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HID upgrade

14K views 52 replies 16 participants last post by  0dyfamily 
#1 ·
Hello! I tried to search, but this site's search function stinks. Has anyone had success installing oem HIDs into an Odyssey with stock halogens? I see some kits on eBay with ballasts/igniters etc, but I'm wondering if someone has attempted this.

Thanks in advance!
 
#2 · (Edited)
Yes, the current search is a bit of a step backwards from the previous forum setup.

IIRC, we have had at least one Gen 4 owner on this forum who successfully installed Honda OEM HID headlight housings and D2S capsules with OEM parts (ballasts, igniters, harness) onto his Gen 4 Odyssey.

Stock halogen projectors (usually made by Stanley or Koito for Japanese vehicles) do not have sufficient length measured against projector diameter to get a legal light pattern, let a lone a useful one if using eBay plug-and-play re-based HID capsules. This is true of any halogen projector where somebody tries to install an HID capsule.

I actually purchased an entire Nissan OEM HID system for my Nissan Altima to replace the halogen headlights, since every eBay plug-and-play HID conversion kit I've seen has been a half-assed disaster. Just haven't had time to install all of it, and the Philips Xtreme Vision +130 H1 bulbs I'm using are really working well for me right now, so my motivation for "more light" for this car is kind of not at a high level right now. :cool:

OF
 
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#4 ·
It shouldn't be too hard to install the headlight setup, but I would expect there to be some splicing of the wiring. It won't act 100% stock though, unless you install the leveling sensors and computer for that, which would be quite difficult (lots of integrating wiring to do that, with sensors on the front right and left rear suspension arms and a separate computer under the dash). The OEM HID headlights re-aim when the van is loaded to avoid blinding other drivers (DOT requirement).

-Charlie
 
#5 ·
The reflectors in the stock light housing will not work with HID bulbs. In your current housing, the beam would be very poorly focused.You would need to change the light housing to accomplish what you want.

I would recommend the Osram Night Breaker Laser (Next Gen) H11 for for your dipped lighting and the HB3 in same brand and model as above for High Beams. They offer much better lighting and will not blind those driving toward you. These are highly reviewed for the Oddy. The only downfall is that lighting like these have lighter filaments and they will not last as long as regular bulbs. These are pricey, but well worth the extra cost in my opinion. These are hard to find. I get mine through Powerbulbs.


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#6 ·
I'm fortunate that in my own OEM HID upgrade to my everyday vehicle (Nissan Altima) that its OEM HID system uses Osram D2R capsules...these are actually manufactured from the get-go to be used in an OEM properly designed HID reflector housing. Yes, these exist. Acura, Lexus, Infiniti, Mercedes-Benz, and a few other manufacturers went this route for a number of years. An OEM HID reflector is actually 100% designed to allow use of a D2R HID capsule. Most OEM's switched to projectors (with the compatible D2S HID capsules) around the mid-2000's, as it is easier to style a vehicle's front end around a headlight with a smaller "frontal area footprint". I think the last manufacturer to use D2R HID capsules in an OEM designed-from-scratch-for-HID reflector housing was Subaru (2016 Impreza).

In short, no leveling apparatus required for D2R, and there are mounting lugs already in place in my Nissan for the ballasts. My Altima's HID housings' high beams sockets had 9005 bulbs, but they support the superb 9011 HIR1 halogen bulbs with no tab modifications required; I think it was designed to use these in the first place. I tested the entire setup in my garage, and the output is amazing in a 100% legal beam pattern. Will never get pulled over for this (and the next time I take apart the front end, I'll be ready to do this job). OEM rocks in this regard.

Just in case anybody is thinking about it, you can't use a re-based D2R capsule from an eBay plug-and-play kit in a reflector housing originally built for halogen use. The lighting result will completely fail for the same reasons eBay plug-and-play re-based D2S kits fail, fail, fail when used in halogen projectors.

So, to help answer the question: if you do remove the Odyssey's halogen headlamps, and install the Honda OEM HID headlamps and hardware, but the installation of the leveling system is just too overwhelming, you may be out of luck for HID.

Luckily, we have people like parmm on our forum to point us in the right direction. There have been a lot of improvements in halogen bulbs made by manufacturers like Osram, Philips and GE (all suppliers for OEM's) in recent years. The Gen 4 Odys with halogen headlights use H11 bulbs. See this link for details on an Osram H11 and GE H11 comparison by evo77 on the HID Planet forums (both are winners). The Osram H11's our own parmm talks of get good reviews on the Subaru and Toyota forums. Similarly, the guys on TacomaWorld also sing high praises of the GE H11's.

I currently use Philips Xtreme Vision H4 halogen bulbs in our two ancient Odysseys (191,000 and 205,000 miles), and I'm a fan. Our cars (Civic, Accord, Corolla) use the amazing Philips HIR bulbs (9012 low beam, 9011 high beam in only the Accord) with their better output and decent lifespan. I'm a fan of the newer performance halogen bulbs in our small family fleet of older vehicles.

OF
 
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#14 ·
I'm fortunate that in my own OEM HID upgrade to my everyday vehicle (Nissan Altima) that its OEM HID system uses Osram D2R capsules...these are actually manufactured from the get-go to be used in an OEM properly designed HID reflector housing. Yes, these exist. Acura, Lexus, Infiniti, Mercedes-Benz, and a few other manufacturers went this route for a number of years. An OEM HID reflector is actually 100% designed to allow use of a D2R HID capsule. Most OEM's switched to projectors (with the compatible D2S HID capsules) around the mid-2000's, as it is easier to style a vehicle's front end around a headlight with a smaller "frontal area footprint". I think the last manufacturer to use D2R HID capsules in an OEM designed-from-scratch-for-HID reflector housing was Subaru (2016 Impreza).

In short, no leveling apparatus required for D2R, and there are mounting lugs already in place in my Nissan for the ballasts. My Altima's HID housings' high beams sockets had 9005 bulbs, but they support the superb 9011 HIR1 halogen bulbs with no tab modifications required; I think it was designed to use these in the first place. I tested the entire setup in my garage, and the output is amazing in a 100% legal beam pattern. Will never get pulled over for this (and the next time I take apart the front end, I'll be ready to do this job). OEM rocks in this regard.

Just in case anybody is thinking about it, you can't use a re-based D2R capsule from an eBay plug-and-play kit in a reflector housing originally built for halogen use. The lighting result will completely fail for the same reasons eBay plug-and-play re-based D2S kits fail, fail, fail when used in halogen projectors.

So, to help answer the question: if you do remove the Odyssey's halogen headlamps, and install the Honda OEM HID headlamps and hardware, but the installation of the leveling system is just too overwhelming, you may be out of luck for HID.

Luckily, we have people like parmm on our forum to point us in the right direction. There have been a lot of improvements in halogen bulbs made by manufacturers like Osram, Philips and GE (all suppliers for OEM's) in recent years. The Gen 4 Odys with halogen headlights use H11 bulbs. See this link for details on an Osram H11 and GE H11 comparison by evo77 on the HID Planet forums (both are winners). The Osram H11's our own parmm talks of get good reviews on the Subaru and Toyota forums. Similarly, the guys on TacomaWorld also sing high praises of the GE H11's.

I currently use Philips Xtreme Vision H4 halogen bulbs in our two ancient Odysseys (191,000 and 205,000 miles), and I'm a fan. Our cars (Civic, Accord, Corolla) use the amazing Philips HIR bulbs (9012 low beam, 9011 high beam in only the Accord) with their better output and decent lifespan. I'm a fan of the newer performance halogen bulbs in our small family fleet of older vehicles.

OF
The Halogen Infrared bulbs dont get too hot and leave the inside with that burned residue? (Not sure if you know what i mean, but i have seen it with pnp hids before)
Just curious, i will likely never use them. Led projectors are free for me
 

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#7 ·
When I re-read this opus, the discourse on D2R capsules made it sound like I was disagreeing with parmm.

Just to be clear, I 100% agree with parmm's observation that putting anything HID into anything meant originally for halogen gets exactly the negative results he specified. He is on the money with that. Sorry about any confusion.

OF
 
#9 ·
Yes, sir. Glad to be able to "pay it forward" to the Odyclubbers whenever I find something even remotely helpful out there.

OF
 
#17 · (Edited)
???....wouldn't that would be a bi-halogen projector (single-filament bulb in a projector with a moveable shield for dipped beams and high beams). I didn't think any auto manufacturer used that architecture in an OEM headlight housing. Most halogen OEM halogen projectors are strictly low beams with a generic reflector (or possibly high beam patterned halogen projector) mated to a 9005 (or 9011) halogen bulb dedicated to high beam and DRL.

Just to keep this on track...I don't know anybody who has installed re-based HID capsules into any halogen projector and achieved legal (and useful) illumination results. You usually end up with a sh1t-ton of crappy foreground lighting, which kills your distance night vision (your own eyeballs), and during rainfall, the light reflected off the road surface pisses off every oncoming vehicle (including the police). I have two neighbors who are patrol LEO's (local police and highway patrol, one each), and the sheer number of citations they issue for people who do lame headlight mods amazes me.

One can see by the above discussions that rebased HID capsules installed into anything engineered for a resistive filament light source (a.k.a. halogen bulb) is a no-go, period. I will always say the following: if you spent solid dollars on a good van, don't go Charlie-cheap-a55 and buy eBay (or Amazon) plug-and-play garbage. Do the research and go with a complete lighting system. That's right, the whole enchilada. More $$$? Hell yeah, but you'll get quality in terms of light thrown down the road and durability. If you can go OEM like I did on my Nissan, even better.

If you install OEM HID headlight housings, the igniters, and ballasts....you still need the leveling assemblies (one for each side). If you don't install that to a workable standard, you need to re-aim the headlights whenever you heavily load the van, or do like I did with my 2003EX HID projector retrofit: install AirLift 1000's into the rear springs and use air to re-level the loaded van.

There is no way to simultaneously achieve all three of these results in converting halogen to HID:
1.) Very cheap and utterly simple to install
2.) Legal lighting pattern with good lighting thrown down the road where you need it
3.) More light output

With PnP systems, you can only get 2 of these (guess which ones).

OF
 
#18 ·
Hello! I tried to search, but this site's search function stinks. Has anyone had success installing oem HIDs into an Odyssey with stock halogens? I see some kits on eBay with ballasts/igniters etc, but I'm wondering if someone has attempted this.

Thanks in advance!
Not worth the hassle tbh. Try retrofit source for HID kits, you're better off with that.
If you want to spend a large chunk of money, you can go with OEM bulbs/ballast, you will need a wiring adapter which TRS has IIRC.
If you're going to go this route, might as well get OEM HID headlight assemblies...if you're going to do that, might as well open them up and put better projectors.
End of the day it depends on you. I would recommend just getting the TRS 35w HID kit.
I have 4TL-Rs in my OEM HID headlight assemblies.
 
#21 ·
Hello! I tried to search, but this site's search function stinks. Has anyone had success installing oem HIDs into an Odyssey with stock halogens? I see some kits on eBay with ballasts/igniters etc, but I'm wondering if someone has attempted this.

Thanks in advance!
I used HID kits in 2005 Odyssey for a couple of years and now I have moved on to LED bulbs. The light intensity with the new LED bulbs (55 Watts) is very close to the HID bulbs but the installation is a lot easier as you do not need any blasts etc.

 
#22 ·
Hello! I tried to search, but this site's search function stinks. Has anyone had success installing oem HIDs into an Odyssey with stock halogens? I see some kits on eBay with ballasts/igniters etc, but I'm wondering if someone has attempted this.

Thanks in advance!
Unless you are replacing the entire headlight unit, you are not going to get good results. You can't just swap in a new bulb, be it HID or LED, into a reflector designed for incandescent bulbs and expect to get good results.
 
#27 ·
I have an Odyssey 2014 EX-L, with the factory Halogen projectors. I bought two brand new 2017 Odyssey Touring Elite HID headlamp assemblies from Honda, and a Morimoto HID kit. We could not tell the difference between the brand new OEM Honda HID projectors and the stock OEM Honda halogen projectors when both were powered on simultaneously. We could not tell the difference, so while one halogen and one HID projector was still installed on the van, I asked the mechanic to remove the brand new Honda HID projector and reinstall the older halogen projector. The mechanic was on the clock, and I didn't think to take a picture of the identical cut offs and focal points of the headlights.

We noticed zero difference between the two OEM assemblies. The only way we could tell the difference between the two was not by the identical light output or perfect alignment of both units, but that the factory HID projector assembly has a location underneath the housing to mount the ballast. Without that mounting location underneath the housing, we could not tell the difference in alignment, cut off, light output, distance, focus, width, focal point, etc... They were practically identical.

Eventually, I will post pictures of the difference between the two, but decided to remove them for now, and use the HID assemblies after these Halogens fade, and then install the HID assemblies years later.

Philips (the German inventor of the HID xenon technology), used to make HID bulbs only for Factory HID projectors (D1S, D1R, D2R, D2S, D3R, D3S, D4R, D4S, D5S, etc...) They now make an HID bulb of their brightest bulbs (Philips Xtreme Vision Gen II) for Halogen projectors!!! (H11, etc..) Xenon Depot sells them, custom made directly from Philips and you can use a 50W ballast with these bulbs to get absolutely serious light output.

I put these on my van and the light output was absolutely nothing short of stunning. It was brighter than my sister's brand new $125k BMW which has LED lighting with Laser. Yes, you read that correctly. It was brighter, and about 2x farther. The BMW did have a more bluish tint to the LED color, whereas the philips with 50W was more pure white.

99% of people on this forum argue until ad nausea and imply that you will blow up your Odyssey sky high and blind every person from here to the moon, and S.W.A.T. will bust down your doors due to using an illegal aftermarket HID system. While that might be true in some cases, on some vehicles, I have found this to be 100% false for our 2014 Honda Odyssey EX-L with factory halogen projectors. Perhaps halogen reflectors would be an issue, but not honda's HID projector vs Halogen projector (at least on our van).

One word of advice... I've had to replaced 2 different morimoto ballasts (35W version I and 50W version I), within the one year warranty on each ballast. Supposedly, they have fixed these problems by making a Version II, but I was done with morimoto and their crap components. Xenon Depot has better quality components, and they have genuine Philips xtreme vision 2 bulbs available in halogen based projectors. An absolute game changer.

Headlight revolution (check on youtube) tested the philips extreme vision 2 against the morimoto, and the philips was almost 1000 lux brighter than the morimoto. Morimoto/the retrofit source lies and says the Moriomoto aftermarket bulbs are brighter than Philips whom invented the damn technology. All lies.

Your mileage will vary, but these are my experiences.
 
#26 ·
Brian, I've tested HID outside of the projector many times. They don't use the projector base as a ground path. Also, in comparing an HID bulb on its connector and lead to a bare spark plug, you're comparing grapefruit to watermelon, not apples to oranges. A spark plug grounds through the threaded plug body (i.e, no ground wire per se), while HID grounds via dedicated conductors (wiring). Two completely different animals.

OF
 
#28 ·
Gstevens1, the only way to truly evaluate headlight output pattern is with one of these:

152618


Looking at a static pattern on the garage wall in no way tells you what is getting into somebody else's eyes almost a hundred yards away. I did the same thing you did, but I did this with a set of Osram Rally H4 70/75W bulbs....same center hot spot, blah blah. Took van onto a road trip, and had big rigs flashing me from the other side of I-40 while I was driving through New Mexico. We're talking the part of the interstate where the eastbound and westbound lanes are separated by a considerable bit of terrain. As it turned out, those bulbs generated a considerable "glare alter" that I was unable to detect during my 25-foot nighttime checkout against a vertical wall adjoining a level parking lot. I had put up blue masking tape marks and marked out the parking point with a shot of spray paint, and the van was empty both times. I should have heeded the "for offroad use only" label.

I lost count of the number of times local friends of mine drove a truck with HID re-based bulbs installed into their halogen projectors only to find that the light pattern which looked good in the driveway was completely off kilter when they tried to see the same landmarks a couple hundred feet away on a familiar road (in my burg, with many unlit country roads,a moonless night can give you a quick indication if the lighting system is delivering light down the road). One of them did just like you, one-at-a-time to make sure the alignment was proper.

Alignment was the only thing that was proper about that endeavor.

I am with you on the half-baked nature of Morimoto products marketed by TRS. I pointed out to TRS how their H4 projector alignment washer was off-axis by about 8 degrees. They had no idea what I was talking about until I informed them that the top tab in an H4 bulb is NOT aligned with the filament in a stock bulb, by design...that is the part of the standardized design for an H4 bulb. They still haven't fixed it, to my knowledge, and continue to sell kits with this defect. I also had two Morimoto projectors fail after a few years of service (one quit reflecting, the other had its reflective surface peel off like the skin of an apple...completely unacceptable).

OF
 
#29 · (Edited)
Gstevens1, the only way to truly evaluate headlight output pattern is with one of these:

View attachment 152618

Looking at a static pattern on the garage wall in no way tells you what is getting into somebody else's eyes almost a hundred yards away. I did the same thing you did, but I did this with a set of Osram Rally H4 70/75W bulbs....same center hot spot, blah blah. Took van onto a road trip, and had big rigs flashing me from the other side of I-40 while I was driving through New Mexico. We're talking the part of the interstate where the eastbound and westbound lanes are separated by a considerable bit of terrain. As it turned out, those bulbs generated a considerable "glare alter" that I was unable to detect during my 25-foot nighttime checkout against a vertical wall adjoining a level parking lot. I had put up blue masking tape marks and marked out the parking point with a shot of spray paint, and the van was empty both times. I should have heeded the "for offroad use only" label.

I lost count of the number of times local friends of mine drove a truck with HID re-based bulbs installed into their halogen projectors only to find that the light pattern which looked good in the driveway was completely off kilter when they tried to see the same landmarks a couple hundred feet away on a familiar road (in my burg, with many unlit country roads,a moonless night can give you a quick indication if the lighting system is delivering light down the road). One of them did just like you, one-at-a-time to make sure the alignment was proper.

Alignment was the only thing that was proper about that endeavor.

I am with you on the half-baked nature of Morimoto products marketed by TRS. I pointed out to TRS how their H4 projector alignment washer was off-axis by about 8 degrees. They had no idea what I was talking about until I informed them that the top tab in an H4 bulb is NOT aligned with the filament in a stock bulb, by design...that is the part of the standardized design for an H4 bulb. They still haven't fixed it, to my knowledge, and continue to sell kits with this defect. I also had two Morimoto projectors fail after a few years of service (one quit reflecting, the other had its reflective surface peel off like the skin of an apple...completely unacceptable).

OF
Interesting tool for headlights.

Ceaser (owner of Lightwerkz Global in New Jersey), REFUSED to install Honda HID Projectors, into the Honda Halogen projector assemblies. His exact words from multiple emails going back and forth: "Nope. Not worth it. Not even we can tell the difference between the two, as they are nearly identical in our experience." That's what actually stopped us from going to Honda's OEM HID system and performing a true OEM retrofit. A man whose only sole business it is to customize HID projectors and make custom solutions from scratch, basically said he didn't want the job because there was no noticeable and/or measurable difference in his decades of experience. That's when I bought the Honda OEM HID assemblies myself, and installed only one inside a shop, and we could notice ZERO difference between the two. That's when I had the new one removed and the old halogen projector put back on.

Is there a difference between Honda's HID Oem assembly and their Halogen projector assembly with regards to alignment, focal point, level, brightness, width, distance, etc? I'm not sure. If there is one, it's not enough that a custom headlight company would even do the job, and when we physically installed ours because they refused the work order due to telling us that there was no difference, we couldn't tell the difference either at night, which was why we removed them.

I'm considering selling them actually. Going with the OEM HID assemblies from Honda locks us into inferior 35W ballasts, verses the ability for us to install the same Philips HID bulbs (currently brightest on the market) and aftermarket 50w ballasts to light up the width of 5 traffic lanes, and to light up hundreds of yards of distance down the road.

50W ballasts with the philips xtreme vision gen II HID bulbs was a game changer for us. I practically soiled myself when I saw the light output.

We've never been flashed either. Maybe that's because we lowered the factory angle down lower, and all that's lite up bright is the actual street.

I guess your mileage will vary. But that's our experience, and our mechanics experience when we installed the HID system, and that of Lightwerkz Global, who opens up and makes custom headlight/laser/HID/LED headlight assemblies for ferraris, lamborghinis, etc... for a living. I can't say how the job would of turned out, because they refused the job under the grounds that there wasn't a difference. He did say that we would see a difference between Honda S2000 projectors and Honda's HID projectors, but NOT the HID vs Halogen projector which were essentially the same part according to him. (Only difference being some auto leveling and a mount for the ballast on the bottom of the assembly).
 
#33 ·
On my 2008 Toyota Camry SE, I got HID retrofit with TSX projectors. Great output but the car got totaled because someone ran a stop sign; Probably the best investment on the car. With my 2015 Ody EX-L, I couldn't justify the cost in the event something like this happened again. I have been a against getting LED bulbs because it is still in its infancy in the technology. I never buy from eBay or Amazon because they are crap and the output is so bad, I might as well drive with no headlights. I was also never a big fan of HID plug and plays. However, after researching from reputable HID retrofits and brands, I decided to get the Morimoto 2Stroke 2.0 LED headlights. Morimoto is a well known and reputable brand and the output is great! The fan has a whirling loud sound but is only noticeable when you're stopped, parked and the car is off. It has a nice cut off and no blinding of other drivers. I hate being blinded so I wouldn't want to do that to others especially if it impairs someones driving ability and could cause problems.
 
#36 ·
A double-wide stack of chips in no way, shape, or form is even close to the "size/length/width" of a filament.

154743

154744


Also, bulbs and filaments are 3-dimensional objects, not 2-dimensional objects. Lighting engineers don't think in 2D, and neither should you, if you're trying to be serious about finding a functional LED bulb.
 
#37 ·
Exactly. This is why you need an entire LED lighting system, not just an el-cheapo drop-in "replacement" set of LED chips fixed to a halogen base.

Still amazed at the number of people who will pop down over $30k on a van, then go with a $30 (or less) LED setup.

OF
 
#38 ·
Careful...don't want to hurt people's delicate feelings...haven't you heard? Everyone's an engineer nowadays, and everyone is 200% more qualified than the engineers at Honda in evaluating headlamp performance! Everyone knows that the only criteria for light source equivalence is simply the length/width/size of the LED chip!
 
#42 ·
It's a 3-dimensional source - with the LEDs, you have the heat sink through the middle, shifting it outwards - in effect adding to the diameter of the cylinder, if you will. You don't have LEDs all the way around, just on two sides - they are positioned shooting outwards, into the cup that is the reflector in a projector beam. You have the line source in essentially the same position in the reflector as you would with the halogen beam - as a result, you don't get as much dispersion/wasted light right in front of the car, and it's cast forward as the projector is designed. Also - filament positioning is not "perfect" - there are allowable variances that the manufacturer must meet, and the headlight designer must take into account - so looking at the filament in a single bulb isn't what you want to consider when looking at a replacement - you want to look at the envelope that filament can be in, which is larger (in diameter, axial alignment, and position) - the designer must account for this uncertainty when putting together a headlight reflector - and a LED replacement designer can use that window of "acceptable" positions to their advantage.

You realize that J3145 isn't a law, but rather a guideline, right? and that even as that, it is not a released document, but a work in progress? And that you can't even view/purchase a copy of their draft? Are you on the lighting standards practices committee? What does the document say?

Rather than speaking in generalities, why not share some of this knowledge you have - why won't it work? If the light source is positioned at the focal point in the reflector cup in a projector setup, the setup doesn't care what the source is - all it does is reflect. Unlike a reflector housing headlight, a projector has a cutoff plate to eliminate the upwards glare. If you take a look at different headlight designs in the reviews on youtube for example, you'll see some yield definite hot spots, while others produce a uniform, well defined beam as the housings do with the halogen bulb. You'll also see that older (and some current) designs have a source that is more or less a large circle, sometimes incorporating a lens of its own - in those cases, the emitter is often shorter than the equivalent filament, and perhaps that's why you get the light/dark spots with those LEDs.

It's great that you can google different documents, but quoting them back without evidence isn't particularly compelling. The empirical evidence - output/distribution from various headlights (there are many, many reviews out there - of varying degrees of formality) - clearly shows that the LED replacements can work for some "bulb" designs, while others don't work as well and yield non-uniformities.

If you can't speak to what the european, or even US groups working to define guidelines, then maybe put a sock in it for now and come back when you have something meaningful to add.
 
#43 · (Edited)
Guys, this is turning into a slug-fest, when it is not supposed to be.

Lighting.

To my knowledge, no drop-in LED bulb design has every passed a light audit when checked against a beam setter or multiple test points for output. Amazingly, some of the really bright ones don't put out enough light in key areas, while putting out too much in other measured points. Evo77 on the Impreza forums has been one of the best sources of getting good imformation on what works and what doesn't for us mere end-users. I've been following him for years.

Similarly, one of the prolific lighting writers on the Tacoma forums (crashnburn80) is an actual automotive engineer. His threads on lighting upgrades (legal and effective) make for great reading.

Most of the enthusiasts on various forums will use basic light measuring equipment to see if one headlight product has greater total output than another. It's an incorrect way of accomplishing this, as the measurements I've seen on various forums are accomplished at only 6 to 18 inches from the headlight using a single test point (versus, say, 25 feet away, and multiple points in the beam pattern). This works on backup light evaluations, but not at all for headlights.

One of my former co-workers occasionally works a police traffic beat. Knowing what I've found, I told him that if a vehicle even looks like it has HID or LED bulbs dropped into a headlight made for halogen bulbs, just pull them over, write up a detailed citation, and see what happens when they pull in to the referee station for a check using a beamsetter. So far, over the last couple years, every single drop-in HID and LED has failed, and thus the drivers were stuck with an expensive moving violation. He doesn't do this for revenue generation; it's just so blamed obvious, notably when a vehicle is turning, if it has a drop-in LED or HID bulb in a halogen housing (free-form or projector). The headlight might have good output up front, but there are inevitably stray beams ("glare altars") not visible to the driver, but definitely visible to other drivers, including our esteemed police. It happens. A lot.

This is why I'm big on spending the money on a proper lighting system. When I went HID for my 2003 EX, it was a no-brainer to go with installing actual D2S projectors, ballasts, and unaltered D2S HID capsules. Knowing what I know now from that experience, the next time I do this I'll go with entirely OEM components instead of the not-so-durable red Chinese items from TRS.

For LED, better yet, if I want that, I'll just buy a vehicle that has them from the factory. Nowadays, you can actually buy the OEM LED headlight system from a higher trim level.

OF
 
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#44 ·
I'm not sure where you would even find information on vehicles subjected to a "light audit" - certainly that's not something done here. (we have plenty of trucks with the light bars on them mounted to the bumper and aimed more or less ahead and slightly up - those are pretty fun to come across) In a projector housing you really shouldn't get a ton of light above the cutoff, which should be pretty sharp (there are what are sometimes called "squirrel finders" that give a little diffuse light above the cutoff in some cars) - when you review the different upgrade images and videos out there, there are clearly some that give very non-uniform beams, lots of glare, etc. - esp. for reflector housings. However, for others, the beams are uniform without all the bonus scattering, or lighting the region right in front of the car bright as day so that you can't see anything down range, so to speak. Nothing wrong with doing an HID retrofit, but those can be messed up as well. Best option will almost always be an all OEM system if one is available for your vehicle.

Generally, in all of these sorts of discussions you'll have one side which is insistent that no drop in systems can ever work, period, and others that think perhaps they can - the empirical evidence is that there are some examples which can work well, as well as more than a few that are very, very poor.
 
#45 ·
The guy gets a ticket, he goes to court. Pleads guilty or not guilty. If not guilty, he exits courtroom and drives to the nearby sheriff's station, and they set up a beamsetter. If there is no amount of adjustment that will achieve a legal beam pattern, the ticket stands. If he changed out the LED "bulb" for something else in hopes of fooling the referee station personnel, they notify the court that the original light source he was ticketed for is no longer present, and the ticket stands.

It's pretty simple.

OF
 
#47 ·
WOW, good info...
They really have monetized compliance in your area.

There are laws here as well, but I have never heard of any person I know being hassled by it.
except people who choose to use yellow headlight bulbs.
pretty obvious to pick out.

I have 8000 lumen 6500K per bulb LED's (diffused) for my fogs and driven by law enforcement many many times with them on in bad weather or on the highway.
not a single issue.

The next province over they are strict about front window tint, but that's it.

The issue around here isn't people with non compliant bulbs, its morons who forget to turn on their headlights at all during night driving.
just because the dash lights are on doesn't mean your headlights and tail lights are!
 
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