Headlights

[VP stock]

Hi,
Im looking to get 5000k xenon bulbs to whiten my lights but ive seen packages with wiring and everything and was wondering is all that necessary or if i can just purchase the bulbs, im looking at head lights also would i need to buy them for high beam as well?

Cheers

[StevenzZ]

there are ones that are just BULBS and then there are HID's (the ones with wires etc) bulbs are like half price of the HID's but i personally think if your going to spend that much money on lights may as well get proper hi and low beam HID's....they are very easy to install its basically plug n play really, they come with instructions on how to install them as well.

with the hi and low beam HID's you can drive with the bright lights on and switch it over to normal globes when ever u want, where as the bulbs you will be stuck with the same lights....also there are cheaper HID's but they are only 1beam(i have these) just means you have to drive with the HID's blaring in peoples faces all the time cant chop and change when u feel..hope that helps ya

[VP stock]

do you kno wat type a vp commdore excuteive runs?

[dijm8]

i think vp's are h4?? i would say get 4300k as 5000k is goin to be too blue m8

[VP stock]

Do you say just go get bulbs im not looking to go crazy i just want to drive around with something better looking for a cheap price .. ive seen these bulbs for $20 on ebay output is 4300k and 90/100watt ???

Wat do you rekon?

[DUK13Y]

I would be worried about 90/100w. May get too hot and start to melt stuff. You'll need a bigger fuse too just to be on the safe side. Will probably be ok but I would still try and find others if possible.

[VP stock]

Hmm ive been looking on ebay and they all say 90/100 watt, how would i go about getting a new fuse ?

[StevenzZ]

another thing is i used cheap ebay bulbs once and after about 2-3months they started to flicker and was really bad/annoying and sometimes just wouldn't turn on...its up to you really you get what you pay for, my mate has used the bulbs with no problem at all(yet), but as duk13y said get a bigger fuse just to be safe.

you can grab fuses from anywhere really, supercheap,auto barn, jay car, even the servo

[VP stock]

Yea, is there any point in getting high beam bulbs or just go head light one's ?

[TMM]

You should be able to find aftermarket bulbs that are the same power as the standard ones, but brighter. e.g.
Philips Lighting Australia - power2night
Avoid bulbs that have heavy blue tinting on them because they won't be very bright.

Not much point upgrading the high beams unless you use them a lot for country driving.

Don't get HIDs, this post from another forum pretty much sums it up:

Do you have projector or reflector type headlights? Being an older civic I'm going to go out on a whim and say they would be conventional reflector type lenses?

If that is the case please, please do not put HIDs in them. You will not get anywhere near the same light output as your mum's car that has the proper lenses tow ork with the HIDs, and they will throw light everywhere. For the record the arc in a xenon bulb actually runs length ways through the blub, not across it like the filament in a halogen bulb, for this reason the reflector will not direct most of the light properly as it's completely the wrong shape, on top of not being able to cut it off properly at a desired height as detailed below.

It is the one singal most inconsiderate thing any motorist can do to install HIDS into a reflector as they are blinding for everyone out there. I have nothing against the technology myself so I'm not one of the people that hates them blindly, just trying to give you some proper information here as to why you shouldn't do it. For the record 2 of the 3 cars I have driven on a regular basis have had HIDs and we installed them into mum's XR6 Turbo when she got that.

Once I saw the way they threw light everywhere, and also noticed that the light output was nowhere near as good in the other 2 cars I removed them, so I do have experience in this matter.

For the record a projector type lens has a shield in it that provides a hard cutoff so the beam isn't able to shine into other motorists eyes, a reflector has nothing like this. See the Images below to hep detail this better.

I really hope you take this into consideration and do the considerate thing, you won't see a large improvement yourself and it really is a bastard thing to do to everyone else on the road, it really makes me angry when I see all these pieces of shit buzzing around with cheap ebay 8-10 000k HIDs in the old headlight housings, throwing a limited amount of bright blue (And once I even saw 12 000k purple) light onto the road in front, and the rest into everyone elses eyes. Not only does it provide little benefit to the driver but a lot of people don't know the difference and just hate everyone who has xenon headlights in general because they think they are all blinding, which is not the case if properly implemented.

What the inside of a projector housing looks like:


And here you can see the very hard cutoff of the light they output:



NO Aftermarket HID kit is ADR Compliant, as to meet those guidelines you need projector lenses, auto levellers and headlight washers. That's not to say I am 100% against conversions provided the right lens type, but they will never be legal.

Edit:


Please note this isn't just hype, HID lamps and reflectors REALLY Don't work well together at all.

And for the record one of the cars I drive with HIDs is a Supra which comes with halogens as stock, but does have projector type lenses and works well with the conversion, as I said above the other car I tried to convert an XR6 Turbo had reflectors and from personal experience it really worked badly, and I reverted to Halogens almost immediately.

[HoldenOnn]

Just go to this site;

PowerBulbs - Car Bulbs, Headlight Bulbs, Xenon Bulbs from Philips and Osram, including Philips Xtreme Power and Osram NightBreaker globes.

I have had 2 sets for myself, and 2 more sets for my mates cars sent to me over the last month. If you have H4 bulbs, then go for Philips X-treme plus 80% which test show give off more light than the Osram plus 90% nightbreaker design. But for the high beam H3 bulb, you can't get philips plus 80%, so go for 2nd best and get the Osram plus 90%.