fastfalcon94

iTrader: (3)

The HID lights I made in this thread are still sitting on a shelf right now. I've been running my other non-modified set of Sonar headlights with Phillips X-treme vision halogen bulbs. Honestly the light output with this is leaps and bounds better than the oem headlights. I'd be 100% happy with them, but the thing that drives me nuts is that Sonar headlights (before being retrofitted with HIDs obviously) are meant for RHD cars. So the light pattern angles the wrong way. Still I ran it all summer (about 1000 miles) and no one flashed their lights.

So my conclusion...

- Stock headlights suck and are unsafe to use

- The best "bang for the buck" upgrade is just the sonar housings (about $80) and Phillips X-treme halogen lights (about $25). However the beam pattern is oriented for RHD cars.

- HIDs are superior for the best light output, but the cutoff line is going to shake. If you are looking at the road sine or car in front of you it will have an almost strobe light effect. Things like stiff suspension, crappy roads, big v8 engines that vibrate more, worn/incorrectly set pop-up headlight bushings make it worse. Still it can't be perfect as even the factory headlight bucket (like the metal part welded to the frame and radiator support that the pop up bolts to) will flex. This is true for my HID retrofit anyways. I did PM a few people who had SBG's headlights Only 1 person got back to me though and he said his behaved the same. To be fair my vr4 has HIDs and since messing around with the rx7 I noticed it will shake slightly on road signs. However the vr4 has fixed headlight housings so it's not as bad. You really have to be looking for it and focused on the sign ahead of time to see it. With the Rx7 it would grab my attention whether I was looking for it or not. Maybe next summer I'll give the HIDs another go to see if I can zone them out. Or I'd sell them for what I have into them parts wise if anyone is interested.

SakeBomb Garage

iTrader: (17)

No offense meant at all... but a quick critique:
A) RHD lights on LHD roads do blind people, they're less bad with halogen bulbs... but the beam pattern out of these halogens is terrible when compared to a proper HID retrofit, or even a good quality H4 reflector.
B) If you even considered a H4 reflector after having a HID projector setup in your car... something went wrong. The optics, quality, alignment... something was wrong here, because I could literally never go backwards from our SBG setup.... we've been running them for 8 years now in every FD. We get emails weekly from customers saying they'd never remove them, and customers that crash their cars looking for replacement parts or a second set for a new FD they just bought. Something isn't right if you pulled them out.
C) You should have 5-6 lane widths of good coverage on the highway and even beam pattern from foreground to cutoff... if you don't something is lacking in the optics, components, aiming, or something else... there's no comparison to stock, and next to a Mercedes the lights output from our kit looks bang on equivalant. 4K to 1080p... vhs to DVD or even blue ray... it should be a massive jump in performance where you'd really be quite sad moving backwards.

Billy7

iTrader: (7)

I took a half hour clip from my dash cam on my way to autocross this weekend, not sure if this can help you see light output and if there's any "shaking".


My favorite lights so far!

Supernaut

iTrader: (83)

To people with shaking issues, it might be a good idea to change the springs on the headlight assembly. I also had this issue. I'm not sure if you can completely rectify the situation because let's face it, FDs aren't luxury cars but it helped quite a bit. As bad as my spring situation was, it never produced a strobe light effect. It may seem that way to other people in front of you who are right on the cutoff of the light though.

fastfalcon94

iTrader: (3)

Maybe I'll toss my HIDS back in this weekend and make a video. I watched some of the video above but it was difficult to see I think because it' wasn't too dark out and there were a lot of street lights. I didn't replace my springs, but I made sure all the stoppers were tight.

eslai

The one thing I notice from that video is the lack of the self-leveling system. This is the one reason I never move towards installing HIDs in cars that didn't come with them. Sexy beam pattern, but that cutoff line going up and down on the road would drive me a bit nuts, not to mention how it can dazzle folks in front of you.

Supernaut

iTrader: (83)

If the car in front is right where the cutoff is, they should be far away enough where it isn't too big of a deal, assuming there are other light sources around like on a highway.

eslai

Perhaps, but you can always tell the guys that have the aftermarket HIDs on their cars at night--you can see their lights bouncing around.

SakeBomb Garage

iTrader: (17)

The lack of a self leveling system has zero to do with HID's... many cars with HID's do not have self leveling (which is a feature, not a requirement). Check out the Honda S2000 and many other cars with HID projectors and no self leveling. With a properly aimed HID setup self leveling is not needed. Self leveling isn't even needed on cars with stiff suspension... it comes into play more so when you have lots of nose dive or squat with soft stock springs in a luxury car. It's a nice feature, but it's far from "needed".

Second, if they're dazzling other drivers... they're aimed wrong. The top of your cutoff should always be below the line of sight of other drivers, and I'd recommend no higher than the bottom of the lowest cars windshield. The cutoff bouncing is no reason to not have safe lights on the road, but the bouncing is caused by bad bushings in the headlight lifting mechanism (you can get new plastic bushings).

eslai

A quick run through the Google seems to corroborate this, and I'm happy to be schooled. Wikipedia has some good info on the subject.

Looks like it was more of a requirement in Europe than the US, and that's probably why I'm so used to seeing the systems on nearly every OEM HID system on the market. The mindset that "you have to have self-leveling to be legal" seems to be pervasive on forums too. HID retrofit kits are pretty much illegal all around in the US, and I always assumed it was due in part to the missing self-leveling.

Anyhow, the bouncing without self-leveling is more obvious when you have that horizontal cut-off line on the beam pattern. Every car I've ever seen with aftermarket HIDs (and most of these of course had coilovers or some other such stiff suspension setup), the bouncyness of the beam was annoying to me and to others viewing the car in rear-view. I understand what you mean about pointing the beams properly though, that would cut down on the annoying-others factor at least, leaving the beam cutoff movement to be just a personal irk.

Not to dog your product--were I in the market for better lighting for my RX-7, yours would be the only product I would consider. I have other things I have to do first, but maybe in a couple years. Dude, if you could come up with a self-leveling system during that time, I would make it rain!

Monkman33

iTrader: (28)

After doing a lot of research on this topic (reading through about half of the state laws regarding retrofits), the legality is not just HID retrofits in general. It has to do with HID retrofits in projector housings. Those are illegal because they cause blinding lights to other drivers. If the swap is done using proper projectors and are built to DOT standards, then there is nothing illegal.

Zepticon

iTrader: (1)

Im from Europe and i can confirm that we need a lot of bells and whistles on the HID for it to be legal. But with the OEM headlights on this car, ill take that risk gladly. Its a $480 fine for being stopped with HIDs if you dont have self leveling and washers.
But, the EU version of the RX had both washers, and an electrical leveling system in the car, its just not automatic. So it should be possible to bluff my way out of it

SakeBomb Garage

iTrader: (17)

This is in relation to *drop in * HID's which DO blind drivers. I'm not sure what the authorities would be looking for if they pulled you over however these are built to DOT / TUV standards, but obviously are not TUV / DOT approved. That said I've never heard of anyone being pulled over with our headlights as they behave identically to all other legal HID projector lights. We've sold quite a few of these over the years, all over the world... I've never heard of anyone having a legal issue with them and they've passed headlight inspection checks here in the US with flying colors.

Zepticon

iTrader: (1)

Here in Norway, the rules are nuts. For HID to be legal, the car needs the following:
- Self leveling
- Headlight washers
- E-marked lights

If you have an aftermarket system, you need to document the above. That means a TUV paper saying that this specific light will work with that specific car. Typical aftermarket systems with ballasts like the Morimoto and yours, get a ticket by default sine its not "OEM" and thus not approved for the car. This is also checked on the tests we need to do every other year. They dont care a second if its a good or bad product, all they look at is the paper. They simply dont have the required training to determine anything themselves, and there is no political will to allow this. Cars are not a priority here, except a means of transportation. You can get garbage coilovers that cost $300 approved if they have TÜV, but if i had KW or any similar brand build me a custom $5000 set, it would not be approved due to the lack of TÜV.

But Norway is like that. You need documentation for everything
So there is this constant struggle to mod, but to keep it looking OEM to avoid trouble.

The good thing about the FD is that the headlights are made in such a way that you cant see any parts of the light except the front and glass, and then its not that obvious that this is not OEM.

Note: This is for NORWAY only, and maybe Denmark and Germany. The other EU countries have a much much much much more relaxed view on car mods.

SakeBomb Garage

iTrader: (17)

You know, BMW and other OEMs fix this "bouncing" problem by taking the bulb out of phase/focus with the lens to essentially blur the cutoff line. A blurred cutoff line will not look like the strobe / jumping that you're describing... you can do this by adding a spacer between the bulb and the projector.

7_rocket

iTrader: (6)

Sakebomb uses E55-R? My very first retro I did the FX-35. Wondering how the rx350 will fit.

turboIIrotary

iTrader: (9)

Yep they are e55-r. Rx350 bixenon fit fine.

fastfalcon94

iTrader: (3)

I tried to research more into this by searching for "hid bouncing spacer" on google but I couldn't find anyone else mentioning this. All I seemed to find was generic spacer adapters meant for bulbs that didn't fit properly in the right housings.I've still been running my crystal headlights with phillips super bright headlights. The only thing I don't like about this setup is the crystal headlights are setup for RHD cars so by beam pattern isn't ideal for US roads. I haven't gone back to my hids yet. Do you think just adding an o-ring to pull the bulb back say 1/8" would be a good start.

The other thing I've been thinking of trying is LED bulbs.

turboIIrotary

iTrader: (9)

There is no such thing. Shifting the bulb will only make the hotpot of the beam move which you dont want to do. OEM manufactures use Fresnel lenses on the projectors to create a soft cutoff line. For a reflector housing it is built into the lens.