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Hid Kit Install


senna_T

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I thought I'd put a post up for discussion regarding HID upgrade kits. Didn't want to start a new thread so I'll chuck it on the back here. I had undertaken some research on all the different offering available on the market and found the information vague in places and also quite scattered. I'll try to make this as generic as I can so it can be applied to all makes of car & kit type. So here we go, HID's FiftyOne style.

As a foreword to this, it is important to note that some setups may in fact violate some ADR or state laws covering modification to your car OR the way in which they system works. As with all things when changing equipment from OEM spec, ensure you do it safely for yourself & others on the road, just because you can do something, doesn't mean you really should. And there's a special name given to dickheads that flout the law & blind people with illegal headlight setups, they're called Dickheads.

First thing to do before anything else is to figure out what bulb type your car has, as well as how many of the sets you wish to replace. For a B & F series vehicle, you can replace hi, low and fog lights. There are also parker lights to consider, but more on them later. There are approximately 20 bulb types for cars, some more common than others, some differ in construction, some are multi hi/lo bulbs which have dual filaments and there are some bulbs that are simply uncommon and a little harder to get. DOUBLE CHECK YOUR BULBS! Most HID kits are purchased online and you won't know until your car is in pieces (as most bulbs require air boxes & batteries to be removed) that connectors & bulbs don't fit! DOUBLE CHECK! I'm talking from experience here, it gets expensive fast and some dealers might not accept returns or if they do you've got to stump up for postage back. Generally you can find info on bulb type in the manufacturers opinion book (the manual) or from a workshop manual. Again, double check this. I've twice replaced kits & didn't get it right, sometimes it just isn't 100% clear so do your homework.

Just to complicate the matter, there are also hi/lo kits (h4 hi/lo being one) which ARE DIFFERENT to a straight H4 bulb. The incandescent H4's have a dual filament which can be seen up-close when inspecting the bulbs. HID's work differently to this. They have a solenoid which drives the bulb in & out of it housing. This changes the amount of light output accompanied with the metallic housing outside of the glass. It is not recommended to modify this metallic housing as it will change the way they were designed to be used & may make it more difficult to see due to the cover making the light more diffuse.

It's also worth a mention that there is a significant difference between regular filament style incandescent bulbs, Xenon, halogen bulbs then to HID's. I would encourage you to do a little research away from this thread as to what those differences. The style of light we are talking about here is a HID style. They have the distinctive addition of the ballast.

One of the draw cards to HID's is the distinctive colour ranges you can choose from. This is mostly up to your own preference and therefore I won't cover this too much. It is important to know that the bulbs generally suit all power output types (more later). *NOTE* some colours will be illegal as well as impeding sight. This is a critical consideration to make. There is no point installing a colour range if it attracts the cops so often the green lights you have keep attracting red & blue ones. It can also be highly distracting to other road users, please refer above notes on dickheads.

It's also important to know the lenses that are equipped from factory have a significant bearing on the final output. HID kits fitted in euro cars, as well as some higher end Australian cars, now often have polished concave lenses. These help to show through the HID 'sparkle'. You might not achieve this if your lenses are old, yellow, micro cracked etc, as well as having the limitation of having frosted lenses to begin with.

Fog light replacement is a more of an issue with bulb size as some of the glass tubes which contain the gas are quite long. There are all in one mini bulb & ballast kits around, however the OEM housing might not accept the bulb. Why you’d want to HID foglights? Well who knows.

- A word about Ballast -

The ballast works to up the voltage & rectify the voltage to create the arc in HID bulbs. Anything that is a direct replacement (halogen, xenon etc) shouldn't be confused with a HID kit. They work on different principals. As most people would be putting an aftermarket kit in, you’ll notice the unusual plugs. Best I can tell for now is that most if not all aftermarket 12v car kits run this style of plug. That allows maximum compatibility with other HID bulbs, I assume this is to an SAE standard? The exception I have recently seen is 24v ballast on an OEM truck and the plug is quite different. If you’re buying all from the one supplier, you’ll more than likely get the same plugs across all your kits.

Anyone remember that Pauls smart milk ad? "Low fat, no fat, full cream, soy, light, skim?" Much the same applies to ballast. There are many different options for use in different applications. Some things to consider are;

-Form factor (physical size)

-Voltage output

-power output

-Fast start

-Quality

Probably the most important thing to know up front is the voltage output. The best to use are full digital, full AC kits. Some will be transformed DC & some will be modified AC, although these are more uncommon. It is at this point worth talking about quality. Some kits are made on the cheap. More than the premium kits originate from Germany or some other first world country. (Phillips & Bosch being brands that come to mind) Labour is one determining factor in building replacement ballast cheaper, but the internal components have probably been looked at & redesigned to be cheaper too.

Do your research as to which supplier has reputable kits. Google it, ask on forums, ask friends. Cheap kits could be prone to failure or may introduce interference to your electrical system. This will show up most as noise on your radio or even cause problems with the sensors getting clean signals to the ECU. This is obviously going to ruin your day when you've potentially got intermittent faults coming up on the ECU. You may as well pay a reasonable amount of money and get something that will be reliable for a long time. Again, speaking from personal experience I had a ballast DOA which then had to be RMA'd. When you've got the front equipment out of the engine bay, putting it all back in with flickering lights & so on is not what you want.

Fast start really refers to the time it takes to ramp the bulbs up to full output. Being a similar design to the Arc lighting used in flood lights in sporting arenas, HID's do take a seconds to get going. Fast start increases the power output for those critical first few seconds getting the bulbs up to full output as soon as possible. There are potential drawback with this, excessive wear of the electric component and also the bulbs themselves. One use for these fast starts would be for high beam applications. Potentially flicking between high & low, you really want your high beam to fire well as soon as you hit the stalk. The other cons to this will be cost, which with the added smaller form factor setups will drive the cost of the units up significantly. It's probably only really necessary to put these fast starters on the high beams, once your lows are on, generally speaking they stay on.

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