bally89

Guys,

Quick question - really wanna get these lights in the next couple months.

I know that Re-A offer their own HID kit on top of the H11 light kit...but it costs a lot of money. Is there any great downside to just purchasing the normal H11 kit and then getting an aftermarket H11 HID conversion kit, from a decent source, for a fraction of the price?

Any responses greatly appreciated.

Bally

unreal-icarus

iTrader: (1)

you could get hella hids, but those are also very expensive. And be prepared that nothing will fit ... i ended up building everything myself, and this was very!!!! time consuming. have a look at the evo-r hid kit.

GodSquadMandrake

If you're asking about generic chinese HID ballasts and bulbs, yes they are pretty good. Not anywhere near the quality of Hella or Phillips, but they work. I had 6 hid lights on my last car and they were all from ddmtuning.com. 55w kits making 5,000 lumens, very bright. I had (2) pairs of 5k for the headlights and driving lights, and the fogs were 3k. So 6 bulbs total. DDMTuning.com sells the generic kits from China (Taiwan actually) but they are probably the same ones you get when you buy from almost any reseller. The casing for the ballast always looks the same, they just change the paint or stickers on the casing. They make 2 main types:

Digital slim ballast
Raptor ballast

The digital slim has little heat sink fins on it and is only 1/4" thick. The ignitor for the HID bulb is built into the power wire for the bulb.

The raptor ballast is much bigger, probably 1 1/2" thick. But the ignitor is built into the ballast. I've used both and I think that the shorter the distance that the 23,000 volt spark has to travel, the more quickly and brightly the bulb ignites. After the ignition they seem to have he same operation. With Hella the ignitor is the bulb base so ignition is instant.

GodSquadMandrake

About the H11. It's not ideal because you only have on/off. It's better to have high/low beam too. Especially with HID the aiming is important to prevent glare to other drivers.

About mounting: The ballasts are sensitive to vibration so it's best to avoid mounting them directly on the frame. I used double sided foam tape because it's squishy and mounted them on some plastic pieces so the vibration was minimal. For the fogs I mounted them on the bumper bar with the same tape, but they had more problems with the vibration. Sometimes hitting bumps and things I would get a little flicker. So just be aware that vibration will shorten the life expectancy quite a bit.

Another thing that effects longevity is the amount of ignitions you do. The bulb is only rated for a finite amount of times it can be turned on and off. Because each time you do, that flash consumes some of the gas inside the bulb. So it's best to leave them just turned on, or off. Using these as day time running lights kills them really quick, like a year or too. Especially when I've seen the DRL circuit connected to the handbrake so every time you set the brake they turn off and then back on. So every time you go through the McDonalds drive-thru you could go through 10 ignitions.

David Hayes

iTrader: (6)

The biggest issue with this kit is it does not have proper cutoff and you will blind oncoming traffic with the HID retrofit. HID IS NOT meant to be put into reflector style housing which these are. So, not matter what you do with a retrofit kit it will not be a) legal, and b) it will be blinding to oncoming cars.

The only way to do this properly is to have a projector style housing that is meant for HID. As such, it will have a proper cutoff so you won't cause an issue for other cars.

godsquadmandrake is correct abut the cycling of turning on and off the lights. It takes a lot of power to ignite hids and you don't want to have the go on and off frequently. That is why it is a good idea to leave the low beams on when you activate the highs and you can do this with a relay.

I don't have experience with the lesser quality ballast units regarding vibration. I use all Hella products and this is not an issue. Let's face it, with an RX7 you are going to have a pretty stiff suspension hence ride, so vibration is going to occur no matter what you do. So, I say go with the good stuff and you'll be fine.

Finally, that's a pretty steep price ($1,600) to pay for a non-HID, non-projector style light kit. I'd find something else that will look good and actually give you good lighting. That's the point of lighting right, to allow you to see?

Check out superdan's thread on the sleek lighting kit he is making. It uses Hella projector beams and is available in HID if you want it. I expect though the projector style halogen units to be 3X better than stock and the kit will be a good value too.

purerx7

iTrader: (61)

The HIDs are made by IPF, one of the most well respected companies in Japan, however you are paying a huge premium that is not justified. You are better off with some Phillips HIDs

David Hayes

iTrader: (6)

Doesn't matter who makes them. You can't retrofit a HID bulb into a reflector housing and expect it won't blind oncoming traffic. Nor will it meet legal code either. I see where the IPF units come with a shield which will help but I stand by my statement about putting these into reflector housings.

Monkman33

iTrader: (28)

+1^^^

Nothing bugs me more than some dingbat driving around with lights that are basically on high beams all the time due to poor/zero cutoff, it's just inconsiderate to other drivers.

GodSquadMandrake

Sorry guys, I misunderstood these housings. I thought these had a proper cut off since there was the HID option from RE-Amemiya. But yes I agree the proper cutoff is critical with HID because they are so much brighter.

Sounds like this is a case of RE-A is too expensive to be worth it... They do make some good cars if you have the money though.

GodSquadMandrake

I suppose I should mention that I found a 120w HID kit made by Phillips at Autobacs in Japan. It said it was for racing use only and put out an amazing amount of lumens. I've never since seen an HID ballast so powerful. I think it was something like 12,000 lumens. The regular 35w kits are 3,500 lumens and even the 55w kits are only 5,000 lumens. This kit was just amazing. They had it hooked up on display so you could push the button and watch it ignite.

bally89

Thanks to everyone for the fantastic responses, very good info! For me, I have been looking into a sleek light conversion for a while and everything I have read has pointed to the Re-A kit being the best for fitment/light etc...obviously there are serious drawbacks when it comes to the HID side of things.

So am I right in thinking, that even if you take the HID option from Re-A themselves, that it comes with the same housings and therefore has the same issues? If so that is bloody rubbish!

Is this also an issue for the Evo-R HID kit?

I was thinking of getting this Re-A kit, running the normal IPF halogens for a while and then eventually retro-fitting Philips 6000ks to it...looks like thats out of the window!

David Hayes

iTrader: (6)

Yes, I think you are correct that it would come with the same housings and a pair of H11 retrofit HID bulbs which is a big no no for proper lighting. From the depth of the housings I can't see how they would fit in a projector unit.

The Evo-R kit uses a set of very inexpensive projector units. I have personally seen the light output from these units and it is very poor. I also think the quality of the kit is also not up to par. Whenever I ask the Evo-R guy questions about the type of light or ask him to post up pics of the lights and cutoff, he NEVER responds which is very telling. He also was going to produce a sleepy eye kit and he screwed someone on the one prototype that he did make (took months for the guy to get his money back) so I'll let you figure out if you want to do business with him.

If I were going to get a sleek kit, I'd get the following:

https://www.rx7club.com/group-buy-product-dev-fd-rx-7-269/new-sleek-kit-839491/

I have worked with superdan to help him source the Hella projector modules he's using in the kit. These lights will be great with the halogen option and the HID will be outstanding and also proper and legal.

purerx7

iTrader: (61)

Don't forget if you get the re-a units you will need to cut the frame.

RX7Fanatic04

Are you saying the EVO-R is a better fit than the Re-amemiya?

Wantanotherseven

iTrader: (1)

I've ordered several kits from ddmtuning for my motorcycle and cars and I highly recommend them. Bright as hell at a very wry cheap cost

RX7Fanatic04

Has anyone ever fitted any of these headlight kits to their FD? If so how did they work out for you...

http://www.rx7boutique.com/headlight.html