Write-Up: HID Conversion

ALso thanks to IBX1 for write up and site links. Just one thing though. Do the new DS2 bulbs fir properly in the Riv's housings?

Albertj

D2S's are all we have used so far. I'm having some trouble getting hold of D2R lamps. No one has had any complaints about D2S though

purchased some 6000K HID's on thursday from
http://myworld.ebay.com/autoluminate
and they arrived today!
got them for $55 shipped! usps express from cali.
they have the same ballasts as Ilans HID's. (Xentec 35w)
just got them installed and WOW well worth the 20 min to install. true plug and play design. i didnt have to modify anything and can go back to OEM in another 20 min.
here are some progress pics:






pictures dont do it justice, these are BRIGHT!



just hope they last...(has warranty card at least)

wow, a bargain.

Haha they look amazing with your paint! You also paid half what I did...nice buy! It's so much easier to install with a FWI, right?

Ok, so I'm gonna buy, but need some advise.

He has these two options:

Spoiler:

&

Spoiler:

I guess the only difference is that one utilizes a "slimmer" ballast, or am I missing something?

I have a white car, plan to keep a black grill, and no extra chrome on the outside except when I get wheels.

What color should I get?
and I have bulb size 9006 right?
and I'll only have one brightness setting. No more brights, correct?[url]

i still have brights, but they look like yellow shit now
yes 9006 bulbs.
some hid's are 55w and some are 35w. without looking at the 2 links i'd guess that's the difference. 55w will be a little brighter, but also take away ~1000K color. so 6000k bulbs in 35w(mine) are 5000k in 55w.
anything over 6000k is too blue for me.

They're both 35w. I think you're paying $20 more for a smaller ballast.
I'm gonna get what you got, but 5k.

Nah, looking at your car again, I'm gonna copy you to the T
6k for me.
We dont live close, so noone but us here will know I copied you.

different cars with different mods. you couldn't copy me to the T if you tried.
and besides, i followed llan and Devin.

one favor though, please use the link instead of mile long addresses.

Wow this looks really cool, especially for the amount of time put in! Looks like I'll have to add it to the list of summer projects. Thanks for the advice everyone!

my passenger ballast went out on friday. i had a feeling it was defective b/c from the time i put it in i had a problem with that light coming on when cold.(just had to turn them off and back on to make them work)
Friday morning it wouldnt come on at all, so i emailed the seller and he is warentying the ballast. he sent the new one out today. i'm guessing he is sending me a prepaid return box as well. i'll keep you guys informed.
i still recommend this kit, factory defects happen and the seller/xentec handeled this problem very qucikly. i just hope it is the only bump in the road

very nice man cant wait to see how bright they are!

Mr.Riviera wrote:

my passenger ballast went out on friday. i had a feeling it was defective b/c from the time i put it in i had a problem with that light coming on when cold.(just had to turn them off and back on to make them work)
Friday morning it wouldnt come on at all, so i emailed the seller and he is warentying the ballast. he sent the new one out today. i'm guessing he is sending me a prepaid return box as well. i'll keep you guys informed.
i still recommend this kit, factory defects happen and the seller/xentec handeled this problem very qucikly. i just hope it is the only bump in the road

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they don't require return of the bad ballast.

if you want even more light outbut you could boost the ballasts.


That said, has anyone ever managed to do a projector beam conversion? Here is one video that seems to explain how to make an HID headlamp assembly but in the process also a projector beam:


Where do you get a projector assembly to do it custom? I mean check this out - a custom Grand Am with projectors. They don't make them for that so how would someone make one for a Riv? Perhaps ambitious of me to say so but I might go ahead and do it and maybe make a write up depending on the cost. One problem I'm seeing though - what do you do about our lens? It has all those little ridges and stuff in the outer lens - how would you make it so it is simply a clear piece of plastic that fits over the headlight?

I'm not sure what they're categorized as, so can someone tell me the number type the cornering light bulbs are? I don't know what types of bulbs to look at to replace them with something brighter. One other lighting mod I'm thinking about, I want to get a strip of flexible LEDs 39" long that are white and mount them underneath the car right near the door. The ones I'm looking at are waterproof as well. My ideal setup would be to have these lights tucked away so you can't really see them and they will come on with the interior lights so that when you hit unlock they light up the ground next to the door but also they would come on if I turned the interior lights on via the dimmer. I think this would have a cool effect similar to paddle lights without looking tacky or ricey like neon lights would be. They sell tiny plastic mounts that you can screw in and I'd use a short screw to attach it on each side, although I might use some other adhesive or something - I'm just not sure how much I trust double sided tape to hold it up over time, but I know there are some heavy duty versions that might be suitable since no one will see them.

Any other ideas anyone would care to share or things you've done to improve the lightning of the car in someway (Interior or exterior)?

Cool Beans

I will say that I notice and HATE aftermarket, unaimed HIDs, and I usually flash my high beams at them oncoming because they are obnoxious and blinding. A proper HID will trim the upper portion of the light away, so it's not blinding to oncoming traffic. Just pull up in front of a wall in a car with Factory HIDs and compare the light pattern to that of an aftermarket conversion, which just has a big blinding globe of light. Nice for the driver, bad for everyone else.

Otherwise, go ahead and try a few things out. I'm all in favor of finding a better lighting solution!

There's definitely a lot of diffusion with mine, but I aim my headlights as properly as I can. Turtleman said that there was a certain bulb, like the H2S or H2D I forget, it has a ceramic coating on the tip to 'shorten' the projecting light and make it similar in length to a regular halogen light. Worth looking into as well, although they're a bit more expensive and hard to find.


Also, Shintsu, I believe one method was to get a headlamp assembly from a 1st gen CTS and cut the projecter bulbs and housings out of that...there's a video somewhere.

deekster_caddy wrote:

I will say that I notice and HATE aftermarket, unaimed HIDs!

I would say the same thing about unaimed or missinstalled halogen lights. I can't even tell you how many people I see driving around with one normal light and then the other light is obviously put in wrong because the beam is shooting up instead of at the road, but they either don't notice it or don't know how to fix it. The HID's that blind me the most are the ones in some of the factory equipped cars such as the Acura TL which apparently runs the HID's and the highbeams on at the same time a lot of hte time. And in general some of the auto-leveling systems just throw the headlights at you like a rave club, which is much worse to me.

Reflector lenses retrofitted with HID's is sometimes hit or miss, there. Some cars give you enough adjustability to make HID's behave enough and some lense designs are just better suited than others. I've never been flashed in the riv with HID's and I didn't adjust it. I would get flashed in my 00 eclipse though sometimes.

Ilan, it's called a D2R bulb (the "R" indicates reflector lense). That is a kind of universal part number that the OEM for HID systems use. I still don't know for sure if you can get a D2R lamp that fits a 9006/9005 socket.