around on the 87 and they did MUCH better. I'll try to get some pics at night. Could kick myself for not doing that when aiming them but was very tired that night.

1993C4LT1

crowz

Will do pics first evening drive. Not getting to drive much right now because of rain all the time. The housing only allows enough light to bleed around causing it to make the headlight look like normal headlights. 85% of the light is run the lens. I had my doubts when they arrived but VERY happy with the results.

I imagine the shutter assembly on the hid bulb helps too.

antfarmer2

Ok does not sound like a clean cutoff to me

crowz

This is what I call a clean cut off. Theses are not from the vette. But another kit I installed and it works.

Vette looks the same but I need weather to improve to get some shots of them. The really nice part is this causes LESS blinding than the factory crap h4 setup.

antfarmer2

Wow you can almost see behind the truck but looks like a good cut off

Cliff Harris

I am very happy with my HID conversion. I went the cheapest way and did not get the projectors or the higher power versions.

This picture is kind of deceiving because my car was so close to the garage wall. The cutoff and beam pattern is actually much better than you see here. 4300° HID on the left, Sylvania SilverStar on the right:

kg4fku

Not deceiving at all.

You just proved everyones point that HID bulbs installed in halogen bases are a terrible and illegal practice.

All you need to do is look at the light splatter from the left bulb going up to the right side of the picture. Not to mention the star burst pattern as compared to the bulb in the right housing.

If anyone thinks this is not blinding to oncoming traffic or vehicles in front of you then you need to have your head checked and your license suspended.

antfarmer2

, what about those "retrofit" jobs in which the beam cutoff still appears sharp? Don't be fooled; it's an error to judge a beam pattern solely by its cutoff. In many lamps, especially the projector types, the cutoff will remain the same regardless of what light source is behind it. Halogen bulb, HID capsule, cigarette lighter, firefly, hold it up to the sun—whatever. That's because of the way a projector lamp works. The cutoff is simply the projected image of a piece of metal running side-to-side behind the lens. Where the optics come in is in distributing the light under the cutoff. And, as with all other automotive lamps (and, in fact, all optical instruments), the optics are calculated based not just on where the light source is within the lamp (focal length) but also the specific photometric characteristics of the light source...which parts of it are brighter, which parts of it are darker, where the boundaries of the light source are, whether the boundaries are sharp or fuzzy, the shape of the light source, and so forth.

As if the optical mismatch weren't reason enough to drop the idea of "retrofitting" an HID bulb where a halogen one belongs—and it is!—there are even more reasons why not to do it. Here are some of them:

The only available arc capsules have a longitudinal arc (arc path runs front to back) on the axis of the bulb, but many popular halogen headlamp bulbs, such as 9004, 9007, H3 and H12, use a filament that is transverse (side-to-side) and/or offset (not on the axis of the bulb) central axis of the headlamp reflector). In this case, it is impossible even to roughly approximate the position and orientation of the filament with a "retrofit" HID capsule. Just because your headlamp might use an axial-filament bulb, though, doesn't mean you've jumped the hurdles—the laws of optical physics don't bend even for the cleverest marketing department, nor for the catchiest HID "retrofit" kit box.

A relatively new gimmick is HID arc capsules set in an electromagnetic base so that they shift up and down or back and forth. These are being marketed as "dual beam" kits that claim to address the loss of high beam with fixed-base "retrofits" in place of dual-filament halogen bulbs like 9004, 9007, H4, and H13. A cheaper variant of this is one that uses a fixed HID bulb with a halogen bulb strapped or glued to the side of it...yikes! What you wind up with is two poorly-formed beams, at best. The reason the original equipment market has not adopted the movable-capsule designs they've been playing with since the mid 1990s is because it is impossible to control the arc position accurately so it winds up in the same position each and every time.

In the original-equipment field, there are single-capsule dual-beam systems appearing ("BiXenon", etc.), but these all rely on a movable optical shield, or movable reflector—the arc capsule stays in one place. The Original Equipment engineers have a great deal of money and resources at their disposal, and if a movable capsule were a practical way to do the job, they'd do it. The "retrofit" kits certainly don't address this problem anywhere near satisfaction. And even if they did, remember: Whether a fixed or moving-capsule "retrofit" is contemplated, solving the arc-position problem and calling it good is like going to a hospital with two broken ribs, a sprained ankle and a crushed toe and having the nurse say "Well, you're free to go home now, we've put your ankle in a sling!" Focal length (arc/filament positioning) is only just ONE issue out of several.

The most dangerous part of the attempt to "retrofit" Xenon headlamps is that sometimes you get a deceptive and illusory "improvement" in the performance of the headlamp. The performance of the headlamp is perceived to be "better" because of the much higher level of foreground lighting (on the road immediately in front of the car). However, the beam patterns produced by this kind of "conversion" virtually always give less distance light, and often an alarming lack of light where there's meant to be a relative maximum in light intensity. The result is the illusion that you can see better than you actually can, and that's not safe

aDigitalPhantom

If the link needs to be removed I will remove it.

http://www.theretrofitsource.com/com...-3-kit-h1.html
This is what I call a HID Retrofit kit. As I said earlier this is not a H4 conversion housing with a HID bulb shoved in.

PS
To make this work you need to take apart the H4 conversion housing, add this, and reassemble the H4 housing.

crowz

If you can see in the rain after the hid kit and you had trouble seeing the road and lines of the roads before that's no illusion that's a fact.

If you can see further down the highway to help spot the deer (terrorist) waiting to ambush you (joys of rural life) then that's a fact not opinion.

My rule of thumb is I will not tolerate blinding oncoming vehicles by direct light. I want a clean cut off that doesn't shine on the drivers head. If the lights are as bright as the sun going nova I could care less and don't care if that pisses others off.

As long as it doesn't shine directly in their faces. But that's how I look at things.

Around here good headlights keep you alive and your car undamaged. Also I keep my kelvin ratings low on the spectrum. I want white or even leaning towards yellow. No blue or purple for me.

The one drawback with aftermarket his vs factory hids is the auto leveling. This only comes into play in certain situations but it is possible to wind up momentarily blinding someone in the right situation since the light doesn't dip when you climb hills.

I run my lights much lower aimed than I would like to run them to make up for the lack for auto aiming. Drawback with that is the lights are not as high as I would like for them to be on highbeam and that of course shortens the range some but the extra amount of light makes up for it to some extent. Not perfect but short of auto leveling its the best you can do.