Experience with HID kits...
 

I see that HID kits have finally came down to a somewhat affordable price. Im thinking of doing the conversion. Im kinda worried about losing the high beams though. Can anyone relate some experience on this? Does the brighter light make up for it? Is the beam pattern good? Whats the system to get? pay more for them on cutsomaxima or go e-bay?

I have Hellas and i love them. Yea you loose the high beam but with them on and the fog's you dont need the high beams at all. The beam isnt all that nice cause you dont have projectors.... get those and your all set.

only projectors i can find are for 00+. And where can you pick up a set of fog lights? WOuld you recommend a stock set or aftermarket? My GLE has pretty much everything option wise, but no fogs.

You can always buy fogs from JR nissan for cheap.
HID....it's great but headache when something dies.
but definitely worth it.

I have a McCulloch 8000k kit, couldn't be happier:)

im running the Hanabi 6,000k Purple kit and love them to death!!

HID will be the first mod no matter what car i buy next :D

Ant

and I'm running a 4100k kit with bi-xenon projectors and love it.

hanabi 7k purple. I cant drive without HIDS, it makes a huge difference in vision at night.

what are good places to buy a set?

do you guys do fogs and headlights or just headlights?

how is the install?

Beam pattern sucks on 9004 no matter what. Also spend the extra cash and get a quality kit. I've gone through three cheap HID kits. Now i have a good reliable one.

9004 Hid kits are not only illegal they are EXTREMELY dangerous to oncoming traffic. To these people saying "I love them" they really have no idea that they're causing extreme glare all over the road.

The problem is most of these people wouldn't know what glare was if it smacked them in the face. If you're going to do a HID kit you HAVE to do it right and retrofit projectors into your headlights. That is the only legal way to do it.

I'm doing a right up for Maxima.org on how to do it. I already have the wiring FAQ complete with pictures. This weekend I'm doing the retrofit and will have that up a few days after.

im actually waiting for this write up formz. I've had the hanabi kit and the ballast blew out on me in 4 months...and then freddie disappeared.

i did a lot of research and although i wanted to do a retrofit, i've realized that im not such a handy person retrofitting and hidtech.com was too expensive, i decided to go with a 6000k philips kit. Although the beam pattern is scattered and oncoming traffic is probably using every f word in the book, i've adjusted my headlights down to the lowest.

im waiting for formz' writeup to try and attempt a retrofit. For more info about kits i advise you read up on Hidforum.com

I would love to get HIDs but I could never drive without having my high-beams. HIDs in the fogs would be nice though.

Yea the rightup will be helpful to a lot of people.

When you buy the correct projectors you don't lose your high beams. You get what's called "bi-xenons" and your high beams and low beams are in the same projector and activated by a solenoid.

My shielded 9004 helps cut down the upward glare... but the beam pattern sucks ***...

Yea it's because our reflector housings are meant to reflect a specific kind of light. HID bulbs have no filament in them. They produce light by heating up metalic gasses. Even with a shield you will still cause a lot of glare, but as you know the beam pattern is going to blow major chunks.

And im waiting for the right projectors. It's so damn hard to find e55 bixenons... To bad we cant run d2s ece valeos... :drool:

It's really EASY to find bixenon e55's. I got two pairs in a week. If you are REALLY interested in buying some, I know a guy that will sell them to you complete, brand new, for $350 shipped to your door. And they're not stolen either.

Also formz, you added a diode to the wire harness you made to keep the high and low beam for the HID. But you know that when you flick the stalk to high beam, theres a split second that both beams are off. How did you solve this? Did you add a capacitor?

Can you PM me the info? :hat:

Thanks man!

With the diode, there is NO delay between high beam and low beam change. That's the great thing about it. And I'll PM you the info to get in touch with the guy about the projectors.

Beam pattern sucks with the 9004's, like 1FSTMAX said. Look for Maxima10to1's write up of how to change from 9004 to 9007 headlights. You will have much better success.

9007's blow too.

IMO the best halogen beam pattern i have see, would have to be H4, and H1..

Well H4 is not dual filament so that should be the best of all because it has one dedicated purpose.

bump for a good discussion. Looks like its split right down the middle. Hmmm.... lol

No, there is no middle ground here. You either do it right, or you do it wrong. One is legal, one is illegal. There is a REASON why it's illegal, because its REALLY dangerous. If you get a proper shield you can cut down on the glare, but like 1FSTMAX said your beam pattern is going to blow.

The reason people on here talk so highly of their fake hid kits is because they've never driven a car with a REAL one.

The only "REAL" way to do HID's well in our cars are with projector headlights. That way, they look like they are supposed to, and they have the correct beam pattern.

Exactly. Which is what I'm doing this weekend.

I'm using a 9007 kit and the beam pattern is surprisingly pretty good. I'm sure I'll blind just about everyone coming my way in the rain though..

Post pictures of your beam pattern either here or on HIDtech. I think you'd be surprised at how much glare you're throwing off at oncoming cars.

Park your car 5 ft from a white wall and take pics.

does anyone know if we still can purchase the hanabi HID kits? i dont think they are making them anymore...

how do you convert from the 9004 kit?

Will a set of eyelids and a shield make for a good setup?

Hanabi HID kits are crap, if you buy one of those you're throwing your money away. Everyone that bought one of those crap aftermarket kits and then researches true HID retrofits always dump them. Either that or one of the ballasts goes out because it was made by a 12 year old boy in china.

Shields and eyelids willl not make a good setup in a 9004 or 9007 drop in.

so whats a good brand for HID kits ?

Buy a TRUE HID kit. Ones WITH projectors that come off of Audis/BMWs etc. Trust only Hella and Philips. There are no quality "kits" you have to retrofit projector lenses into your housings.

:sprint:

You nailed it....

Some craptacular 9004 beam pattern pics i found online..
http://drugie.com.ne.kr/beampatten.JPG

And for comparison purposes, here is what a TRUE HID retrofit beam patter looks like in a 4th gen maxima.

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-.../hid_beam2.JPG

Larger picture of what HID retrofits can do:

https://img17.photobucket.com/albums...tojungho/4.jpg