SPOautos

If some of you guys are just interested in better lighting why not just get some HID's in the stock pop ups? Herblenny here on the forum has HID's in his pop up's. I believe they mounted pretty easy and they are about 1000000x more bright than the stockers. The only downfall is he lost his high beams, but it doesnt really matter because his normal HID lighting is much better than the stock high beams anyway.

I think it ended up costing him around $400-$500 to convert

Mfanto

I am also very interested... The stock headlights stink, and I even put in a special Piaa Bulb in mine. I don't even drive at night, cause they are so dim.

pianoprodigy

The difference between just swapping bulbs into the stock housings and modifying the housings to hold HID projectors is that there will be an extremely sharp cutoff. In addition, the light will be much more concentrated where it is needed most and won't annoy other drivers. The proposed cost for this thread's conversion is only $650. I, personally, would be more than willing to pay $250 more to have a lighting solution that rivals some of the best lighting on the market rather than using the crappy Mazda housing with HID bulbs. I'm sure the HID bulbs in the stock housings are super bright and a great improvement; however, I would much rather have the sharp cutoff.

J_J

Yeah, the output is very sharp and the light is evenly distributed throughout with this HID system. I already have it on my Civic and the results are impressive.

Take a look at my Civic with an aftermarket HID kit and specially designed bulbs with glare shields.


You can see the beam pattern doesn't look as good as it should. What the pic doesn't show is the uneven light distribution on the road and the glare it emits to oncoming drivers. Keep in mind that I went a step further with the HID kit and designed an underbelly shield to reduce glare as much as I could. A drop-in HID kit will have even worse lighting characteristics because I had modified this system to produce better results. At the end of the day though, it's still an HID kit in a headlight not engineered to harness the extra light ouput properly.

The solution to sharper and more useful light output was to retrofit a set of projectors from a wrecked Audi into my existing headlights. Its much more difficult to install over an aftermarket HID kit, but as with most anything noteworthy, the end result more than makes up for the additional effort.





In the pic below you see my Civic next to a Nissan Maxima. The Maxima has a factory HID system--not a botch job consisting of simply installing an aftermarket HID kit. You can see that the Civic actually produces a sharper beam pattern.

Xeros

Wow you have my attention now. If you show me results like that with the 7 I would be more than happy to buy a set. IMHO the 7s lighting system sucks NUT,you can barely see 7 ft ahead with those damn lights. I also agree that the loss of the shitty hi beam in our cars is no reason not to get something like this seeing as how thats 100000x brighter than my hi beams.

J_J

You still need high beams. Even the best low beam lights can't make up for a high beam. One possible solution is to install a set of driving lights (not fog lights) and have them wired to come on when you flip on your highs.

KaiFD3S

iTrader: (37)

Post some pics of the beam pattern on a 3rd gen if you have any.....

J_J

SPOautos

Hmmm, I dont know. His has a pretty sharp cutoff. Now if it annoys other drivers or not I have no idea, I've never driven face to face with him.

pianoprodigy

Yeah, maybe I'm making it out to be worse than it really is; however, I think you would have to agree (but maybe only could with a side-by-side comparison) that this kit would be better and IMO worth the extra $250.

scotty305

iTrader: (2)

A sharp cutoff will reduce the amount of glare towards oncoming traffic. This is mostly a courtesy, and doesn't have much to do with how well you are illuminating the road.

Improperly aligned "hot spots" on the other hand, are another byproduct of installing brighter bulbs (HID, for example) in a reflector that wasn't designed for them. The intensity of the light projected from the headlight will be inconsistent; it will be brighter in some places and not as bright in others. This is OK if the 'hot spots' are aimed properly, the brighter parts can be used for down-the-road illumination. If not aimed properly, the "hot spots" can light up the foreground too much and make everything else more difficult to see.

A well-engineered reflector (or projector) will have precisely sized and aimed hot-spots, which will illuminate the road evenly and make it easier to see.

-s-

Xeros

Is it possible to make a set up like the Knight sports, kit I believe it was? Where they have 2 lenses in the stock position of the OEM lamp? Where we have a projector and a hi beam? becasue I agree with J_J I have an X5 and its hids are amazing without a doubt, but I also liek the fact that it's hi beams light up everything aroudn the road as well. Higher up and what not, and very very well.

scotty305

iTrader: (2)

I'm guessing that bixenon will be the best option for our car, provided it fits.

Bixenon is the common term for a system with one HID projector that uses a moveable shield to convert it from low to high-beam operation. It's less weight than two seperate projector units, takes up less space, and is the only reliable means I know of to acheive HID high beams. You can find bixenon setups on certain models of Porsche, Mercedes and BMW.


-s-

J_J

A sharp cutoff will reduce the amount of glare towards oncoming traffic. This is mostly a courtesy, and doesn't have much to do with how well you are illuminating the road.

It's a safety issue first and foremost. You need to have a well-defined cutoff when you have HID bulbs present.

First pic is a 94 Civic with an aftermarket HID kit.

Second pic is my Civic with Audi projectors.

Guess which ones annoys the hell out of other drivers on the road.

ROTORhead93

^^ damn good results, tell me when they'll be available and i'll be in line to buy the conversion. Great job J_J.

pianoprodigy

Those pictures excellently illustrate the problem.

Juan

iTrader: (28)

Theres lots of info and good pictures on HID systems here: http://www.intellexual.net/hid.html

J_J, any updates on the lights?

J_J

My car is still down. I've been waiting on a lot of parts coming in...water injection, apex seals, gaskets, etc...

I think my car should be ready by this weekend. It'll take a few days after that to complete the lights.

d0 Luck

so it won't be for sale anymore?

J_J

It's still for sale but I'm not in a rush to sell now that the car I was looking at has sold.

Juan

iTrader: (28)

If you need a test vehicle, I can drop by with my car to see how they look. I'm right around the corner from Rancho.

J_J

Update: I've decided to scrap this project and work on a new, more affordable lighting solution. The time and materials required in producing the lights shown would push the cost north of my original estimate. I understand that FD owners recognize the poor light output from the stock headlamps and desire a low-cost alternative to other products on the market; I will be exploring new alternatives to satisfy these requests.

RE sleek headlights seem to be very popular among FD owners and I am now working to develop a new sleek headlight upgrade for the third-gen market. Greatly increased nightime visibility without creating hazardous glare will be my goal as always in producing a headlight upgrade, and I will also be attempting to keep costs minimal without sacrificing quality.

Juan

iTrader: (28)

Sorry to hear that. This would have been nice since the car keeps its stock looks. I would have preffered the stock look over the sleek lights but sleek lights were on my maybe list of mods for the car.

Riccardo

iTrader: (1)

Yes really sorry to hear it
I do not like sleek headlight kits
I guess I will have to go and get a HID Hi/Low H4 kit and install it on my stock housings

Xeros

Hey do you think you could post some pics of how you did the retro fit into our stock housings? I would like to undertake this personally. I'm sure others on the forum would love to have a go at making them on their own as well. Becasue gettin projectors on Ebay aint that expensive from what I have seen and I could careess if the HID ballast on ebay are cheap. I'm sure if I feel the need I'll go the extra 200 dolar distance and get German made ones. I was just wondering if you could post a small write up on adapting them to the housing and what kind of cuts you made and what materials you used to do so.