RE: headlights
 

Just out of curiosity how long have you used these ballasts. how do they hold up and how many hours average do you use them?

RE: headlights
 

I am installing them in my VW this weekend...a buddy of mine has them in his GTI and he drove to Maryland from Albany with them, so how many hours is that?

RE: headlights
 

I hate my stock headlights... it feels like I have a d**m flashlight bolted on to the front of my bike.

Eventually, I plan on getting an extra headlight assembly and a pair of projector headlights for a car and retrofitting the lights from the car headlights into the bikes headlights (then a HID conversion). I think Id be happy with the light output of projector HIDs :D (not to mention I dont believe Ive ever seen a projector headlight conversion on an f4i)

RE: headlights
 

Def +1 on HID's i have em in my Santa Fe and love em, will never go back, as for my bike, ill prob just get better bulbs for now, im not a big night rider but still may get HID's at some point though. During the day i always have both on, high and low;)

RE: headlights
 

how come those are so cheap compared to http://www.1tail.com/sa/cart/detail....C5D07EB45C2%7D
and can someone tell me the difference between replacing the bulb and installing a HID kit with ballast and everything?

RE: headlights
 

I have HID's in my daily rider and have well over 15,000 miles and two years without any issues.

RE: headlights
 

I was going to do this then i realized it will probably look like crap with projectors. I have BMW X5 projectors. they have 90mm projectors with dual high and low beam it has a servo that moves a metal plate up and down for high and lows. Maybe i will try them on my go kart and my other f4i

RE: headlights
 

Ok I'm lost.......Are you guys putting HID ballests' (bulbs) in stock houseings????

That is bad......#1 HID's "burn" hotter, #2 HID's require a cutt-off shield so you don't blind on coming traffic, #3 Similar to #2 HID's requre a diffrent type of houseing to distrbute the light...useing stock houseings will not ditrubte the light properly and produce an oddly and uneven light pattern.

Now just so I don't get tore apart here, I don't know a ton about HID's nor do I own any or any cars/trucks with them in them. Every thing I posted above it just what I have read on other forums because I have wanted to retro fit my trucks with them and have done SOME research and have not doen it yet because it is still to rich for my blood!

So if you guys are doing this with great results then great I might have to give it a try!

Nick

RE: headlights
 

^ exactly why I plan on a projector retrofit before the HIDs. Really, nobody should be putting HID lights in halogen headlights; they create a s**t-ton of glare for other motorists, and they have hot spots as well as black spots due to the reflector design in halogen headlights.

Xu, Ive been thinking about it for a while (quite a few months, actually), and I think it would actually look decent. The set of car headlights Im talking about were on my old civic... projector low beams and seperate halogen high beams; put a high and a low beam light on each side of the headlight assembly; do a fair amount of cutting, modifying, and fiberglassing, and about 40 hours later.... viola! An oem-looking headlight assembly. Im pretty sure I could pull it off, but theres two problems: 1) I dont have the money right now (Im figuring about $350-$400 before the HID lights) and 2) I dont have the spare time to devote to a project like this. Maybe in a year or two ;)

RE: headlights
 

Yes, most people put a HID bulb and ballast on a non HID housing and that's bad. I'm not gonna get into the glare issue because I've already got into that argument here once before, and I can't remember who said it, but they spoke the truth: Yes, it causes a lot of glare for other motorists, but those who want to do it are gonna do it even if you tell them not to, so just let it go and answer all the other questions.

Now on to the rest of the post. It looks like you might be confusing a bulb and a ballast. They are two separate things. A bulb is just a bulb, but the ballast is a component that allows a HID bulb (high voltage) to work on a low (12V DC) voltage system. #1 As for HID's burning hotter, I'm not sure what you mean. HID bulbs use less energy (~35W) compared to standard halogen bulbs (~55W-60W). They usually have a higher color temperature, but that has nothing to do with temperature in the conventional sense, all it has to do with is how blue/yellow it looks. #2 Yes, stock HID systems are designed for HID so they usually have a cutoff shield directly on the bulb or in front of it. This is what D2R bulbs are. #3 This is why a lot of manufacturers use projects now, no cutoff shield needed, they focus the light correctly so they use D2S bulbs, which are the same as D2R except without the cutoff shield.

And for the person who hasn't seen anyone do a projector retrofit on an F4i, there have been a couple. On this site for sure someone was even selling his 3" projector HID setup and had a post on how he made it. If you google f4i and r6 headlights, someone did a retrofit of that too. That is the one I would like to have if I had the money/time... I think the mid 2000's R6's had the best headlights out there... quad projectors.