who has hid headlights?

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dcarr

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hello, looking to see who has hid's and pro's/con's, also color spectrum you have. looking into doing them on my 07.
 

alaskanexpy

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i have 8k 35w bixeons and love them. i run HIDs in all my trucks. ebay, look for "VVME" the hi/low kit which moved the HID bulb in the housing to give you high and low beams.
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heres my excursion with 55w bixeon
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ELVATO

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EMendoza93

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Get either 5k or 6k. I had them in my old truck loved them!!!
 

Thermo

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I've got 6000K's in my Jag (35W). When it comes to HID bulbs, there are lots of options out there. I guess I have to ask what you are looking to get out of the HIDs? If you are after a specific color, tell me what you are looking at and I can probably tell you the color range to look for. ANother thing that I will highly recommend is when you do the HID conversion, you look at doing a relay harness for the HIDs. Will the HIDs work just tapping into the stock wiring? Yep, they sure will. BUT...... (you saw that one coming didn't you?). Keep in mind that when you turn on your HIDs, they are going to be pulling about 40 amps for the first 2-3 seconds. The headlight switch is not really rated to handle that kind of load. So, for awhile the switch will handle it,but over time, the headlight switch is going to fail on you. Doing the relays, you are taking most of the current and bypassing the headlight switch and only using the headlight switch to run the actuation portion of the relay. The rest of the power is coming straight from the battery. This leads me into the second part. HIDs love high voltage. What I mean by this is that HIDs will last longer if you can keep them at say 13.7 VDC than at 13.0 VDC (due to line losses in the headlight switch, wiring, etc). Using a relay, you will have less wiring between the battery and the HIDs and less switches too. This all helps to keep the voltage as high as possible.

If you want to know more, let me know. I'm sure some of the other members will tell you that I can give you a little lesson in subjects like this.
 

GAINMOB

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6k retro...6k OEM...6k fogs...
retro:
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OEM:
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with fogs:
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tonydiv

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I have 5000k HIDs in lightning / HD style lenses. They are way better than the projector beam headlights that the previous owner installed.
 
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dcarr

dcarr

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i recently installed hid off road lights and love the way they imprrove the light and how clean the light is. they are the 6k. but in being so bright i was curious about how oncoming traffic deals. look great untill i have a civic for a midnight snack lol. is it bad for them or about the same as regular headlights.
 

dougmcp

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The higher the color number you go with, the more light you will lose in wet conditions.
The color that factory cars come with is 4300K. I tried the 5000K and they were too blue for me and went to 4300K which are perfect.
I have 35W 4300K aftermarket HIDs in my car with projector lenses and they are superior to anything else I've tried including the SilverStar Ultras.
Putting HIDs in a reflector housing will create light scatter and not give you the same results as a projector which is what they were designed for.
 

JTKustoms

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im running 10000K in my low beams which are lightning headlights and 20000K in my fogs, the fogs are pretty blue and the lows are a light blue. i got mine on ddmtuning.com for like 50$
 

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sgtowing

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I run 6k xentec for my headlights and love them. Also it is not true about projectors for HID's. My Lexus had factory HID headlights and they were not projectors. It depends on how the reflectors are set up in the headlight. Using a regular bulb the reflectors may be aimed differently from the factory. Not one person has flashed there lights at me since I put the HID's in.

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Thermo

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When it comes to the brightness of HID bulbs, there are more variables here than I care to admit to. The big ones you need to know/figure out is where is the focal point of the light and what is the color of the HID bulb.

The easier question to answer is the color of the bulb. The brightest HID bulb that you can get is a 4300K bulb. Anything away from this temp bulb will not be as bright (assuming same wattage bulb). A typical 4300K bulb outputs 3300 lumen when using a 35W bulb. From there, every step away from 4300 K drops the light output by 200 lumen. (or 8%). The only exception to this rule is the 5000K bulbs as they are really a half step between the 4300K and the 6000K bulbs. So, in short, here are you lumens that you can expect from 35W HID bulbs:
3000K - 3100 lumen
4300K - 3300 lumen
5000K - 3200 lumen
6000K - 3100 lumen
8000K - 2900 lumen
10000K - 2700 lumen
15000K - 2500 lumen
30000K - 2300 lumen

Please keep in mind that a standard halogen bulb only puts out 1200-1300 lumen. So, simply stepping up to HIDs should result in a decent light increase. The big issue with going to the higher color bulbs is that blue/purple light does not project long distances well, especially when you are in adverse conditions. So, you can see a more dramatic light loss if you use the higher temp bulbs.

Now, for the focal point of the bulb. Every lens has a "sweet spot". This is where if you shine a light backwards through the headlight assembly, all the light would meet at this small point. The trick is to get a bulb that has the focal point at the same place as where the bulb produces all its light. This is where all the light will be shined directly in front of the truck. But, you get off by a little bit, light will start hitting the reflector of the headlight assembly (this is true of projector headlghts too) at the wrong angles and it will toss more light off to the sides and down than forwards. This results in massive light loss where you want it the most. The bulb is still outputting all the light, it just isn't going in front of you.

So, this isn't a simple yes/no type of answer when you are trying to figure out if HIDs will work in a headlight housing or not. It may be that you need to space the bulb back say a 1/16" to get the bulb positioned correctly.
 

ELVATO

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I run 6k xentec for my headlights and love them. Also it is not true about projectors for HID's. My Lexus had factory HID headlights and they were not projectors. It depends on how the reflectors are set up in the headlight. Using a regular bulb the reflectors may be aimed differently from the factory. Not one person has flashed there lights at me since I put the HID's in.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

As Thermo mentioned, it's about the focal point, not the aiming. While a few cars did use reflectors for HIDs, a lot of times those bulbs were D2R bulbs, which have part of the capsule coated in anti reflective material.

On the other hand, I do have PnP HIDs in my reflector housings :p I haven't been flashed in a long time.
 
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