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View Full Version : HID help please....(shopping)



oogy-boogy
06-23-2004, 12:41 PM
Well, I recently purchased some Sylvania Xenarc fogs and want some matching HID headlights. The fogs are at 4100k which from my understanding is very close to white / oem. I'm not schooled on brands and such and was hoping someone can give me some pointers. Upon glancing for the same "K" on Ebay I found these:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7906129648

Good? Bad? Mediocre?

Thanks in advance! :m:

fsugatorbait
06-23-2004, 01:35 PM
Those look pretty good. Id say go for it, cant beat the price.

Civicvtec1ps
06-23-2004, 03:44 PM
I am looking at 4300k Xenondepot low beam HID conversion..

Price seems very nice.
Please write some reviews once you get it.
I am very interested to see some results.

Many members using McCullouch kit and they seems to work nicely.

kpg111
06-24-2004, 05:51 AM
I've heard that McCullouch HID kits are of good quality. Let us know and post some pics after you installed them.

Go for it.

SF-SI-02
06-24-2004, 11:16 AM
Oogy, I advised for the sylvanias, but those lights you are looking at on e-bay suck. Here's why: To begin with, they have taken an HID bulb and glued it to a plastic base in order to fit our h4 housing. This is not the end of the world, but if you look around (the best place to read up is hidforum.com) you will find that at the very high temperatures at which HID operates, the glue comes undone, or boils, or the plastic base they have made simply melts. What do you do when the bulbs included break/melt? Good luck finding rebased HID bulbs for an h4 application that will plug and play into your hid retrofit. Ok, if you are still reading, then you have the very large glare factor, those bulbs do not have a reflector shield. A very popular way of getting around this is to buy the aluminum casper shield from casper electronics (the same guys that make our o2 sim's), they have a piece of metal which (a) allows you to put any standard hid bulb into an h4 application, and (b) includes a glare shield (= won't get pulled over). Now if you decide to go with the casper shields (about $60 for two) then you don't need to buy any of these aftermarket kits, which frankly, seeing how they the majority are assembled in taiwan are POS in my opinion. Instead, you can buy ANY d2S bulb and ballast on e-bay. If you type d2s and ballast, you will find a bunch of people selling hella, bosche,phillips ballast alongside phillips uintron (the BEST bulbs only availabe in 4100K) bulbs for the around the same price as the kit you indicated in your thread. Finally, I think you should know that if you plan on going HID at all with the ep, you had better get a good harness, because the existing harness is rather weak and any voltage spikes can fry the ballast, which is the most expensive part to replace. OK, this is a mouthful, I hope it works out for you. I am holding out to (eventually) go bi-xenon projector, because I don't want to lose hi beams, and HID projectors offer 0 glare, I don't know, I just relly like a nice cmooth light cutoff, which is impossible to do with reflectors (though lexus comes pretty damn close).

Best

raiyo
06-24-2004, 11:23 AM
Finally, I think you should know that if you plan on going HID at all with the ep, you had better get a good harness, because the existing harness is rather weak and any voltage spikes can fry the ballast,

Which harness are you talking about?

SF-SI-02
06-24-2004, 11:40 AM
The harness that comes stock... look at k-series.com writeup and the very noticeable difference when you install a heavy duty harness. I bought mine from suvlights.com but I am sure you can find them elsewhere. I have the harness and run 90w/100w philips ralley bulbs, not quite hid but definetly much brighter than stock.

But a heavy duty harness is good investment if yo uput in HID, because it provides a direct source of power from the battery to the ballast, as opposed to going through the rest of the car's electrical system first, so it is less prone to spikes which could fry a ballast. Again, tons of info about this at hidforum.com

oogy-boogy
06-24-2004, 12:36 PM
Oogy, I advised for the sylvanias, but those lights you are looking at on e-bay suck. Here's why: To begin with, they have taken an HID bulb and glued it to a plastic base in order to fit our h4 housing. This is not the end of the world, but if you look around (the best place to read up is hidforum.com) you will find that at the very high temperatures at which HID operates, the glue comes undone, or boils, or the plastic base they have made simply melts. What do you do when the bulbs included break/melt? Good luck finding rebased HID bulbs for an h4 application that will plug and play into your hid retrofit. Ok, if you are still reading, then you have the very large glare factor, those bulbs do not have a reflector shield. A very popular way of getting around this is to buy the aluminum casper shield from casper electronics (the same guys that make our o2 sim's), they have a piece of metal which (a) allows you to put any standard hid bulb into an h4 application, and (b) includes a glare shield (= won't get pulled over). Now if you decide to go with the casper shields (about $60 for two) then you don't need to buy any of these aftermarket kits, which frankly, seeing how they the majority are assembled in taiwan are POS in my opinion. Instead, you can buy ANY d2S bulb and ballast on e-bay. If you type d2s and ballast, you will find a bunch of people selling hella, bosche,phillips ballast alongside phillips uintron (the BEST bulbs only availabe in 4100K) bulbs for the around the same price as the kit you indicated in your thread. Finally, I think you should know that if you plan on going HID at all with the ep, you had better get a good harness, because the existing harness is rather weak and any voltage spikes can fry the ballast, which is the most expensive part to replace. OK, this is a mouthful, I hope it works out for you. I am holding out to (eventually) go bi-xenon projector, because I don't want to lose hi beams, and HID projectors offer 0 glare, I don't know, I just relly like a nice cmooth light cutoff, which is impossible to do with reflectors (though lexus comes pretty damn close).

Best


Awesome post....

Thanks again for all the help :)

Civicvtec1ps
06-24-2004, 09:03 PM
SF-SI-02

How would you compare xenondepot low beam HID kit with McCullouch kit?

oogy-boogy
06-24-2004, 09:39 PM
Oogy, I advised for the sylvanias, but those lights you are looking at on e-bay suck. ........ I am holding out to (eventually) go bi-xenon projector, because I don't want to lose hi beams, and HID projectors offer 0 glare......

Any idea where I can get the low/hi's?

raiyo
06-24-2004, 11:19 PM
anyone know where Type-X's DIY HID kit is at?

Done so much reading tonight. Oogy, when you get your kit, make sure u get/make a shield. It will help reduce glare. Also, if u paint it black, it will reduce even more. Make sure u use high heat flat black paint. I'll give u more details when you want em.

Civicvtec1ps
06-24-2004, 11:40 PM
anyone know where Type-X's DIY HID kit is at?

Done so much reading tonight. Oogy, when you get your kit, make sure u get/make a shield. It will help reduce glare. Also, if u paint it black, it will reduce even more. Make sure u use high heat flat black paint. I'll give u more details when you want em.
LOL me 2.

I emailed xenondepot for asking DIY for typex's 5k hi/low setup.

Civicvtec1ps
06-25-2004, 07:25 AM
Hello,

Thank-you for contacting XenonDepot.

As per your email:

1) The H4 kit is plug +play. This is a low beam only kit meaning that you
will lose your high beam functionality. We no longer sell a high/low
conversion kit as we have found that the high/low mechanisms give out way to
easily.

2) The kit does come with a glare shield!

Steve.

They didn't send me link for DIY.
But it can't be any more than just simple wiring job.

fsugatorbait
06-25-2004, 07:55 AM
Its a very simple plug and play job, no splicing should be required. It'll all make sense when you staring at it how its supposed to go together.

raiyo
06-25-2004, 09:21 AM
2) The kit does come with a glare shield!


WONDERFUL! Save me some bucks on buying one. Did u tell them u was a member on the hatch or just some misc person asking bout stuff? I'll be buying mines next month, hopefully.......

SF-SI-02
06-25-2004, 09:25 AM
depot uses philips ballast, which are better than any made in taiwan. I think that is a noce package if you don't know how to wire anything together. If you know how to splice a wire, then buy the casper shields from HERE (http://www.casperselectronics.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=103016&Category_Code=)

and buy the real oem stuff on e-bay (hella/phillips and phillips bulb), i.e. HERE (http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7906682570&category=36476)

It is cheaer, and you know you are getting high quality goods. This will not give you hi loow though. I wrote earlier that the hi low kits for sale are mostly trash, because the solenoid which moves the bulb tends to break. If you insist on a hi low kit, then I would either buy a JDM HID headlights (there are 3 on e-bay right now), or, there are some people that can do professional retrofits for you (search on google), you supply the headlight and the HID stuff you want to go in, and they assemble it for you. The best hi/low HID technology is the bi-xenon projector, which I highly recommend, though all the HID parts alone usually cost about $350 on e-bay, plus you have to manhandle your headlights to get it all to fit in....

Hope this helps!

jbone98gt
06-25-2004, 05:31 PM
Check some salvage yards for cars that have hids and use those ballast and get the bulbs, Hella is what all the big car manuf. use such as BMW,AUDI etc. If you can get your hands on Acura (Panasonic/Matsushita) ballast and ignitors they are even better than hella acording to HIDFORUM.COM, as far as a OEM bulbs fitting and H4 you can get caspershields that get rid of alot of glare and make a d2s bulbs fit the H4 socket. Hope this helps

halos02Si
06-28-2004, 09:26 PM
I got my McCulloch HIDs on ebay from "ultrabrightlightz"
had them for about 3 months now and they look and are performing great...very easy and quick install.

auction (http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7908113539&category=36476)

ultra bright lights (http://www.ultrabrightlights.com)

good luck with your search for new lights.

-breandly