Alan,
BTW, look all the way thru that thread as there are photos of the H4s (HID vs Halogen) shining on carboard on the 3rd page ( I think)

 

OK, OK, I'll try to document before/installation/after.

I've always thought that a lot of the ads (lots of examples on eBay) for HIDs (or other enhanced lighting systems) left a lot to be desired. Before/after photos of beam patterns and brightness probably need to be pretty carefully controlled. For example, you probably don't want to let the camera decide on aperture and shutter speed if you're trying to do a fair comparison, or the camera will just auto-adjust to make the brightness about the same! DR had the right idea by taking a photo with one HID and one halogen side by side.

If I can pick up a cheap light meter somewhere that doesn't bias the results based on color temperature, I might give that a try, too.

 

>If I can pick up a cheap light meter somewhere that doesn't bias the results based on color temperature, I might give that a try, too.

Hey, I've got one of those here in my old lighting stuff somewhere, thanks for reminding me!!!

 

I'm guessing there will be some good empirical data published shortly.
Glenn

 

Dave, thanks for responding for me, I would not have been able to say anything near that quality of description!

 

Hi Dave... All..

Just to add a little onfo to the thread...

I replaced my 7" sealed beams with the silvania silver star I think... They were the brigthest white/blue ones anyway. they burned out after two drives... I think they were rumored to be sensitive to shock escpecially while hot so if you retract you lights rigth after turning the car off the shcok blows them... I drove home with the brights on and then they were gone too ...

Kragen woud not refund my money but sylvania would because they have had so many complaints...

I went back to the original sealed beams from sylvania and they work fine.. though i will eventually like to get HID...

Sylvania admits that the lifetime of the silver star and other non std lights is shorter... and the book at kragen reccoments these light sfor 928 944 etc...

Maybe they would be a OK for a fixed light setup... oh yeah and I paid 11 each for the cheap dim OEM style... and 25 each for the silver stars...

How much are the H4 8" lights ... what all is needed? I would need these to do dave's upgrade right???

LO

 

Loren,
$500 for a pair, then add the HID's - not cheap... but good!

Alan

 

Hi Lo,

You can also install the less expensive 7" H4 Headlight assemblies (even the Ebay Diamond cut $12.99 assemblies) and use our Standard H4 HID kit for $299. I do not recommend our H4 BI-Xenon HID Kits with the 7" because the high beam effect doesn't work at all as far as usable additional light high beams due to the smaller reflector and shallower depth. The Low beam HID in a 7" still works great, but the cost difference of $449 for our BI-Xenon HID vs $299 for the Standard H4 HID is not worth it.

Just so it is clear, I modify all of our HID kits so the HID stays on even on High Beam (most HID kits are low beam only) AND so it doesn't make the High beam indicator in the instrument cluster stay on all the time (like most other kits on the market).

 

Polar Blue S4 with HID

This is a car that had HID fitted at some considerable cost. This pic is rather low resolution, the original looks much more impressive. This is a Japanese import (to the UK) with LHD, at the time I think it had about 30k on the clock, and it looked absolutely gorgeous.

 

For anyone who may have missed it and is interested, the HID installation write-up I promised in message #17 of this thread has been available since 20-Aug-2005. See thread "H4 HID Conversion Kit Installed; Writeup Now Available".