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My HID!


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  • 2 months later...

Im using 4300s and there just right. I think the rest are a little too blue/purpleish. I use a relay kit on mine. 20 bucks from EBAY. Works great. Is anyone having problems. My left light keeps flickering when i first turn them on. Dont know if its the bulb or the ballast. Hopefully the bulb. What do you guys think? Other than that, my lights are great.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Those aren't HID bulbs.

 

Hid bulbs REQUIRE balasts, if it uses the factory sockets, its not a High Intesity Discharge system, HID's can not light using a simple bulb socket. Those are dangerous and should NEVER be used, any of the bullshit 'xennon' bulbs on ebay or autozone. Only name brand upgraded halogens like Sylvania, Hella or PIAA have been properly tested. As HID threads tend to breed more HID threads, check out the other one which refers to a proper aftermarket (as proper as putting HID in a reflector housing can be) that is part of an enormous Mustang thread on the VVME kits that hundreds of people have converted to-including my Mustang which were flawless solenoid tilting 6000K bulbs.

 

I may order a set of 6000k H11's for my Edge as I got used to looking at pure daylight from 30-200' in front of my car and the ability to light reflective signs and tape at up to 1/3 mile. HID's use their own protected power sources and are fused at the units and the power supply wire, and run much cooler then normal halogens at 3x the light output. Although in normal reflector housings cause excessive glare to oncomming drivers, some housings worse then others. The Mustang's were no worse then factory Acura HID's, but other designs may be worse.

post-2324-1197409368_thumb.jpg

Edited by kevinb120
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I still don't understand the crash with the Semi thing??? FIRST, you need to know what HID headlights actually are in the first place. But other aftermarket stuff is dangerous, here's what I found on the internet:

 

 

Here, check this out, aftermarket mud flaps, yikes!:

 

planecrash062107.jpg

 

Aftermarket shorty billet antenna, not sure if it was natural or anodized black:

 

train.jpg

 

And THIS is why dark window tint is illegal in some states! The guy never saw it coming!

 

Squid-Attacking-Ship.gif

Edited by kevinb120
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I dont know but here was an off-road H pipe:

 

hindenburg_burning_on_ground.jpg

 

And we know what happened when an employee snuck fuzzy dice into the parking lot in his Lada coupe:

 

chernobyl.jpg

 

As for deadly cat-backs, I'm afraid to think about it, but from what I have heard many Magnaflow owners need to take that crap off immediately or they too will suffer the same fate as Alderaan:

 

Boom.jpg

Edited by kevinb120
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They can talk about it all they want but it depends on the individual car. On the current Mustang, light output excels at least 3 times what the stock headlights and fog lights combined, puts out no more glare to other drivers then an OEM HID headlight(and the glare from HID headlights has a much faster recovery time then excessively bright halogens in many OEM SUV applications for night vision, and many SUV HID's were MUCH worse then these for oncoming glare). Not to mention the ability to light reflective surfaces, such as road stripes even through rain, where you can be all but blind with the stock headlights. And be able to see much further into the woods and up ahead, even at speeds in excess of 130mph.

 

I never got flashed once with them, yet got flashed constantly with the factory headlight/fog lights. Even when driving in packs of friends, everybody said it didn't bother them and liked that my headlights helped them see big time when I was beside them. So say what they want, on the Mustang at least, they are a godsend. And much better overall then the factory HID setup on 08's, which have virtually identical levels of glare viewed from oncoming vehicles(yes I did multiple tests with other cars from mine in both compact cars and suvs as I have access to hundreds of vehicles I can drive and others to drive my car). And there was no fatigue whatsoever, even on 5+hour night time drives. I had them for 9 months. I can care less about what 'tests' say, when I sold a new Mustang and I took it up the street for gas, I would constantly check to see that the headlight switch was even on. They were solenoid tripped for brights and they DO raise the point of focus as a halogen bulb does(not a factor on the Edge), but without high beams it is still plenty of light into the triple digits.

 

Now with the Edge, I haven't seen them with HID and have yet to try it myself. It could be a totally different effect based on the reflector, although it does have the flat 'hood' in the reflector's design that the Mustang's housings have. All I know is the light output and vision ahead with fogs and low beams is by far lower then just the headlights on my Mustang. I feel like I am driving with sunglasses on at night in the Edge, and its better then a lot of halogen equipped vehicles. I will eventually get them and test them with other cars in real time just like I did when I first got the last set. If they look to be a nuisance to other drivers, I will not use them. I would also leave the high-beams halogen(like every BMW and MB or Lexus does), as they take a few seconds to heat up, and most halogen high-beams are more then enough for filling the additional height, especially with a HID low beam. Again, for all I know they may suck in the Edge's setup, for forward vision and/or other drivers, but you have to test them instead of a 'guess-test' unless you are using the identical reflector in question.

 

As far as Stern claims about 'OEM research', the 08 OEM HID setup in the Mustang uses a retracting shield to enable a 'high-beam' equivalent, and it does work, he needs to change his web page. The only difference in the shape of the reflector from the halogen setup is a slit cut in the back to cap some of the upward glare, but again in real-world head-ons, the glare was about the same as the after market one. A good indicator for the maximum glare before becoming annoying is the glare levels of the last-gen Acura TL(pre-03) or Lexus GS, although big SUV's with OEM hids are still brighter to oncoming traffic.

Edited by kevinb120
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And be able to see much further into the woods and up ahead, even at speeds in excess of 130mph.

 

 

All I know is the light output and vision ahead with fogs and low beams is by far lower then just the headlights on my Mustang. I feel like I am driving with sunglasses on at night in the Edge, and its better then a lot of halogen equipped vehicles.

 

Wow, 130 mph in the woods...to bad the Edge tops out at 111...

 

I've noticed the same as far as the projection of the stock headlights; seems there is very little upward projection. When pulling in the driveway I can see the 'line' at about eye level where it goes almost dark on the garage door. As a result, I kind of feel like I can't see up ahead real well when going downhill.

Edited by carbonedge+
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The top of the reflector is squared off and pretty deep, a lot of reflectors don't have this but I see it on Fords a lot. It's one of the reasons the Mustang is not as annoying with an aftermarket hid bulb conversion. BUT they also sit much lower to the ground. At high speeds on a highway, you could actually see through/under the guardrails(stuff you never see with halogens-like the first time you see the NFL in HD) and never feels like you are outrunning the light power-the Edge hits that point at about 70mph. I'm a bit hyper-sensitive to the sides of the road after riding motorcycles for years so I notice just about anything 'different' I see when driving from one car to another. Another thing everybody says is that they notice a bunch more road signs, even on their own street after conversion. The 'test's say halogen is better for reflective tapes, but that is also BS, you can see reflective tape on a police cruiser from over 1/4 mile with the conversion(on the Mustang), and you can tell you are the one lighting signs based on the color for cars hundreds of feet ahead of you. I have a feeling the Edge will be a lot more glaring to oncoming motorists though. I wouldn't try the fogs or the hi-beams either as they are designed to disperse light upward-even more conductive to glare-and in the Mustang's case, they were redundant anyway. You couldn't even tell the fogs were on-at all.

Edited by kevinb120
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Funny to find this thread tonight. Im a police officer and we just had a meeting with a rep from the state police today regarding the holiday season and the states safe driving campaign. HID lights were right up there on the list of things the DOT has passed down to the state, county and municipal levels that it would like to target.

 

 

The articles were very informative, so many thanks for posting that. All I can say is please consider others safety when modifying your vehicles.

Hope everyone has a safe holiday season

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Im a police officer and we just had a meeting with a rep from the state police today regarding the holiday season and the states safe driving campaign. HID lights were right up there on the list of things the DOT has passed down to the state, county and municipal levels that it would like to target.

 

So reading that link. and others, my understanding is, if the vehicle doesn't come from the factory WITH HID's ....it's illegal.

 

You have a list of ones that are legal? You'd only notice it at night. and if they flash past you going the other way, you have just a quick glance to your left, and in the rear view mirror. Are you suppose to start enforcing this?

 

Not to say much, but unless it's done. it's a mockery.. My state window tint laws are 30%, yet the small town pit-bull where I live has Limo tint on his. I guess he can pull people over and only a higher officer can ticket him.

 

police officer arrested by a county sheriff

county sheriff arrested by a state trooper

state trooper arrested by a conservation officer

conservation officer arrested by the FBI

FBI arrested by the CIA

CIA arrested by the NSA?

That about right?

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So reading that link. and others, my understanding is, if the vehicle doesn't come from the factory WITH HID's ....it's illegal.

 

You have a list of ones that are legal? You'd only notice it at night. and if they flash past you going the other way, you have just a quick glance to your left, and in the rear view mirror. Are you suppose to start enforcing this?

 

Not to say much, but unless it's done. it's a mockery.. My state window tint laws are 30%, yet the small town pit-bull where I live has Limo tint on his. I guess he can pull people over and only a higher officer can ticket him.

 

police officer arrested by a county sheriff

county sheriff arrested by a state trooper

state trooper arrested by a conservation officer

conservation officer arrested by the FBI

FBI arrested by the CIA

CIA arrested by the NSA?

That about right?

 

Thats about it.

 

Its very easy to tell when vehicles have retrofitted HID lights.. When some of us are car-guys too, it makes things easier. Its actually easiest to pass someone the opposite way and be blinded by the lights to swing around and stop them for it... Believe me its a hassle for us too to go after people for dumb sh*t like this when there are bigger fish to fry, but when the govt putts out the safe driving grants to pay for the holiday patrols for this stuff, DWI, stops, Walk safe patrols thats your duty to find these violations.... such is our system

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wow..police enforcement..what a joke..so if an officer is a 'car guy' you wont know the difference..

 

like you said..so many bigger fish to fry to worry about someone adding BETTER lights..

 

I can see alot of cases of he said she said ..and alot of issues going to court for proof..

 

waste of time and tax dollars..lets have the Police keep us safe from child abductors,rapeset, thieves murder..you know...the IMPORTANT STUFF!!

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Well there's no money in arresting people such as an illegal alien who commits a minor offense like stealing your car when you can get a big fat ticket in Va for speeding over $2000(of course not one citizen had a say in the enactment of that debauchery-all of a sudden, Va residents can get tickets with 'set' fees of $1000 and up). Hence the local parkway is covered with speed traps. I won't get into all the 'liberties' I see taken by officers in cruisers with local traffic laws. But if you do something to your car that is illegal, whether it's deemed a 'relevant' violation to yourself is moot. Sure, it seems trivial and annoying, but it never would of happened if you had left the vehicle with its OEM parts. Although if I do switch over to something like hids and test it like I did the Mustang and find it to be too annoying to other drivers, I won't use them.

Edited by kevinb120
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  • 4 weeks later...

Back on topic...

 

Kevin, which kit did you use for your Mustang? Did you need relays, or did the ballasts plug directly into the current headlamp bulb connectors?

 

Since most new Fords have lamps controlled by solid-state FETs, I'm wondering if an HID kit might have the ability to destroy the headlamp FETs. That would mean a new Smart Junction Box.

 

Thanks.

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