rickashay
New member
The 55w 10000k kit will be so blue, that it's purple. If you must, go with a 55w ballast and a 5000k bulb for a tint of blue. (Thats assuming the company that makes the bulbs produces them to a somewhat normal standard in colour temperature.)
First I am going to clarify a few things:
BEAMS: The reason most people run auxiliary lighting is to achieve an extremely good "spot" type beam pattern (a beam that is narrow but reaches FAR - highway), "flood" (a beam that is WIDE and doesn't reach very far - offroad), "fog" (more to do with a more yellow bulb/light colour that wont be so strong that it bounces off of the fog or snow ahead of you and reflects back at the driver. The lower brightness and yellow light penetrate fog/snow better - the beam is usually similar to that of a "flood")
Projector vs. Halogen headlights: In a halogen reflector headlight (our 4Runners), the "cutoff"- abeit very weak, is produced by those crazy angles in the reflector bowl. The halogen light is bounced around the headlight bowl and produces a cutoff when it is emitted from the headlight. Projectors on the other hand, are self contained. You cannot simply buy projector lenses to create a cutoff. A specific HID bulb, mainly D2S, is inserted in the rear of a small chrome bowl. At the front of this bowl is a shield that forms the actual "cutoff", determining its shape. The cutoff shield itself is attached to a solenoid that flips the shield up, infront of the bowl, on low beam. The solenoid pulls the shield down and out of the way on hi beam. (This is in a "Bi-Xenon" projector) A projector lens (that clear bubble shaped piece of glass is then attached infront of the shield. The whole unit is cased as one solid piece. The half-moon shape of the projector lens, takes the light passing through it and converges it at a distance away from the headlight. (or, it focuses the light.)
Projector Retrofits: physically taking a projector unit or assembly and mounting it inside of the reflector bowl of a halogen reflector headlight.
Yes, you could technically put these inside a Aux. light but if your going to do that, you might as well do it to your headlights as it will be the same process. You cannot mount most projectors on their own as they are not meant to endure weather. With the exception of TRS "Blazer Fogs" - an HID standalone projector used for fog light purposes only. Most people still retrofit this fog light projector into their factory fog lights to avoid wrecking the projector lenses. (rocks will damage the class)
I used to have normal HID bulbs in my Hella 500 aux. lights. I did not use them as a high beam because they were WAAAAYYYY too bright and would ruin anyones eyes who dared look at them. (even if a car came around a corner and saw them JUST as I was turning them off) I would use them only LATE at night in the mountain when there was no other traffic (they would literally light up the night), or offroad. Of course, this also has a lot to do with how they are aimed, but again, they DO scatter light even when aimed properly and WILL blind other drivers. Another thing to keep in mind when running HID's in aux. lighting for your hi-beams: you will constantly be switching the lights on and off and that is terrible for an HID ballast. It is meant to be turned on, warmed up to full operating temp, and stay on for prolonged period of time. Flicking them on-off-on in a hi-beam situation will ruin ballasts very quickly.
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