Hid Lights and housing

[blkexp98]

Ive been trying to review through the HID threads and have found somewhat mixed reviews. Generally its an improvement but the housing type makes a sharpness difference from that ive gathered. Basically the aftermarket housings are a little more involved in getting the beam pattern right and are a lower quality for lack of a better term at the moment . The older reflector style housings dont give as good of a beam pattern as the projectors but that doesnt seem to be too big of an issue.

I am having trouble deciding on a certain temperature to use for the lights when i do the upgrade. Most of the pictures ive seen have been scattered in other threads . Is there any way i could have those of you who have done this modification post a picture in this thread and give your specs such as year, color temp, housing type and maybe even the maker of the kit? Id be interested in the fog range too. It will just be nice to have all the info in one place. If there are no objections i may filter through the information and repost it so this doesnt come back up. Maybe if i do it good enough it will be a sticky.

My other question is on painting the inside of the housings. Ive seen where they say to bake it to remove the lense but it seems like most of those mods were done to the non projector housings . Is there a reason for that and how does the paint hold up with HID and normal wear (sunlight)? Sorry for all the questions.

Thanks, Major

 

[tkr128]

I don't have the answers to all of your questions, but I'll try to provide what I know.

Generally, the 4300K range will give you the most amount of light output, this is a bright white light that still has a little hint of yellow in it. This is your best bet if you want the maximum amount of light on the road. But, most people want something with a blue color to them, which bumps the color temp to around 5000-6000K. There is a small decrease in total light output, but the color is nicer to look at. Above this color range, the amount of light decreases even more and you reach the purple spectrum of color. For the fog lights, many people prefer 3000K to get the bright yellow color that cuts through fog. But, it's all up to preference, some people like to have the same white/blue light in the fogs as well. It all depends on what you're looking for in the light output.

The reason some people paint their housings is because on the '03-'05 headlights, the low beam uses a reflector lens which can cause the HID (which has a different way of distributing light than halogen) to bounce light around at angles that cause glare. Thus, painting the housing will decrease the amount of glare. Another reason is because it looks better.

 

[Uneek]

You didn't say what year 4Runner you have.

If you have textured headlight lenses (the lens looks fuzzy), glare will be at the greatest. Textured headlight lens is what creates a beam and with the increased brightness of HIDs they're horrible for putting HIDs in. Clear lens with reflectors are better, but there will still be glare because light is reflected from the surrounding chrome house, thus many paint the housing black except the reflectors. Halogen projectors will reduce glare more because bulb/burner is behind the projector lens and everything else is shielded. The best way to have HIDs is to retrofit a HID projector inside your headlight, many will say it's the only way to do. Retrofitting will have no glare at all and to the unsuspecting, it'll look like it was from the factory. For retrofitting, check out HIDPlanet.com.

For color, don't go above 6000K, you will lose brightness and it'll be just color and probably come out dimmer than halogen. 7000k or so is blue, 8000k becomes purple and I think 10000k is ultra-violet.

 

[Uneek]

Comparison shots of HIDs and halogens. XenonDepot 4300K rebased H11s (all Philips components) in '06 projectors.

If it wasn't for those squirel finders (the more dimly lit block of light above the cutoff), the '06 projectors would give a pretty good cutoff. The beam on the ground does have some hot spots though. I also noticed though, the projectors are bit odd, instead of the beam continuing downward further away from the truck (easy to see when you pull up along side a wall), it ramps up a bit at the end causing some on coming drivers to think you have high beams on. But overall, I'm quite pleased with the setup.

 

[blkexp98]

Thanks for the info and the comparison pictures. My application would be a 2007 4runner btw. Atleast until i decide to buy the truck or not ill probably need to go with a rebased kit because its leased. For a retrofit im probably looking at atleast $800 depending on the donor parts id think.


Major