h4 and hid head light conversion

Nullifier

Expedition Leader
So I have been thinking about next years mods and new lighting is one of them. Since my taco is a'96 I have the old school sea;ed lights. I was thinking of upgrading to HID but learned I have to change the housings. I was thinkng of getting some IPF H$ housings for about $80.00 and then put an HID conversion behind them instead of the IPF h4 bulbs.

I looked at the hella also but I think the IPF offroad lights have better reflectors then hella so I am using the same logic on the light replacements as well.

http://arbusa.com/headlight_replacements.php

http://arbusa.com/bulbs.php

Not sure if the HID is worth the xtra $ for a headlight app over the IPF bulb you guys have any thoughts on that? Also anyone have a favorite HID conversion kit?
 

jeff@work

Adventurer
I actually just recently did this exact upgrade. I did the H4 conversion about a year ago but never upgraded to brighter bulbs. A couple months ago I finally made the plunge and put in some hid's.

I installed a xentec hid kit that i picked up off of ebay. I had read some good reviews about it while browsing the internet and couldn't quite justify some of the more expensive kits since i had no idea how much of an improvement i would get. It was all plug and play and came with the bulbs, balasts, and a relay kit. The install only took about 30 minutes and a lot of that time was me deciding where i wanted to mount the balasts.

I'm extremely happy with the increased light output! The difference is just tremendous and I haven't had anyone flash me with their brights while i'm driving around at night. When I pull up behind cars you can clearly see the ligh cutoff on their trunk so I'm not blinding them. I can see so much further down the road, sometimes i find myself surprised just how far away i'm lighting up the street signs on the side of the road.

That said daniel stern makes some interesting points about hid kits http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/bulbs/Hid/HID.html

Overall I'm very pleased with this setup and i'm glad i did the upgrade. I should note that I have not had the opportunity to compare these to the higher power 100 watt bulbs.
 
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DaveInDenver

Middle Income Semi-Redneck
You converted H4 housings to HID? Did the beam pattern get less distinct? I have Hella H4 housings and I've understood that only an H4 bulb will work since the reflector and lens are designed to work specifically with the locations of the high and low beam filaments. So there is a correct up and down orientation of the bulb and that's why there is a flat side to the bulb flange. If you put the bulb in upside-down, then that sharp, focused pattern would be more scattered, probably worse on either the high or low, too. An HID bulb won't have two different light points since it's just a blob of light, so how does the High/Low switch over work? I'm just asking out loud, but I'd have thought you would need a whole new reflector/lens assembly that moves the HID bulb to make HID work. I've been very happy with good housings, good PIAA, Hella (or the like) bulbs and a straight-to-battery wiring harness. Good intensity and color.
 

Schattenjager

Expedition Leader
H4 80/100w

I looked at the HID for a while but was never convinced it was worth the time, trouble and $.

I upgraded the H4 bulbs to super white 80/100 W and love them! They are cheap, readily available, and perform amazingly well. The H4 lens insures that the higher wattage will not blind on coming traffic yet it looks like you have a football stadium bolted to the front of your car. High beams are nuts - you can easily see far, far ahead and the sides of the road, where deer and antelope play, are equally well illuminated.

You might need to add a relay to protect the stock wires - but I did this same mod to a 1990 Range Rover - upgraded the lens and bulbs - and left the stock wires in place. Worked very well that way for more than 5 years.
:beer:
 

ckkone

Explorer
I added a 4200K eBay HID kit to my rig and I'm happy with the results. HID is a love/hate thing, only way to find out if you will be happy is to buy a kit and throw it in...
 

jeff@work

Adventurer
It did scatter the beam very slightly...the sharp cut off is still there but you can see a little faint light going above it when parked in front of a garage or wall. I walked off down the road a bit and squatted down to pretend i was sitting in a car and the headlights didn't bother me at all...certainly less than normal headlights would. I've had friends pass me on the road and they said my headlights didn't bother them.

As for the high beams I'm not really sure how they work...the housings definitely do not move. According to daniel stern a lot of the hid kits do something to move the bulb itself which i'm assuming is what my kit does. The high beams do work great. Hopefully i'll meet up with someone that has the higher wattage h4 bulbs so we can compare.

I should note that daniel stern does not recommend upgrading to hid kits and if i had read his article before ordering my kit I might not have ordered it. But having it now I'm glad I have it...granted i only paid about $130 for it.
 

Gear

Explorer, Overland Certified OC0020
Nullifier wrote "I was thinking of upgrading to HID but learned I have to change the housings. I was thinkng of getting some IPF H$ housings for about $80.00 and then put an HID conversion behind them instead of the IPF h4 bulbs.

I looked at the hella also but I think the IPF offroad lights have better reflectors then hella so I am using the same logic on the light replacements as well. "

The first page of my build shows exactly what you are talking about. I used IPF housings with a custom built HID kit. When I built this kit back in the 90's the company I was working for used a custom insert that shields the HID bulb from the Halogen Hi beam. The cut off on the light pattern is great. However the Hi beam is useless. It is there more for DOT approval than anything else. Just some more information for you to ponder. This pair of lights has been on three different vehicles. For some reason they are outstanding on the JK. Almost makes the Aux HID lights useless on the road.

http://expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6947
scan down about half way on the first page.

47b7cc27b3127cceb12185edc16b00000025108EatWzFu0cO
 

Nullifier

Expedition Leader
Gear said:
Nullifier wrote "I was thinking of upgrading to HID but learned I have to change the housings. I was thinkng of getting some IPF H$ housings for about $80.00 and then put an HID conversion behind them instead of the IPF h4 bulbs.

I looked at the hella also but I think the IPF offroad lights have better reflectors then hella so I am using the same logic on the light replacements as well. "

The first page of my build shows exactly what you are talking about. I used IPF housings with a custom built HID kit. When I built this kit back in the 90's the company I was working for used a custom insert that shields the HID bulb from the Halogen Hi beam. The cut off on the light pattern is great. However the Hi beam is useless. It is there more for DOT approval than anything else. Just some more information for you to ponder. This pair of lights has been on three different vehicles. For some reason they are outstanding on the JK. Almost makes the Aux HID lights useless on the road.

http://expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6947
scan down about half way on the first page.

47b7cc27b3127cceb12185edc16b00000025108EatWzFu0cO

Thanks gear. I new someone on hear had done something like this. I thoght it was Tacodoc but upon searching his thread I was wrong and did not have a clue where to start.
 

madizell

Explorer
I have used both HID and high performance halogen lamps for years now, so I have seen the difference in light output as between both systems. I have yet to find an HID headlight replacement that offers HID for both high and low beams (bi-xenon lamps), and were actually manufactured for highway use. The only bi-xenon lamps I have seen were OEM on newer Audi's. They work very nicely, but retrofitting such an engineered system to another vehicle would be painful at best, and very expensive.

Unable to find an HID retrofit system for 7" round lamps that performs well, I have settled for HID auxiliary lights and halogen headlights. I can readily find what I need by going this way, and you can get excellent performance from halogen.

However, if you really want HID-type performance from 7" round lamps, or any other light that uses H-4 bulbs, follow the link provided in the first post under this thread to ARB USA's bulb selection. Under performance bulbs (not the ones that supposedly give light equal to high watt bulbs, but those which are actually rated as high watt bulbs) you will find H-4's rated at 100/170 watts. I have used these in the Aussie Outback and on high beam, I could not readily distinguish between the halogen lamp light and the HID 6" drivers when both were on at the same time. The downside to using this high a watt rating is heat and electrical consumption. You will need an alternator that can support the watts and you will need to rewire your headlight circuit to minimum 10ga wire running through relays direct from the battery. You will probably also need after market bulb sockets, as H-4's at 170 watts make a lot of heat. I melted both sockets the first time around using stock sockets.

The point is that if you want both high and low beams built into a single H-4 style headlight, you will likely need to stay with halogen. If you really want HID performance in anything other than low beam, choose a good brand of HID aux driving light.

During the 2007 Expedition Trophy, I looked at the HID's in the JK posted earlier in this thread. I have to say they were the best I have seen to date, but as noted, there was essentially no high beam to them.

As for the bi-xenon OEM lights and how they work, they use a moving vane to cover and uncover a single stationary light source which then shines through a lens system that has both high and low pattern light dispersion, depending on how much of the light is covered or not covered. 7" round lights, whether you have one with a reflector behind the light or in the lens, uses light from two different starting points, so simply putting an HID bulb into an H-4 light will not give you both high and low beams. One or the other, depending on where the bulb is located, but not both.

Using an H-4 conversion with a moving bulb could allow for high and low beams, but the moving bulb system would need to be high precision to return the light pea to the same location every time, and the reflectors would need to be designed for the kind of light source used. Since the reflectors in H-4 conversion headlights are designed for transverse halogen wire elements, not for linear HID arc lights, they don't as a rule provide correct light dispersion when used for HID light. Close, perhaps. Usable, maybe, depending on your perspective. But still not what they could be if built for the purpose. Daniel Stern has a detailed discussion on this topic.
 
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tacollie

Glamper
I did a year ago and it was well worth it. I highly recommend it. I did the H4 harness and IPF lights. Very bright.
 

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