Heres what I think of the Hid's in the fogs, The beam patern seams the same as the oem fogs but much,much brighter. As for glare it does not seem to be much of a issue since oncomming trafic has never once High beamed me and by looking at it my self the light does not shoot up in your eyes. Well here are the pics of my Sylvania HID's. Ohh yeah I am getting the 1 piece Cefiro headlights in the next week or so and will be installing another pair of these hid's to finish off the effect. BTW tell me what you think.





[Edited by emax95 on 02-05-2001 at 10:05 PM]

 

nm

 

Nice! The beam pattern looks good and low. Can't wait to see when everything's on the car.

 

Looks like a Maxima in the dark!

 

Loox nice emax. You could really tell the difference when looking at the head lights and the fog lights- MAJOR difference.........cant w8 til u post pics of the head HIDs.

 

Emax, I can't wait to see your car in person this spring on our next meet.

 

very nice looks much better then the head lights

 

pattern and light output put is real nice and low

 

You're spending all that money to get the Cefiro headlights which use H4s and you're going to destroy them by putting in an HID conversion? That's like yanking out the VQ and dropping in the GM 2.8 liter V6 from the Cavalier.

My advice to you is that you get an overwattage harness for the H4 (non-Toyota) and stick a quality 80/100W H4 in place.

 

The only reason your foglamps are not blinding people is because the housings have high-end cutoffs built into the reflector, so DON'T credit the HID conversion for the decent beam pattern.

Question: Is the HID conversion's bulb glued into place like your 9004 conversion was for your Maxima?

I hate to sound rude, but all your efforts seem so counter-productive to the quest for improved lighting. A good H4 system is worth a thousand HID conversion kits.

[Edited by Albertt on 02-06-2001 at 08:35 AM]

 

Yeah, we had a nice little err.. discussion about that at the Mass meet, right Albert? LOL!

 

And if you have no idea what a glare guard is, here's a pic from a 300zx. I don't know if it will work cuz my cookies are stored, and I'm at school so therefore I cannot delete them.
<img src="http://www.twinturbo.net/ttnettech/glareguard/glareguard3.jpg">

 

Counter productive ahhh I see if increasing the light from my oem fogs to about 10 times better then I hate to think what productive is to you.BTW I glued them in a nice neet fashion {like on my Max}. As for destroying my H4 Cefiro lights I don't think that is going to be the case, I think it will look and work great. If I put some other type of bulb in there it would look like crap since I would have nice looking fogs and some nappy headlights that will look totaly out of place. I plan on having a nice clean look on my I30 so 2 pairs of HIDS it is abd BTW I allready have a extra pair of HID's sitting in my room just waiting for the Cefiro lights. Heres some advice to you Albert you have to learn to chill out, when ever any one brings up the subject of HIDS you freak OUT haha.

 

Albert is coming from a technical point of view. you're coming from a what u see point of view. two different views.
if you glued the HID in a NEAT fashion then that's great, looks good and etc...do what you think is best for your car. but from a technical standpoint Albert is correct. like i said..it's your car do what u like. personally i think you're going after the "look" and not how it would work and function on your car.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by DanNY
[I]Albert is coming from a technical point of view. you're coming from a what u see point of view. two different views.
if you glued the HID in a NEAT fashion then that's great, looks good and etc...do what you think is best for your car. but from a technical standpoint Albert is correct. like i said..it's your car do what u like. personally i think you're going after the "look" and not how it would work and function on your car.

The "look" is definatly nice and I love the look, but the increase in light out put is great too and is a very important factor to me. If it did not look good and work good I would probably take some of the advice Albert has been feeding me for 6 months now. When you say technical advice from Albert, he has never even seen Cefiro headlights in person nore Hid equipped Cefiro lights {please correct me if I am wrong} for that matter so I dought his crudencials. BTW he has never seen HID's in I30 fog lights in person either. So another words I could care less what he sais since I live it, he tells it. Just for the record the light out put is brilliant and I could not imagine any other lights being nay better in looks/output.

 

To do it correctly (HID Conversion), it costs a lot of money. True, you can buy any garage-made kit and throw it in any optical housing, but your results will not be good. There are so many factors that come into play with HID lighting. Anyway, being a person who has gone through 3 HID conversion kits...you really have to go with a highly reputable company like Bellof (Japanese lighting company), who makes the ONLY true HID kit to get a decent and high-performance light output. The Cefiro H4's are e-code lamps which (with a Bellof HID kit) will produce very good results...then again that annoying dollar sign shows up again...$1000+? Just my 2¢

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by emax95
[I]I've done my research. I have that to back me up. I do take it seriously, and if you've noticed so have a lot of car companies. I HAVE seen the H4 Cefiro headlights...and I know for a fact that an HID conversion kit in a Cefiro headlamp assembly would look just like your Maxima did. The H4 bulb has the beam pattern built into it...your HID kit doesn't. Counterproductive means that you'll be going from a OEM design with proper cutoffs and light dispersion to hackjob aftermarket kit with a random pattern that would be a source of annoyance to others on the road. I'm sure the output is more with your HID kits...that is inherent in the physics of arc-discharge technology. I'm just pointing out that when it comes to automotive lighting, more light isn't better...the more important thing is WHERE this light is placed.

I'm just worked up about this because your taking a good design and making a joke out of it.

 

Quote:

I've done my research. I have that to back me up. I do take it seriously, and if you've noticed so have a lot of car companies. I HAVE seen the H4 Cefiro headlights...and I know for a fact that an HID conversion kit in a Cefiro headlamp assembly would look just like your Maxima did. The H4 bulb has the beam pattern built into it...your HID kit doesn't. Counterproductive means that you'll be going from a OEM design with proper cutoffs and light dispersion to hackjob aftermarket kit with a random pattern that would be a source of annoyance to others on the road. I'm sure the output is more with your HID kits...that is inherent in the physics of arc-discharge technology. I'm just pointing out that when it comes to automotive lighting, more light isn't better...the more important thing is WHERE this light is placed. I'm just worked up about this because your taking a good design and making a joke out of it.

Hey Albertt, I appreciate your knowledge on this matter and I'm glad someone does some research around here. Hey Emax, I've had the same kit that you had and the results aren't that good. I'm not tearing on your opinion, it's just that I've gone through 3 other kits since then, producing better results. I'm just wondering.... the one's that have been on my 99' I30, most of them produced poor results. Most were simply "rebased" kits, experts will tell you those are crap. Anyway, I recently saw a Bellof H4 dual lowbeam and high beam kit on a 5th gen max. It had a very nice light output (light on the road where it should be). The beam cutoff was crisp and smooth throughout the front of the car extending about 3-4 car lengths in front and about 1/2 - 1 car length on passenger side (since US headlights are designed so the driver side does not extend as far left to minimize road glare). Wow, these results accurately protray what HIDs are all about and not just "for looks"...

My question is, those Cefiro H4 headlights with a HID conversions, will it replicate the 5th gen maxima results or stay the same? Optics make a big difference, bulb design, being H4 instead of 9004. I know it will be different than the 4th gen 9004 because the halogen filaments on a H4 bulb is about 7-10mm or so off the 9004 filaments and sit at a tilted angle (different than the 9004). The housing must be redesigned for the H4 bulb to accurately reflect filament and beam pattern differences, will it be better than the 9004 design? Need some expert help...

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by emax95
[I]ok that's cool..the look of discharge light will always look nice. if i got HIDs in my house it would look nice because of the pure white lighting. it will also look bright because it's HID..it's like me putting a 500watt light bulb on my car...that's going to be A LOT brighter.
i think Albert knows enough about lighting and etc to know what he's talking about. i value his judgement in lighting and i don't second guess him. you can live it..but do u know what you're seeing? Albert doesn't need to live it to know exactly what he is talking about.
just a little side bar...the reflectors in a headlight assembly is made for the light bulb that is designed for it. so there's a certain reflector in a H4 and there might be a different one in a 9004. so it all breaks down to the same thing inside..(generally speaking).

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by 99DustMagnet
[I]

Quote:

...My question is, those Cefiro H4 headlights with a HID conversions, will it replicate the 5th gen maxima results or stay the same? Optics make a big difference, bulb design, being H4 instead of 9004. I know it will be different than the 4th gen 9004 because the halogen filaments on a H4 bulb is about 7-10mm or so off the 9004 filaments and sit at a tilted angle (different than the 9004). The housing must be redesigned for the H4 bulb to accurately reflect filament and beam pattern differences, will it be better than the 9004 design? Need some expert help...

A filament, due to it's spring like shape, emmanates light in a torodial (a cylindrical ring of sorts) shape. All reflectors are based on paraboloid shapes. This means that a parabolic equation is used to generate the cross sectional shape of the reflector. An H4/HB2 (due to the H4 bulb's axial filament configuration) reflector housing is optimized for light emmanated in all directions. An 9004/HB1 housing is optimized for the transversely filamented 9004 bulb. If you look at the shape, the parabolic cross section, only runs from side to side. The transverse filament of the 9004 cannot put out light to the sides...this is why we Maxima drivers have to suffer with the severe lack of light to the SIDES of the car...offering us (our brains actually) less depth perception and rendering a bit of tunnel vision when driving in extreme darkness for extended periods of time. Foglamps can be used to aid this situation.

There are currently three types of HID bulb. The 9500 and D2R are meant to be used with reflector type housings, while the D2S bulb is meant for projector lamps. All three of these bulbs require a shield (precisely designed) to cover the bulb in the proper areas so that the correct beam pattern is achieved. The H4 bulb is special. What makes it so is that it has a built in cutoff. If one looks into the bulb glass, they will notice that there is a cup-like shield around what would the bottom of the low beam filament (when installed in the housing). This shield blocks light emmanting from the low beam filament from striking the bottom surface of the reflector. High school physics will show you (law of reflection) that any light striking the bottom of the relfector will end up travelling upward into the night air. Because the H4s low beam is not reflected here, no light is present and you have the cutoff of the beam pattern. So, unless the shielding around the HID bulb is correctly designed, ANY HID kit not having the shielding will yield a horrible beam pattern. This is why I say, "if you've got H4 headlamps, leave'em the way they are!"

As for your question concerning 7 to 10 mm difference in filament location, this has to do with focal points. There is an optimum location (axial) to every lamp. Change it too much and you end up ruining the beam pattern. That's why cheap bulbs (all that Korean made Xenon Hyper Blue Crystal White garbage) often give a less defined pattern (even with 9004s) than a quality OE replacement.

 

Sorry for dougting you Albert. I will find out how it looks in about a week and I will post a bunch of pics. Any specific request on pictures? BTW I will probably see you Albert/DanNY at the next meet and you can check it out in person.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Albertt
[QUOTE]Originally posted by 99DustMagnet

Quote:

...My question is, those Cefiro H4 headlights with a HID conversions, will it replicate the 5th gen maxima results or stay the same? Optics make a big difference, bulb design, being H4 instead of 9004. I know it will be different than the 4th gen 9004 because the halogen filaments on a H4 bulb is about 7-10mm or so off the 9004 filaments and sit at a tilted angle (different than the 9004). The housing must be redesigned for the H4 bulb to accurately reflect filament and beam pattern differences, will it be better than the 9004 design? Need some expert help...

Quote:

A filament, due to it's spring like shape, emmanates light in a torodial (a cylindrical ring of sorts) shape. All reflectors are based on paraboloid shapes. This means that a parabolic equation is used to generate the cross sectional shape of the reflector. An H4/HB2 (due to the H4 bulb's axial filament configuration) reflector housing is optimized for light emmanated in all directions. An 9004/HB1 housing is optimized for the transversely filamented 9004 bulb. If you look at the shape, the parabolic cross section, only runs from side to side. The transverse filament of the 9004 cannot put out light to the sides...this is why we Maxima drivers have to suffer with the severe lack of light to the SIDES of the car...offering us (our brains actually) less depth perception and rendering a bit of tunnel vision when driving in extreme darkness for extended periods of time. Foglamps can be used to aid this situation.

There are currently three types of HID bulb. The 9500 and D2R are meant to be used with reflector type housings, while the D2S bulb is meant for projector lamps. All three of these bulbs require a shield (precisely designed) to cover the bulb in the proper areas so that the correct beam pattern is achieved. The H4 bulb is special. What makes it so is that it has a built in cutoff. If one looks into the bulb glass, they will notice that there is a cup-like shield around what would the bottom of the low beam filament (when installed in the housing). This shield blocks light emmanting from the low beam filament from striking the bottom surface of the reflector. High school physics will show you (law of reflection) that any light striking the bottom of the relfector will end up travelling upward into the night air. Because the H4s low beam is not reflected here, no light is present and you have the cutoff of the beam pattern. So, unless the shielding around the HID bulb is correctly designed, ANY HID kit not having the shielding will yield a horrible beam pattern. This is why I say, "if you've got H4 headlamps, leave'em the way they are!"

As for your question concerning 7 to 10 mm difference in filament location, this has to do with focal points. There is an optimum location (axial) to every lamp. Change it too much and you end up ruining the beam pattern. That's why cheap bulbs (all that Korean made Xenon Hyper Blue Crystal White garbage) often give a less defined pattern (even with 9004s) than a quality OE replacement.

Thanks for the info Albertt. Reading all the spec sheets on xenon arc discharge on Philips automotive lighting site, the science shows that xenon arc discharged light disperses 360 degrees vs. halogens horizontal only dispersion factor. Still, the Bellof kit produced a very good result. You gotta pay to play...$1000+. So what's the bottom-line? HIDs have become so popular in Japan, there are a good number of companies out making good retrofits with accurate and clean beam patterns. Not just rebased junk, but actual bulb shielding and bulb modification. The kit from Bellof was the only thing that sold me. Before then, it was all a horrible beam pattern mess.