HID Prototype

[James Downing]

Oh and ChrisR... those lights look amazing... hail are they custom made? or did you somehow order it from somewhere... eiter way, looks great, for a GenI... sadly the GenIIs got all the looks of the family...

 

[James Downing]

Sorry to be cluttering this with so many posts, but... has anyone tried replacing the fishtanks with some sort of grill or air ram?... i was looking at the car the other day, and it almost seemed too perfect... the look would seem close to the Police grill of the GenI's... just another random idea floating around in my head ... hehe

 

[shojuan]

Yamaha V6:
Well, Kirk Doucette has my old 9007 HID headlight conversion kit in his 97, so that can be done anyway. In fact, the Gen 3 reflector style is much more efficient than the Gen 1 (9004) or Gen 2 (9007) setup is.

I originally bought the kit for about $450, and tried to arrange for a group buy for $425 shipped, say, back in May of '02 or so. Nobody was really interested then.

I picked up the X1010s a couple of months ago, and the price on the Sylvania site was "$549 (crossed out), down to $299" or something like that; they've since dropped the price to $249 a kit.

Both kits came with necessary supporting hardware (kit 1 was bulbs, ballasts & ignitors, and plugged into the stock harness; X1010 kit came with complete housings / bulbs, ballasts, wireless on/off keyfob switches, remote relay & all wiring necessary). The 9007 conversion caused you to lose your high-beams, not that you really needed them for 80% of your driving anyway - that was the only thing I didn't like about them at the time, was for really long dark stretches on wet asphalt, it was harder to see with them.

Other than the low beam/high beam issue how did your old 9007 conversion compare to the X1010?

 

[davidcope]

James Downing:
Thanks for the correction Yamaha v6... thats sorta embarrasing doh but i fixed it... as for costs:

2 headlights from junkyard $45
Plexiglas free (donated by friend)
Pilot Navigator NV-605 ~$40 (from sounddomain.com) (for the High and the angel effect)
Optilux Model 1002 Fog ~$40 (from Advance Auto Parts) (for the low beams) (theyre projectors)

and heck... thats basically my costs my friends... basically $130 or so...

(forgot to add what light did what function)

Hey if you can make a headlight setup/housing that is that cheap and looks that good...even if it's not HID, I'm sure you could get a lot of people interested in that, me included!! thumb

 

[ChrisR]

James Downing:

Optilux Model 1002 Fog ~$40 (from Advance Auto Parts) (for the low beams) (theyre projectors)

Seriously, if you want to see at night, I would not use that as a low beam. Horrible beam pattern, and not even close to a "low beam" pattern. (I have used those lights before, I know). Unless you are just going for good looks, and don't drive your car at night, then I'd go with them.

Thanks for the compliment. Yes, I made them myself, just like you are making yours. A lot of time, and $$$.

 

[James Downing]

Well production costs went up a bit... my cost for the headlight assemblies just rose to $75... i bought the first headlight from a junk dealer for $25 as a replacement for one of mine that got water in it ... i went out looking for the other side today... that dealer has nothing anymore, so i went shopping... i went to at least 5 junkyards noone had anything except the last one, and they wanted to sell it to me for $60... i talked them down to $50 and figured what the ****... i need it, i will pay it... as for prodicing these in mass quantities... that is most likely not an option basically because its a very long process... and two... create your own design, im just here to be inspiration.

Oh, and an update on my process... i have molded the plexiglas for the first headlight, it took about 2 hours of heat-gunning and wet-ragging... its just about perfect... i still have to do some final cutting and final molding...

 

[James Downing]

ChrisR:
Seriously, if you want to see at night, I would not use that as a low beam. Horrible beam pattern, and not even close to a "low beam" pattern. (I have used those lights before, I know). Unless you are just going for good looks, and don't drive your car at night, then I'd go with them.

Luckily i have some awesome as **** fogs, also by hella... (FF75 Free Form Driving lights) they are brighter than the stock headlights on the SHO ... so i think i will be fine with whatever driving lights i choose (hopefully), but thanks for the advice... plus... i already bought them.

 

[RI-SHO]

Fred i'm curious, whats the color/light output of those foglights of yours? I'm guessing 4300K?

Because I would like to do them on my SHO but cant find a decent looking stock housing so the HID retro kit would look half decent in them, for the headlights I will be going with 7000K retro kit. They look smiliar to the Maxima my cousin drove to drop off my SHO off at your shop.

 

[kaoticSHO]

Xenarc x1010

Color temp: 5400k

Lumens: 2600k

They fit in the stock locations, look great and have a nifty wireless remote turn-on.

 

[herman]

Just wanted to inform evryone who is dreaminng of, researching or has started fabricating their own headlights to goto my DIY site/forum:
http://faq.auto.light.tripod.com/
We have DIYselfers, installers, distrubutors and regulators represented on that Forum.
There are many minefields to cross to make a good setup. The SHO is definatly one of the harder ones and requires good planning. I would like to see someone doing a moulding approach with high temp plastic. It should not be anything more difficult/timeconsuming once u find the right compound. Procedure should be very similar to using epoxy/fibreglass. Why not fibre glass? It need lower temprature expansion and wider temprature range.

 

[RI-SHO]

Damn I wanted a foglight to be at least 6000K-7500K color temp, hmmm guess i'll keep on a search.

Do the Xenarc x1010 have a replaceable bulb? Like the bulb in the back can be changed? Or is housing/bulb sealed? If its not whats the size of the bulb used?

I wouldnt mind using that housing with a retrofit kit if its possible if not i'll keep searching.

 

[ChrisR]

Edien, I believe the Xenarc 1010 just uses a regular d2s. So you could just replace the bulb if you want to match color.

But I could be wrong...They might be built into the housing.

 

[RI-SHO]

ChrisR:
Edien, I believe the Xenarc 1010 just uses a regular d2s. So you could just replace the bulb if you want to match color.

But I could be wrong...They might be built into the housing.

If they use D2S bulbs then I can easily just change them with the 6000K spare Philips bulbs I have for my TL-S highbeam plan for later, i'm going to have to research this further or wait for an answer on the forum...whichever comes first by tommorrow

<small>[ August 28, 2003, 12:26 AM: Message edited by: RI-SHO ]</small>

 

[kaoticSHO]

Oh just drop the coin on the PIAA 930's if you can afford it. They will knock your socks off. LOL