Topic: Poor headlight performance

[Critterman]

When I lived in WVA, I had aftermarket fogs (yellow) and I had them angled outward about 4 degrees.  They lit up the sides of the road.  Some wise man told me the froze deer at the side of the road.  Saw it happen a dozen times so I believed it.  Never hit a deer when I had them on.

[ophidia31]

Besides ddmtuning, whats a good place to get hids from?

[Gentleman Jack]

DDMWorks has HID kits?

There are some do it yourself methods. Also, a member of this forum "Cartman" may be able to guide you.  Im not sure if he is a vendor on this forum, but he has posted quite a bit about light conversions.

GJ

[ophidia31]

DDMWorks has HID kits?

There are some do it yourself methods. Also, a member of this forum "Cartman" may be able to guide you.  Im not sure if he is a vendor on this forum, but he has posted quite a bit about light conversions.

GJ

Nope, ddmtuning.com. Anyone on any car forum Ive been on always gets them from these guys. But Ive had a friend have issues with their kits so it kind of turned me off of them.

[Carbon Sky]

The stock projector setup on the Sky is actually pretty good.  However, a 55W halogen/filament bulb can only produce so many lumens.  You can always go with a 35W HID/arc bulb that produces about about as many lumens as a 70-75W halogen would.  If you upgraded the wiring, which was common way back when, you could run "off-road use only" 85W halogens.  For a few years now there have been 55W HIDs that produce literally double the light of the equivalent 55W halogen.  And pretty affordable these days too.  You can get a set for $150ish from a reputable company.  Make sure you stay in the 4000K range.  Once you get 5000K and above, you start losing lumens/light output really quickly.

I got my set from a friend of a friend that's a licensed distributor for a few brands of HIDs, and got a second set of bulbs for free, so I got a 4300K, and a 6000K.  HUGE difference in light output.  

Edit: whoops, typed 4700, not 4300, which is what I am running.

[Uranium-238]

Interesting. I vote we just get a bunch of colored lenses, a good flashlight and a foggy night to see for ourselves what's up.

I notice the side lights the most on the road to my house. Big 90* bend, and the headlights don't do you a bit of good. While the side lights admittedly don't do much, it's better than nothing.

[ophidia31]

The stock projector setup on the Sky is actually pretty good.  However, a 55W halogen/filament bulb can only produce so many lumens.  You can always go with a 35W HID/arc bulb that produces about about as many lumens as a 70-75W halogen would.  If you upgraded the wiring, which was common way back when, you could run "off-road use only" 85W halogens.  For a few years now there have been 55W HIDs that produce literally double the light of the equivalent 55W halogen.  And pretty affordable these days too.  You can get a set for $150ish from a reputable company.  Make sure you stay in the 4000K range.  Once you get 5000K and above, you start losing lumens/light output really quickly.

I got my set from a friend of a friend that's a licensed distributor for a few brands of HIDs, and got a second set of bulbs for free, so I got a 4700K, and a 6000K.  HUGE difference in light output. 

Yes, lumens. Give me lumens. Pretty much set on a 4k or 4.3k bulb. Given the nature of your last sentence, Id assume you have hids in the stock halogen projector, if so, can you snap some pictures and hows the cut off? Is it sharp or kind of diffused?

[TomatoSoup]

I got my set from a friend of a friend that's a licensed distributor for a few brands of HIDs, and got a second set of bulbs for free, so I got a 4700K, and a 6000K.  HUGE difference in light output. 

Huge difference between the 4700K and 6000K bulbs?  Why?

[Carbon Sky]

Huge difference between the 4700K and 6000K bulbs?  Why?

The further away you get from 4300K (pure white), the less light you produce with HID setups.  So given the same wattage, as you go up temp scale (K), you will be producing less and less light.  So those morons with 8K, even 10K type HIDs are actually making less light than a 55W halogen.

That's why my 4300K bulbs are so much brighter than my 6000K bulbs, all from the same company, and on the same ballast.

[Carbon Sky]

Yes, lumens. Give me lumens. Pretty much set on a 4k or 4.3k bulb. Given the nature of your last sentence, Id assume you have hids in the stock halogen projector, if so, can you snap some pictures and hows the cut off? Is it sharp or kind of diffused?

Halogens are around 3900K.  4300K is a nice pure white.  Yes I do.  It's a nice sharp cut off.

I don't have an actual picture right now, but it looks a lot like this:

[ophidia31]

If it looks like that, ill be happy. Right now it looks like urine being sprayed out of my headlights.

[Sol Asylum]

If it looks like that, ill be happy. Right now it looks like urine being sprayed out of my headlights.

Has GJ been to your house recently?

[ophidia31]

No he hasnt, but not even meeting him and just stuff Ive read on this forum, Im not sure Id want that. 

[Critterman]

Your smart, stay with that feeling

[elff]

My Redline lights IMHO have been the best factory headlights i've had in any car.
Where i live, we do not have street lamps, and I can see very far and am totally comfortable and as such have not and will not upgrade them.

[Critterman]

Come on you can't even see over the hood much less what your lights light up

[elff]

My small eyes see better in the dark

[Arabas]

Come on you can't even see over the hood much less what your lights light up

elff and i, we both use a cushion on the butt of our driver's seat, Critter!! this way,we can see everything!!

[Critterman]

Arabas, don't let Elff kid you that cushion is his butt.

Okay I'm done picking on people today, I have had my quota.

[Carbon Sky]

Finally got a chance and remembered to snap a shot.



I literally just turned them on, and they were still coming up to temp, so the colour's a bit weird.  But you can see the cutoff.  The weird shards are reflections off the IS300 to the left.

Here's a lateral shot to give you an idea of what you'd see say up against a wall in a tunnel or something towards the side.  It's a few seconds later, so the bulbs have come up to temp.  The only thing keeping it from being a nice crisp line, are the shadows from the bush in front of the wall.  Between the shadows you can see the distinct cutoff, with the characteristic "colour-shift" that always has a hint of the blue due to the optics, and the shield that gives you that sharp cutoff, and the width/diameter of the bulb's gas/arc chamber.

[ophidia31]

Nice. Ive seen some xenon in halogen projector pictures and they looked like total crap so that had me worried of what they might look like in our lights. From the first picture you posted saying thats similar to what they would be, I took your word and took the plunge and ordered a 4300 kit sunday. It should be here today and a review shortly after. Also like how bright it is off to the sides as well with the lateral picture. These stockers arent anywhere near that.

[Carbon Sky]

Nice. Ive seen some xenon in halogen projector pictures and they looked like total crap so that had me worried of what they might look like in our lights. From the first picture you posted saying thats similar to what they would be, I took your word and took the plunge and ordered a 4300 kit sunday. It should be here today and a review shortly after. Also like how bright it is off to the sides as well with the lateral picture. These stockers arent anywhere near that.

Did you go with 35W or 55W HIDs?  I went with 55W 4300K HIDs from a company called KWD.  That's what you see in the picture.

[ophidia31]

35w kit from xenon depot based on some good forum search results on google. The kit seems to be very well put together..... for a kit for a car that doesnt have a massive hood that opens with the lights attached. All wires protected with that expandble nylon sleeve stuff, epoxy sealed relays the whole nine. Alot of the other kits Ive seen, the relay harness is always an add on and not standard. So, itd be pretty much plug and play for a normal car, but kappas arent normal cars.   Going to extend the power and ground from the relay to the ballast plug and then just catch the headlight wires in the harness running up to the headlight to trigger the relay instead of trying to get that plug into the headlight. That way, only the ballast needs to get mounted to the hood and a final clean look.

[Carbon Sky]

35w kit from xenon depot based on some good forum search results on google. The kit seems to be very well put together..... for a kit for a car that doesnt have a massive hood that opens with the lights attached. All wires protected with that expandble nylon sleeve stuff, epoxy sealed relays the whole nine. Alot of the other kits Ive seen, the relay harness is always an add on and not standard. So, itd be pretty much plug and play for a normal car, but kappas arent normal cars.  Going to extend the power and ground from the relay to the ballast plug and then just catch the headlight wires in the harness running up to the headlight to trigger the relay instead of trying to get that plug into the headlight. That way, only the ballast needs to get mounted to the hood and a final clean look.

My kit was plug and play and my ballasts draw power from the bulb socket.  Almost 3 years later, and no problems.  Did the same on 2 other setups.  Never had an issue.

I simply 3M double sided "mounting" taped the ballast to the underside of the hood.  Used the heavy duty stuff that's grey with the red backing on a roll.  Again, almost 3 years later, and no problems.  Used a few small zipties to organize the wires.  My kit has the same "exapandable nylon sleeve", has what appears to be an aluminum casing, and epoxy sealed as well.

Take some pics while you're at it.  Let us know how it goes.

[ophidia31]

Went into work a few hours early today to get this all done as I didnt feel mlike staying afterwards to do it. Besides the fact that I was itching to get this done didnt help either. 

Turns out everything was long enough to go where I wanted it to. Here is a picture I took of mounting the ballast to the hood. The rest of the wires arent ran as you can tell from the other ballast plug going nowhere.



I forgot to get pictures during the install, but in the harness running down from the headlight housing, the yellow (left) and tan/white (right) wires are your (+) low beam light wires and you can just grab a ground for the other side of the relay coil.  There is the factory ground right at the frame by the black bumper support beams on either side. After that, run the power to the fuse box or battery and youre done. I just tapped the one power from the drivers side into the passenger side and ran a single power wire to the fuse box. Don mind the 30a fuse in each holder. Those are just for the max rating the relay contacts can handle. Being only 35watts, the most the lights will pull is 5amps each and thats with the car not running. With the car running, it would be even less.  But, aside from cleaning up your wires it can take anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours (me, because Im picky about my wires).

Heres one I took after getting done with the right side light and temp hooking up power to the fuse box. Shows the difference between the halogen and then the xenon bulbs. I am pleased with the out come. Also, this is with the hood not all the way closed either so they are pointed down a little bit yet.