BRZ HIDs vs FR-S HID Conversion

[civicdrivr]

The OEM setup in the BRZ looks like it puts more usable light on the road, and the kit in the FR-S glares quite a bit more then the BRZ projectors.

How far from the wall were the cars?

[mattles]

wow, this is still going on, huh? Both headlamps seem to be more or less complete shit. Cheap headlamps for a cheap car, unless you are a pedant or a headlamp fetishist (seems like we have a few of both) a quick and dirty chinese ballast/bulb retrofit will be good enough for the majority of people. Its cheap, easy to install, easy to adjust, and provides more light than stock. Good enough. Done.

[DarrenDriven]

Originally Posted by civicdrivr

The OEM setup in the BRZ looks like it puts more usable light on the road, and the kit in the FR-S glares quite a bit more then the BRZ projectors.

How far from the wall were the cars?

Again, the camera compensated for the light and in the photos the difference between the two cars doesn't accurately reflect what our eyes saw. We were about 30 feet from the wall, but didn't measure. We did line both cars up in the exact same position, though.

Originally Posted by mattles

wow, this is still going on, huh? Both headlamps seem to be more or less complete shit. Cheap headlamps for a cheap car, unless you are a pedant or a headlamp fetishist (seems like we have a few of both) a quick and dirty chinese ballast/bulb retrofit will be good enough for the majority of people. Its cheap, easy to install, easy to adjust, and provides more light than stock. Good enough. Done.

I honestly think that they are good enough, but I got carried away by the response that popped up. If I can make some changes to improve the safety and help others create a safer situation then why not do it, right?

[chulooz]

Originally Posted by mattles

wow, this is still going on, huh? Both headlamps seem to be more or less complete shit. Cheap headlamps for a cheap car, unless you are a pedant or a headlamp fetishist (seems like we have a few of both) a quick and dirty chinese ballast/bulb retrofit will be good enough for the majority of people. Its cheap, easy to install, easy to adjust, and provides more light than stock. Good enough. Done.

Yeah who gives a fuck about the people you blind or the reliability of the system. Thats the Scion spirit!

[engee]

Originally Posted by DarrenDriven

Here is part of the problem with the photos. Now I am definitely no camera aficionado, but I do know that on the auto setting my digital camera will automatically adjust the settings to even out light throughout the image. Because of the extreme contrasts of the shot (very bright below, very dark above) the camera seems to have compensated in a way that exaggerates the brightness of the light that appears above the cutoff. In person, the light above the cutoff was nearly imperceptible and I was surprised to see how dramatic it looked once I got home and pulled it up on the computer. However, the main reason that I am posting all of this is so that I can improve my lights and document a path so that other FR-S owners who choose to do an HID conversion can easily modify their setup so that they are being as safe as possible.

I applaud your enthusiasm to try and improve your lights. However, the fact remains that there is no cheap way to improve your lights.

Here's some good reading for you in regards to lighting.

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/t...nversions.html

http://www.hidplanet.com/forums/show...uths-and-Myths

http://www.hidplanet.com/forums/show...b-Crash-Course

If you truly want to improve the lighting of your car, there are Halogen Infrared Reflecting bulbs that you can get that would actually increase the amount of lumens coming out from your FR-S's halogen lenses when compared to the HID kit that you have bought. Plus, this is done without all the harmful side effects of the HID kit. Sylvania Silverstars would probably be a great improvement for your car.

If you continue to be adamant about having HID's, I recommend that you do a correct retrofit. If your response to this is that a complete retrofit is too expensive, I only have words that have been echoed throughout countless automotive forums:

"You gotta pay to play."

I hope you do the correct thing by taking the kit out and performing a complete retrofit. You already spent $25k on the car, what is another $800. To put things into perspective, $800 is only 3% of what you paid for the car.

[DarrenDriven]

Originally Posted by engee

Sylvania Silverstars would probably be a great improvement for your car.

I hope you do the correct thing by taking the kit out and performing a complete retrofit. You already spent $25k on the car, what is another $800. To put things into perspective, $800 is only 3% of what you paid for the car.

Yeah, paying to play is generally how it works and everything is a compromise. $800 on a $25,000 car is fine if it was the only additional purchase, but wheels, suspension, turbo kit, audio, tint, etc, etc, etc, and that $800 for lighting that is only a small amount of improvement over what I have seems a bit excessive. But just because that isn't in my budget doesn't mean that it won't be in someone else's.

Thanks for the links, I am going to read them over tonight when I have more time.

By the way, I went with the Silverstars on my Jeep Wrangler Unlimited about a year ago because those housings would not convert to HIDs well. The Silverstars were a HUGE disappointment and I couldn't tell them apart from the bulbs that came from the factory lighting that I pulled out. On top of that, one bulb burned out after a few months and when I went to return it they pointed out on the box that those bulbs have a VERY SHORT life expectancy. This reminded me of the value of an HID conversion. I payed about the same for my HID upgrade and the life span is much longer (same brand in my Ram 1+ years, and in my Buell motorcycle for ~3 years)

[Dave-ROR]

Couple of posts removed. Keep it clean and focused on the topic at hand please.

[civicdrivr]

Quite frankly, you can do a retro for half that. The car already has projectors in it, all thats needed is a new bracket to drop HID projectors in.

TSX/S2k/RX300 projectors can be had for $150-300. A set of Phillips 85122+ bulbs are another $80. You already have ballasts but you'd need a converter for the ignitor ($30 IIRC). Sheet of metal from the hardware store for the brackets is about $5. Another $5 for hardware, and thats being generous. A few hours lining everything up and youre done.

Believe me, if you use good projectors (S2k, RX300s), youll look back at the stock projector and wonder why you even messed with it. There is no small improvement. There is a HUGE difference in the optics of a well designed HID projector vs a well designed halogen projector running a PnP HID kit. This is not regurgitated forum talk from me, this is actual experience.

Im running Silver Star Ultras until I can finally decide what projector I want to swap in, and the difference between them and stock was quite noticeable.

The one question I have is whether or not the stock wiring is stout enough to handle the power demands of an HID kit. Typically, Id say to use a relay harness straight off the battery, but is the stock wiring the same as the BRZ which has an HID system stock?

[engee]

Originally Posted by DarrenDriven

Yeah, paying to play is generally how it works and everything is a compromise. $800 on a $25,000 car is fine if it was the only additional purchase, but wheels, suspension, turbo kit, audio, tint, etc, etc, etc, and that $800 for lighting that is only a small amount of improvement over what I have seems a bit excessive. But just because that isn't in my budget doesn't mean that it won't be in someone else's.

Thanks for the links, I am going to read them over tonight when I have more time.

By the way, I went with the Silverstars on my Jeep Wrangler Unlimited about a year ago because those housings would not convert to HIDs well. The Silverstars were a HUGE disappointment and I couldn't tell them apart from the bulbs that came from the factory lighting that I pulled out. On top of that, one bulb burned out after a few months and when I went to return it they pointed out on the box that those bulbs have a VERY SHORT life expectancy. This reminded me of the value of an HID conversion. I payed about the same for my HID upgrade and the life span is much longer (same brand in my Ram 1+ years, and in my Buell motorcycle for ~3 years)

Same could be said in regards to why you need a tint or why you need improved audio. I can continue and ask why some people spend THOUSANDS on sound systems for their cars. Once again, I digress. The point I am trying to make is that if you want quality parts you need to pay for them. Take the example for sound systems. You pay for quality.

In regards to the Silverstars, that was my fault. It's been a while since I talked about lighting. I still stand by the Halogen Infrared Reflecting (HIR) bulbs.

Here are some stats about HIR bulbs (notice the increase in lumens):
http://www.hirheadlights.com/stats.htm

The sylvania silverstars are on the left. HIR bulb on the right:


Here is a photo of the light output compared to a Sylvania Silverstar. The HIR light is on the right, and the Silverstar is on the left. (NOTE: In the picture with the Syl. Silverstars on, the steering wheel is covering up the indicator for the highbeams.)


Once again, I hope you take out your kit. My personal opinion is that I do not like getting blinded by these kits, especially when these kits are in trucks where the headlight is higher up and will easily blind normal size passenger cars. I appreciate when things are done correctly on cars and I normally do not care what you do to your car until said mod affects other people.

[Memphis]

Originally Posted by engee

Same could be said in regards to why you need a tint or why you need improved audio. I can continue and ask why some people spend THOUSANDS on sound systems for their cars. Once again, I digress. The point I am trying to make is that if you want quality parts you need to pay for them. Take the example for sound systems. You pay for quality.

In regards to the Silverstars, that was my fault. It's been a while since I talked about lighting. I still stand by the Halogen Infrared Reflecting (HIR) bulbs.

Here are some stats about HIR bulbs (notice the increase in lumens):
http://www.hirheadlights.com/stats.htm

The sylvania silverstars are on the left. HIR bulb on the right:


Here is a photo of the light output compared to a Sylvania Silverstar. The HIR light is on the right, and the Silverstar is on the left. (NOTE: In the picture with the Syl. Silverstars on, the steering wheel is covering up the indicator for the highbeams.)


Once again, I hope you take out your kit. My personal opinion is that I do not like getting blinded by these kits, especially when these kits are in trucks where the headlight is higher up and will easily blind normal size passenger cars. I appreciate when things are done correctly on cars and I normally do not care what you do to your car until said mod affects other people.

Those are pretty cool. Are they brighter than the nightbreakers? If so I am going to get a set of these for my FR-S. Are they whiter than stock?

[Memphis]

And do they make those bulbs for our cars?

[engee]

Originally Posted by Memphis

And do they make those bulbs for our cars?

The bulb sizes for the FR-S:

Low Beam (Halogen): H11
High Beam (Halogen): 9005

If you really want an increased light output in lumens, my recommendation would be to :

Low-Beams = H11 size 55W Ultra High Efficacy Plus 50
some good brands are: Philips VisionPlus, Osram SilverStar, Narva RangePower+50, Tungsram Megalicht
(whatever bulb you buy, try and get the european bulb)

High-Beams = HIR 9011
You will need to to some slight modification here. It is super simple though
Here's a DIY from another forum: http://www.iwsti.com/forums/gr-exter...onversion.html

This is a great alternative to PnP HID kits and will provide a ton more light than any PnP HID kit.

[mattles]

Originally Posted by civicdrivr

There is a HUGE difference in the optics of a well designed HID projector vs a well designed halogen projector running a PnP HID kit.

I agree with you 100%, but I think you are giving the stock projectors too much credit, they dont seem to be designed very well at all.

[86'd]

You guys need to test out some H9 Halogen bulbs, to see if it works like it does in the WRX...

It's almost a x2 lumen upgrade for $30.