Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2008 21:27:28 -0800
Reply-To: David Marshall <mailinglist@FASTFORWARD.CA>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: David Marshall <mailinglist@FASTFORWARD.CA>
Subject: Re: HIDs on a Vanagon?
In-Reply-To: <1D544566-980B-4F7D-BC13-C9E98F2300B3@mac.com>
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My personal experience with HIDs is getting quite extensive. Really
you have to ask yourself do you want BETTER light or MORE light?
With the H4 light being a dual element this brings on new challanges
with HID as Xenon elements are single - in order to get high beam and low
beam you need a moving element and they are pretty much crap.
In my former Golf Country with 7" H4 lights, I used a low beam only
HID system and it worked reasonably well. The issue with the HID
system is the glowing bit of the element is different than the glowing bit
of a halogen bulb so the nice sharp cut off that you get with a halogen is
now gone with the HID system - certainly more light but not a nicely
focused as the halogen bulb. Would I do it again on a low beam
system - only if I had money burning a hole in my pocket and thick skin
when it comes to pissing off on coming traffic.
How with high
beam lamps HID is a whole different story. The Golf Country had
Hella 500s (H3) for the high beams so I made these come on along with the
low beam only H4s and I must say that you could see around corners with
this setup. I also have Hella Rallye 4000s on my LT, both the
genuine Xenon units and the H1 halogens that I converted - really I can't
tell the difference between the two othe than the money I saved.
What seems to make the best HID conversion is the projector or DE style
halogen lights as the focus of these are much more controlled. The
H4s on my LT 4x4 are now too high off the ground (1.36m is the limit in
Canada) to be legal so I am designing a new set of lights based on Hella's
projector style lamps that will mount where my current fogs are and from
my early testing of this H7 projector system... wow... very nice. -
http://www.rallylights.com/detail.aspx?ID=2136 these could be made to work
on the Vanagon with moderate fabrication. Basically I would try for
a 120mm low beam on the outside and a 90mm high beam on the inside for
that "South African" look with an America grille with light
quality that will kick ass over all other system out there.
So... the final word on all of this is that converting a halogen to a
HID system is illegal in both Canada and the USA as well as the
EU. To me, I will leave my reflector style low beams as
halogen and gladly run all my high beams with HID as they are never on
with oncoming traffic.
Also, on color. Get a 4000K to
5000K setup - basically pure white with no blue content. The colder
the light color (lower the K number) the more light output you get.
The exception to this is the 3200K stuff which is yellow in color - these
are 4300Ks that are dipped in a coating to make them yellow. These
work very well as fog lights !
Don't worry about your
alternator - HID systems are 35W per ballast so they require less energy
to run.
David Marshall
VW Adventure Driver and BMW
Adventure Rider
http://www.hasenwerk.ca
On Mon,
December 8, 2008 19:31, Kim Brennan wrote:
>
> So, anyone
ever put an HID conversion kit on their Vanagon <http://
>
www.hidwholesale.com/index.html>?
>
> I do have an
upgraded alternator, and use the Eurospec H4 headlights,
> but I
really like the idea of even more light.
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