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Mini HID Crash Course
Sunday, March 30, 2008 9:04 PM
Okay well I have been lurking around but have not contributed, so I figured I would do a mini how to, and what to know for HID's or Xenon Lamp systems, relays, Kelvin ratings and so forth. Hope this helps.

Okay, here is my car, it may not be your taste but it's clean cut and I like it.



Okay so lets get into it, there's two options. 1. OEM. 2. Plug and play kits.

When looking for HID's there are things to concider.

1. Color or "Kelvin"- Simply put the higher the kelvin the less out put. So 3000 Kelvin used in most fogs have the best output.

2. Lumens- This is the measure of usable light, the more color like blue which strains the eyes, or purple, the less lumens. Anything over 8000k has less lumens than Hologen Bulbs.

3. Projectors- These are optics used to project (Hence the name) the light in an equal pattern on the Road. Reflectors are what all J's come stock with, these will scatter your HID's and look horrible and WILL oncoming blind drivers.

The color band is often what fools people into getting Blue, or 8000Kelvin pr above kits. The color band is a result of the optics and will make the cars OEM lights color shift from white, blue, yellow, purple, ect. while they approach you. This is my guess on where the colored kits got there routes.


Now Let's start with my Fog Lights. They are Blazer Brand Projectors with a 6000K kit, they accept stock 440(I might be off on the light numbers) foglight bulbs if you want to stick with halogen then you can put your stock bulbs right into these projectors.

Here is a picture with just the fogs on and DRL's disabled to preserve the bulb life (See DRL sticky for info on dissabling them). Notice the razor sharp cut off, to not blind traffic, and ofcourse the blue, purple, ect. color band that gives me that classy color flicker, but great white, and usable light on the assphault where it counts, and these are just the fogs alone.

Here is a wall shot


Here is down an alley


Now since Retroing is expensive, I opted to simply Bend the sheilds in my ebay projectors. The mod is just slightly bending them until you achieve less glare and a nice straight or sloped cutoff. They will work just fine. OEM is better, but again if you don't have alot of money theny ou do the best you can right? Right, Moving on.

Here is a headshot of my setup (also ignore the blue Highbeam buld, it has not been used since my HID's went in lol)


Now that we have that covered, ALL KITS!! I mean every kit you will need a relay harness, to aquire one you can make one or just type in "HID RELAY HARNESS" one ebay. These are manditory to preserve stock wiring and not fry anything.

Here is a picture of a kit with Hella projectors wired to a relay, the wires towards the rear are the power and ground.



Here is a simple H3 size bulb comparison to show how kit or rebased bulbs can have screwed up focal points, hence why throwing these in a stock lamp blinds drivers.




Well that is really all, since it is late and this should be enough for you to have a fair understanding, and I won't spoon feed you info. HIDplanet forums are also incredibly knowledgable people for help as well.

Be safe, and remeber, yes you bright lights might be blingin' YO, but there could be children or elderly in other cars. Do you want put them in danger to have blue headlights? Be responcible and always keep other drivers in mind.. not how blue your lights can get.

Hope this was a bit of help to people and answered some questions.

Later,

Cavy610






" Aint nothin' but a Peanut!"

Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Sunday, March 30, 2008 9:11 PM
Sticky? Great rightup, and the pic in the alley is incredible!
Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Sunday, March 30, 2008 9:12 PM
very nice write up. LOVE the fog light shots. amazing output.



Desert Tuners

“When you come across a big kettle of crazy, it’s best not to stir it.”


Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Sunday, March 30, 2008 9:35 PM
Thanks guys, I appreciate it. Glad it helped.

Also I mentioned about a color flicker. Here is my stock low beem. I simply held the camera lower and lower, until it was on the ground this should give you a ball park idea of what I meant when I said an OEM color band and how they can appear all diffrent colors and actually be jsut plain white.

First it apprears blue'ish due to the optics and the where you are in the color band. You can also see the blue hovering around it, I have no tripod but thats the color band as well, just with shaky hands taking a picture I guess haha.


As I near closer to the actual head on shot notice it changed completely to yellowish, this is the color shift this is a shot taken lower to the ground. Now you can see how what I mean buy color flicker if you go over a bump.


And finnally I just set the camera down because I didn't want to blind myself, but yea this is what the ground see's plus some more shaky hand colorband picks, minus the camera's over exposure. All White clean light



Here is your result with DRL's Disabled. I think it looks really nice at night, it's clean glare free and the colors you see here are simply where I am standing in the colorband. Also Have the angel-eyes on and it is a bit over exposed.



This was just a small follow up, sorry for killing bandwidth, but at the same hope this helps, again J's can look really classy with the right HID setup. Good luck on yours.

Cavy610





" Aint nothin' but a Peanut!"
Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Monday, March 31, 2008 8:50 AM
I'm loving this thread. Great job man.



Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Monday, March 31, 2008 9:09 AM
mmmm.... hids mmm..... makes me want to attempt a sunfire retro fit
Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Monday, March 31, 2008 9:21 AM
this is quite possibly one of the best contributions to the org thus far in 2008. i actually understand more now because of this thread... and here i was thinking the higher the K the better the light output. id love to have HID's but with money not being readily available, i just went with Nokya Cosmic white Halogens. the 9006's are 5000K and 80W, i have not upgraded the DRL/high beam as of yet.



1997 Cavalier Z24 - 16.3 in 1320 and falling...
Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Monday, March 31, 2008 9:33 AM
I love the fogs headlights not so much
Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Monday, March 31, 2008 9:42 AM
Thank you for adjusting the reflectors so your not blinding on-coming traffic.

The ally pic is great.
Nice work man, and great write up.
Quote:

this is quite possibly one of the best contributions to the org thus far in 2008

Agreed.



PRND321 Till I DIE
Old Motor: 160whp & 152ft/lbs, 1/4 Mile 15.4 @88.2
M45 + LD9 + 4T40-E, GO GO GO
Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Monday, March 31, 2008 10:56 AM
Question. did you modify the fogs any besides putting the hid kit in? and are they 880 bulbs, the same as the stock fogs?
Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Monday, March 31, 2008 12:22 PM
Those projector fogs are sexy. I gots to get me some




Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Monday, March 31, 2008 12:26 PM
i just ordered some if they look bad on the cav i might do a retro on my pos truck
Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Monday, March 31, 2008 1:12 PM
where can the fog lights be ordered from?? those look nice.... also how big are they?? would they fit in the stock sunfire 00-02 gt bumpers??

Edited 1 time(s). Last edited Monday, March 31, 2008 1:13 PM
Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Monday, March 31, 2008 1:19 PM
fan



Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Monday, March 31, 2008 1:28 PM
Quote:

where can the fog lights be ordered from??


Go to ebay, type in "Projector Driving Light", you will see these and also Blue tinted lense projectors, the guy who sells them is great I live in PA he is down south somewhere, sent them priority and I got them in 3 days. The blue tinted lenses I have not heard bad things, but if you want the best output go clear, the look cleaner and have plenty of color.

Quote:

did you modify the fogs any besides putting the hid kit in? and are they 880 bulbs, the same as the stock fogs?


Sorry for wirting the wrong number, yes these will accept stock J 880 foglight bulbs, and I just plugged mine in, I may do a tweak I learned where you can make the color band bigger with the usage of a rubber spacer. But yes these will plug right up to the stock J headlights.


As for the head lights, they are a bit over the top, but I thought that once piece headlight was a great idea, also the shields are very easy to get to to bend slightly and surprising elliminated all but a bit of glare (nothings perfect).

Also, the Fog Lights are completly out of the box and an HID kit and relay. If oyu want the best and most white lights, 5100k is the kit you want to look for these are clostest to OEM color.


Thanks again for the nice words fella's, glad everything helped you out.

Cavy610



" Aint nothin' but a Peanut!"
Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Monday, March 31, 2008 1:40 PM
my fogs in reflectors looked out of place with my headlights being projectors. they look like they might fit the oval housing
Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Monday, March 31, 2008 1:46 PM
heres mine that show the color flicker

Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Monday, March 31, 2008 1:48 PM
Also here is a link to a set and seller of them on Ebay. So if you were unsure, here is a link just click below.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/CLEAR-PROJECTOR-HALOGEN-FOG-DRIVING-LIGHTS-KIT-EX_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem230237654993QQitemZ230237654993



cavy610



" Aint nothin' but a Peanut!"
Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Monday, March 31, 2008 6:31 PM
DAMN i need at least one headlight so i can start mine


Kill list:03 eclipse, 06 GTO, 04 Mach 1 Mustang


Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Monday, March 31, 2008 7:53 PM
my question lies in the bending of the "shield". which way? how far? best guess? how to tell when you need to go in the other direction? i looked`tonight at how my light is cutoff, and while they're ok, its nowhere near that clean.



JBO Stickers! Get yours today!
Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Monday, March 31, 2008 8:18 PM
Quote:

my question lies in the bending of the "shield". which way? how far? best guess? how to tell when you need to go in the other direction? i looked`tonight at how my light is cutoff, and while they're ok, its nowhere near that clean.


Well for me, I used the stocker H1 Bulbs that came with my head lights. I used an older battery to I could just hook the positive and gorund wire.

Next just find a way to mount both head lights to the best of your ability to mount them even and then usually it's such a slight bend and then you can tap you hot and ground wires to test.

Since they are halogen projectors they will not be perfect, but with them being imperfect you have some give. Just make slight bends in whichever direction on your specific headlights that makes your cutoff nice and crisp.

Also, like with mine you will get a bit more colorband with modding your shields.


Others take metal stock and make there own by tracing and modding the shape.

Hope that helps bro.



" Aint nothin' but a Peanut!"

Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Monday, March 31, 2008 9:53 PM
Cavy610 wrote:Also here is a link to a set and seller of them on Ebay. So if you were unsure, here is a link just click below.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/CLEAR-PROJECTOR-HALOGEN-FOG-DRIVING-LIGHTS-KIT-EX_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem230237654993QQitemZ230237654993



cavy610

uh oh.. i know what Im buying Friday



Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Monday, March 31, 2008 10:29 PM
I have a feeling i'll end up in another jbody bidding war *sigh
Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Tuesday, April 01, 2008 1:55 PM
Cavy610 wrote:
Quote:

my question lies in the bending of the "shield". which way? how far? best guess? how to tell when you need to go in the other direction? i looked`tonight at how my light is cutoff, and while they're ok, its nowhere near that clean.


Well for me, I used the stocker H1 Bulbs that came with my head lights. I used an older battery to I could just hook the positive and gorund wire.

Next just find a way to mount both head lights to the best of your ability to mount them even and then usually it's such a slight bend and then you can tap you hot and ground wires to test.

Since they are halogen projectors they will not be perfect, but with them being imperfect you have some give. Just make slight bends in whichever direction on your specific headlights that makes your cutoff nice and crisp.

Also, like with mine you will get a bit more colorband with modding your shields.


Others take metal stock and make there own by tracing and modding the shape.

Hope that helps bro.


so basically, just mount the headlights, and just keep bending and checking? its been far too long since i looked at the backs of my headlights, but im assuming the projectors are like a two piece type deal? as in you can split the back half off, and just bend the cutoff, without having to go in through the bulb mounting hole.



JBO Stickers! Get yours today!
Re: Mini HID Crash Course
Tuesday, April 01, 2008 6:37 PM
Great thread!! And by the way, I love the Uber clean look of your car and the wheels look great!


Sam
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