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986Jim · 03-10-2006, 04:07 AM

I have retrofitted quite a few of my cars with HID and here are some of my observations. First off what I say in no way pertains to a Boxster so take it with a grain of salt..

My 95 GTI VR6 I just stuck HID bulbs in the standard light and they acctually imaged perfectly on the road. I got little to no people flashing me cause they were too bright. The housing just seemd to work ok with the bulb inside. It also had the cap at the end I just pushed the bulb into it and it bent backwards and allowed the bulb to fit. It was retrofitted with Audi OEM 4300k bulbs and ballasts but no projectors.
http://www.etdracing.com/jim/hid10.jpg

My 98 Talon has the same Audi OEM 4300k HID's in it. The headlight housing is much smaller but reflects light way worse. Driving i was lighting up the tops of trees and bridges etc. They were pretty bad so they got removed. There are no projectors available for the talon so I forgot about it and just stuck with the regular lights...
http://www.etdracing.com/jim/hid9.jpg

My 00 Jetta VR6 daily driver has Projector lamps available aftermarket cheap so I bought those and some 5000k HID lights from www.cqlight.ca for $199 which is super cheap. They are pretty good quality have have been in the car for 6 months now without failure so I would imagine them lasting. They are H1 which fit into the projectors lights properly like a standard bulb. They have better cut off and light color than the 4300k.
http://www.etdracing.com/jim/jhid7.jpg
http://www.etdracing.com/jim/jhid8.jpg This pic is 3 feet away from the wall so remember that beem pattern lines up properly as the car is pulled back but you can see the projector cuts the light off above the line quite nicely. No glare no problems at all.

Aftermarket HID lights move the ARC point so they work in a halogen housing as best as possible, however like my previous two cars they seem to glare no matter what.

Heat from an HID bulb is less or equil to a normal halogen light, it's just more focused. My last two cars had plastic headlights and the hid never bothered them at all. Halogen lights put off HUGE amounts of heat where HID doesn't really it's sort of like flourcent that way just not as cold.

The higher you go in the calvin rage changes the color so 4300k OEM is more yellow than my 5000k. But the higher you go the darker the bulbs get in color which also lowers their overall output just because your going from white to blue to purple then to green in 12000k lights. They just get darker in color and put out less light as a result.

I would like to see how the normal headlight look with HID's in them against a wall, but I'll guess it's not good and would likely blind other drivers as I have done before in a few of my cars. My GTI was good, but the stock lights in my Talon and Jetta were horible. I had to eventually buy projector lights for the Jetta to stop the high beem flashs from people.

For a short period of time I contemplated using HID in my bike but with the short wheelbase I decided against it as it flashes enough now. I did use silverstar's and the light was amazing from them compared to normal bulbs. Much whiter and better looking on the road. Even from a bike it was a huge difference, and light on the front of a bike is very important, if you ride you know what I'm talking about.

03-10-2006, 04:07 AM	#10
986Jim Registered User Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Toronto Ontario Posts: 291	I have retrofitted quite a few of my cars with HID and here are some of my observations. First off what I say in no way pertains to a Boxster so take it with a grain of salt.. My 95 GTI VR6 I just stuck HID bulbs in the standard light and they acctually imaged perfectly on the road. I got little to no people flashing me cause they were too bright. The housing just seemd to work ok with the bulb inside. It also had the cap at the end I just pushed the bulb into it and it bent backwards and allowed the bulb to fit. It was retrofitted with Audi OEM 4300k bulbs and ballasts but no projectors. http://www.etdracing.com/jim/hid10.jpg My 98 Talon has the same Audi OEM 4300k HID's in it. The headlight housing is much smaller but reflects light way worse. Driving i was lighting up the tops of trees and bridges etc. They were pretty bad so they got removed. There are no projectors available for the talon so I forgot about it and just stuck with the regular lights... http://www.etdracing.com/jim/hid9.jpg My 00 Jetta VR6 daily driver has Projector lamps available aftermarket cheap so I bought those and some 5000k HID lights from www.cqlight.ca for $199 which is super cheap. They are pretty good quality have have been in the car for 6 months now without failure so I would imagine them lasting. They are H1 which fit into the projectors lights properly like a standard bulb. They have better cut off and light color than the 4300k. http://www.etdracing.com/jim/jhid7.jpg http://www.etdracing.com/jim/jhid8.jpg This pic is 3 feet away from the wall so remember that beem pattern lines up properly as the car is pulled back but you can see the projector cuts the light off above the line quite nicely. No glare no problems at all. Aftermarket HID lights move the ARC point so they work in a halogen housing as best as possible, however like my previous two cars they seem to glare no matter what. Heat from an HID bulb is less or equil to a normal halogen light, it's just more focused. My last two cars had plastic headlights and the hid never bothered them at all. Halogen lights put off HUGE amounts of heat where HID doesn't really it's sort of like flourcent that way just not as cold. The higher you go in the calvin rage changes the color so 4300k OEM is more yellow than my 5000k. But the higher you go the darker the bulbs get in color which also lowers their overall output just because your going from white to blue to purple then to green in 12000k lights. They just get darker in color and put out less light as a result. I would like to see how the normal headlight look with HID's in them against a wall, but I'll guess it's not good and would likely blind other drivers as I have done before in a few of my cars. My GTI was good, but the stock lights in my Talon and Jetta were horible. I had to eventually buy projector lights for the Jetta to stop the high beem flashs from people. For a short period of time I contemplated using HID in my bike but with the short wheelbase I decided against it as it flashes enough now. I did use silverstar's and the light was amazing from them compared to normal bulbs. Much whiter and better looking on the road. Even from a bike it was a huge difference, and light on the front of a bike is very important, if you ride you know what I'm talking about. Last edited by 986Jim; 03-10-2006 at 04:12 AM.