Headlight Opinions: H4 or HID

Headlight Retrofit: H4 vs HID

  • Retrofit Plug and Play HID

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Retrofit H4

    Votes: 4 100.0%

  • Total voters
    4

mebe007

Amateur Racer
Oct 16, 2009
291
0
0
Eastern Virginia
First you can see my link here for what others have said: http://www.gbodyforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=39792



Here is my first post on page 1 of that forum:

So i already have 4 glass replacement e code housings on the way to ditch my sealed beams. In my truck i run HID in my Hi-Beams and Fog lights and Run a 9005 Hi Beam Bulb Modified to fit the 9006 socket of my Low-Beams to keep from blinding other drivers.

Now my question is for the buick should i stick with h4 lights in all 4 with bright bulbs like the osrams or the phillips xtremes with an upgraded harness such as:
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/GRM-01-133/

or go with a full HID retrofit kit with Bi-Xenon lows and regular HID bulbs in the Hi-Beams. I know that there is significant glare for other drivers and want to be safe.

now i know the answers i will get are going to be very opinionated, but i still wanted to hear what yall have to say. Please Explain the reasoning behind your vote, as im sure it will help others down the road. Is the HID fad worth it in the end? i know i love HID fogs and Highs but they only get used on back roads with no one else around so not endangering anyone and man can i see, tons of sidelight but no defined beam being in a reflector housing.

Here is another one of my intensely long posts from page 2:
It seems in the halogen market it is hard to beat the Philips Extreme visions or the Osram Nightbreaker Plus's. They run about $42 a pair. Not too bad but not cheap either. Then there are the IPF bulbs but they are averaging $130 for the nicer sets. The one amazing thing about them is they are claiming something like 180/170W out of their bulbs due to the bilux design like the Osrams and Philips bulbs. Anyone have any experience with these bulbs at all.

One thing I like about sticking with a halogen is it doesn't look out of place on the car. Second is your not necessarily blinding other drivers, and in a technicality sense your legal amongst all the other illegal things on these cars like offroad fuel, no cats, etc. The other nice thing would be bulb availability so your not waiting for weeks to get ahold of a company about a warranty on a ballast that they clearly import from China which died.

So it seems like to stick with halogens (say the Philips bulbs) i would need 4 of the of course, along with an upgraded relay harness off of the battery. So one would be looking at roughly $85 in light bulbs and another say $35 for the upgraded harness. This puts you at say $120 total after the purchase of the light housings, which are needed one way or the other so that part is negligible. Now for the HID retrofit from a company like DDM you will get a lot more brightness with a lot more scatter for what most consider less usable light and a rather dangerous condition for around $130, Now for this price you get a supposed lifetime guarantee, but the service and product are considered by many across the internet to be sub par. Then of course you could go with what many consider to be one of the most reliable companies on the internet such as theretrofitsolution.com. You can get their Morimoto kit for around $310. This kit will get you a 5 year warranty and according to most if there is the occurrence of a problem the customer service is undeniably great. That is a very nice thing if there was the off chance you were to suffer from an equipment failure issue. Now with this more expensive kit even though it cost more than the DDM kit the only improvement you are getting is maybe improved quality along with better customer service, yet you are still stuck with so called poor performance of an HID kit being stuffed into a halogen reflector housing.

So we have determined some differences between the 2 HID companies. Some Things I have noted through research today seems to show that the Morimoto has less of an amp draw on the electrical system than the DDM slim Digital kits which is one thing that could be leading to better ballast performance due to less heat. Now both kits appear to be digital, However the Morimoto kit's ignitor is located in the main ballast housing and not inline of the output wire. This makes for a much cleaner install. Another nice thing about the Morimoto is the cable are covered in braided stainless which of course makes them look much sharper and also adds another layer of protection to the high voltage output wires. Another plus that i have noticed with HID bulbs however are exceptional performance in the rain and snow. Additionally I was surprised with how well the perform in the fog. You would think they would suck as you have always been taught to run lows in the fog but i can bur all 6 HIDs in the truck and they seem to cut right through the fog. Interesting IMO

So one would think this long drawn out explanation would help someone make up their mind but it really doesnt. I like the idea of keeping halogens on the simple principle of the housing were designed for them, but it is hard to deny the amount of sheer output of an HID kit. Now Im sure a full retrofit projector setup is possible to get true hid performance yet the amount of money and work to do so are greatly increased. So go with more light and poor beam structure or a high performance halogen with which you can expect HID brightness from but more along the lines of Improved beam quality and reduced scatter and glare.

So as we can assess from this long post I have yet again done what i do best and that is to analyze a situation/decision to the point where i have confused and driven myself up a wall lol. As if it wasnt a hard enough decision before i am truly stumped. Hope I do not you guys as crazy as i have driven myself lol
 

LS6 Tommy

MalibuRacing Junkie
May 15, 2004
15,847
1
38
North Jersey
I'm for the H4s unless you're willing to spend upwards of $300.00 on a true HID projector setup and even then if you have a 78-81 Malibu or any car with only 2 headlights, you give up your high beams with many of them. I've posted my reasons for disliking HID "conversions" that just have an HID bulb in an H4 reflector. In a nutshell, they don't put the light where it's useful, they put out less lumens than a decent $25 H4 due to the excessive restrike from the poorly designed & completely improper application of the bulbs in the reflectors.

On a separate note, avoid coated bulbs like the plague. There is no physical way to increase light output by making it pass through a coating. Sunglasses & coated windows block light, don't they? Any bulb claiming to put out equivalent light to a higher wattage rated bulb is also a gimmick. There's no way to get more lighting out of a bulb than the amount of wattage it consumes. An 80 watt bulb doesn't even put out 80 watts of lighting. Some of the energy is lost in heat.

My advice would be to check out Daniel Stern's website. I've gotten nothing but good info from him & he's been hooking me up with lighting upgrades on all of my vehicles for years:

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/

Tommy
 

78_Elky

Pro Stocker
Mar 9, 2005
1,680
0
0
Oregon
smlblk78.onlineshowoff.com
If you buy the HIDs buy a bi-xenon projector with a solenoid actuated shield and retrofit that into your e code housings. Go to the retrofit source and buy some mini H1 projectors as they are little and will fit OK but will need to be custom mounted. If you just buy some HID bulbs you will be a hazard on the road because of glare; lose your hi beams; and will no get much light on the road. I have 4 HID projectors in my Camaro housing, I did it myself in about 8 hours. The lights on these cars will be much easier to do. My cost on the project for 4 HID bulbs, 4 ballasts, 4 projectors, 4 shrouds and materials was less than $200. The light output is crazy on deserted roads and I never have had a person blink their hi beams at me, even with 4 distinct light turned on the front of my car.
A little dusty but those are the projectors mounted in the housing.
581304_736226569215_581709600_n.jpg

And here is an output shot, not 100% perfect and not great taking a night shot with a cell phone but you get the idea: no light above the cutoff.
429185_695985462715_1301912420_n.jpg

You will be so much happier with the projectors you won't want to use anything else.
You could even do 2 at a time to save cost, you really only need 1 of these working to see at night 2 is great and 4 is overkill. When I do it on my El Camino I may make 2 of mine into yellow HID fog lights because I really don't need 4 bright lights all the time.
Jess
 

78_Elky

Pro Stocker
Mar 9, 2005
1,680
0
0
Oregon
smlblk78.onlineshowoff.com
I read you post again, my bulbs and ballasts are from DDM and my projectors are the morimotos...been in there since February with no issues. Also the wiring upgrade would be good no matter what you choose so you could put it in the same bucket as the housings (or you can just buy 2 relays and some wire and save a few bucks). In the end the HIDs will cost more there is no way around that; it is just a lot worse on these old cars because you have to spend for the housings and then cut them up to put a projector in them.
Either way you will be in a better boat than what I run on my car right now: $5 GE replacement sealed beams. They are so dim they look like they are running at 5 volts! I plan on just retrofitting 2 housings at a time and then running them with the other 2 halogens disconnected so it doesn't look mismatched until I can do the other 2.
Jess
 

Doober

Moderator
Jun 2, 2003
14,704
1
38
Catalina, AZ
www.cardomain.com
I would only do the way 78 mentioned, for the reasons Tommy mentioned. There are a ton of cars riding around Tucson with plug & blind HIDs, and many of them are just aimed at the ground because otherwise they just blind everyone else. The 300ZX I had for a short time had those HIDs, and while aimed at the ground they provided mediocre light because of just that, they were pointed at the ground. When I tried aiming them to get a reasonable coverage both ahead and on the ground, everything in front of me lit up and it was like noon at midnight, but everyone flashed me like crazy. If you wire a set of bi-xenons in, I believe you will need to pigtail power to bypass the low beam wire (to give constant power to the bulbs) and run another off the high beam wire (for the low/high shield). That's what I want to do with the Malibu and the Fiero (same headlights), and do something like what 78 said on my '92 (4 headlight setup).
 

mebe007

Amateur Racer
Thread starter
Oct 16, 2009
291
0
0
Eastern Virginia
Ive been looking into what it would take to do a full projector retrofit but its looking very slim. Been talking to the guys over @ the retrofitsource and they dont have a projector that will fit in a 4x6 housing without major surgery of the housings backside. So it seems like ill be sticking with Halogens. I already have 4 H4 housings on the way. Might order 2 H1 housings as well to see if the light pattern is better for the high beams. I guess ill just have to see if the H4 are are sufficient for throwing light downrange on high.
 

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