Carl Fausett

Brett, its hard to armchair-quarterback this without seeing the car, but it sounds like they were not installed right. My clue is you had to use the high beams as low beams. That will happen if they over-watted the system. Another clue would be if your hi-beam indicator was on all the time. I had a kit I tried before this one do that to my car, and took the kit out.

The HID technology is about 10 years old, but the aftermarket kits have been sort of brutal and primitive before now. It took them a while to make them more compatible, and for me to find one that didn't freak out the Light Master and central Warning Systems.

AO

I had a set of these way back when 928 Specialists offered them (maybe 5 or 6 years ago). They just don't work well with the US H5 headlamps that are meant to diffuse the light rather than focus the beam. People would continually flick their lights at me. They are bright and throw a lot of light, but maybe too much. Might work better if you have the Euro lenses - but I never tried that. Needless to say, after annoying a lot of people with my blindingly bright (not kidding there) headlights, I disconnected them.

Carl Fausett

My bad. 35 Watts per bulb. Not Amps, you are right. I'll have the website corrected. Good catch. Missed that during the final proof-reading.

Yes - like all excited gas systems (ie: Fluorescent lights) the light is not very directional. On new cars you see HID bulbs behind projector lenses for this reason.
So I was very interested to know how controlled and directed the light would be in my 8" H5 Headlamps.

Actually, the lenses did a fair job (as you can see). The lines from light to dark are not as crisp as Halogen was, but crisp enough, and on a par with sealed beam headlights. Drove them past County Sherrif's on several occasions now with no complaints. The biggest issue (as always) is just to make sure you have them aimed right.

Carl Fausett

Its worth mentioning that "your local laws may apply". You may actually have ordinances in place that prohibit these lights in an after-market installation. So, like catalytic converter and EGR pump removal, adjust your shopping to your location and your local laws.

Thank you.

Randy V

Here that 'local ordinance' is the entire state of California.

finally!

Order placed!

tv

For those fortunate to have H4's I do not see how you could cause trouble to on-coming traffic because of the sharp cut-off that the lense provides. I have only seen HID's once in a 928. It was daylight at a Boston gtg (in the shade) and you could notice a diffrence even then as to how they looked. Like new wheels and aero mirrors, updates the 928.

jetrainor

Great looking product....how about LED tail lites next?

Bill Ball

I have had HID in my Euro H4 lamps for about 5 years and have been very happy with them. H4s should not have a problem with blinding oncoming traffic - the beam pattern has a good top demarcation, even with aftermarket HID, and is easy to aim properly (top edge of beam 3" below the lens center height at 25 feet away). However, as Andrew noted, H5s with aftermarket HID will be more diffuse and will lead to complaints from oncoming cars. In theory, if you can get the top edge of the beam 3" below horizontal at 25 feet, it should be OK, but it's hard to do with H5's fuzzy beam pattern.

Also, I'm not sure I understand the comment about these HIDs not freaking out the bulb warning system - it doesn't monitor the headlights.

IcemanG17

you should be fine here in the Republic of Kalifornia.....as I recall they have a maximum wattage for forward lights and the Euro H4's were above this threshold, but the USA H5's were not.....100 watts comes to mind...since the HID's are 35 watts, there is no issue....

The HID lights also allow for much more defined light patterns, like Bill mentions....so it is much brighter where we need to see, without annoying lights up high to anger other drivers...

Speedtoys

Two years to develop...an eBay kit?

Looks exactly what I bought off eBay, just without the ballast labels removed, mine are 70W AC, and the bulbs have high/low beam shields.

And with a couple of diodes to keep the high beam voltage from feeding into the fog lights and causing problems...are installed in by buckets. (the diodes, or what's in the relay box in that kit are what keeps the system sane)

And, 8k is a little purple/ricey IMHO. 6k tops, 5k perfect. Over 5k, your usable lumens fall, plus the human eye loses night vision efficiency going beyond yellow up the spectrum.



I also now have 55W hids in my fog and driving lights, and they are fantastic. 4300k.

Carl Fausett

I may have worded that poorly, Bill.

I had a kit in here last year that turned on the HI-Beam indicator light all the time, on both high and low beams. Because of that, my fog lights would not come on at all. It had some issue with amp draw or cross-wiring, I never spent the time on that kit to find out. It was just removed from the car as "not compatible and not acceptable"

Speedtoys

Actually hid lights in a non hid housing are not us legal.

finally!

Speedtoys: more info, source on the fog/driving HIDs plz!

Speedtoys

Ya, no diode protection between the two sides, that messes up the 1950s era wiring in the 928.

I'll edit my stuff...yer right.