Thread: HID headlight conversion

I had heard that HID's take a while to warm up ?
I coukd be wrong though.

I've converted the headlights on the Disco to HID, and am also running Hella Predator HID driving lights.

The Predators take a few seconds to warm up to full power from cold. When you turn them off for oncoming traffic, depending on how long you have them off for - the time to warm up again varies from zero to about 3 seconds.

With the headlight conversion, they take a few seconds to warm up to full power when you first turn them on - after that you cannot notice any delay when changing between high & low beam. The way that mine work - when you go to high beam, the low beam stays on as well, so you lose nothing there. Also, there is a "black box" (don't really know what it is) on the back of each globe in additional to the separate ballasts (one ballast per globe). Apparently the system retains some charge so that you do not get any noticeable "delay" between high & low beam.

I'm impressed with them - a huge improvement over the original Land Rover lights, even though I was running 100W / 90W globes in them. Where I have noticed most improvement with the headlight conversion is on low beam. With the Predators working with high beam, can't really notice the difference unless I turn the Predators off and run the headlights only.

A word of warning though - you need to be very careful with the adjustment of your headlights as, even on low beam, the HID converted lights are VERY bright to oncoming traffic. You need to adjust them down even slightly lower than you would with conventional globes, otherwise you will constantly be getting "flashed" by oncoming traffic. It took me a few goes to get it right, and I found that I had to adjust the right headlight even lower than the left to make sure that I wasn't causing problems for other road users. As a final check on my adjustment, I went for a drive up the highway north of here at night and called up a few oncoming trucks on the UHF and asked them if the lights were annoying. The feedback I got was that they were bright and appeared quite blue, but were adjusted down low enough as not to be annoying.

Even with the lights adjusted down, the improvement over the originals is still huge.

You should also be aware that this conversion is illegal in Australia. You can legally run HID driving lights, provided that they are not the ones identified as "for off road use only" (higher powered globes). But it is illegal to convert conventional headlights to HID. Having said that, I know quite a few people who have done it and, provided you get the adjustment right, you shouldn't attract any unwanted attention.

A thorough answer !

I did not realise it was illegal. Heaps of ppl do it and with great results.

Well a little searching the Bay reveals the cost for converting driving lights to say 55w HID is about $120-$200, while 35w kits for headlights etc are even lower

A set of lightforce 240's with 55w HID's would kick a$$ I reckon

Blitz 240's $350
55w HID kit $120
Total $470

Compare that to around $800-$1000 EACH for regular HID lights

I know what I'll be doing

BMcal, I think the little black boxes you refer to are actually motors or solenoids, all the HID headlight conversions I've seen that do High and low beam do it by physically moving the bulb into a diferrent position, see if you can hear a noise at the bulb when you change.

Cheers,
Fraser

Originally Posted by Treads

Well a little searching the Bay reveals the cost for converting driving lights to say 55w HID is about $120-$200, while 35w kits for headlights etc are even lower

A set of lightforce 240's with 55w HID's would kick a$$ I reckon

Blitz 240's $350
55w HID kit $120
Total $470

Compare that to around $800-$1000 EACH for regular HID lights

I know what I'll be doing

IIRC bushy555 on Outerlimits (and I think here) has done all the hard work and can supply an HID kit for spotties.
Do a search here and Outerlimits. Remember that Lightforce use an odd globe size to replace

Originally Posted by Xavie

I did not realise it was illegal. Heaps of ppl do it and with great results.

For it to be legal you require self levelling suspension or self adjusting headlights.

I think a Rangie Classic with a working load leveller would comply. A Disco II with SLS would also be OK.