I was always taught it is the fog water particles that scatter the light, or reflects back, so that regular headlight puts the light high and into the fog.

 

This is correct about light scatter. But my personal experience is that I see way better with an HID upgrade

 

qiuck qestion yes it might be a nub qestion owell anywho am i able to run HID only in the fog light and keep my head lights stock with no problems .... im going to run a 35 watt ballast

 

Of course. The 35 watt HID should really wake up your fogs without any negatives

 

HID Bulbs run on a premise that when ignited, the entire area inside of the bulb is producing light. when a Filament based bulb lights up, it is a single line/filament inside the bulb which is emitting light. when placed in a reflector housing, a filament produces light at a set point inside the parabolic curve which then reflects light straight out from the headlamp in a beam shape. if you take an HID bulb and put it in a reflector housing, you are now broadening the source of light from a single "thread" (the filament) to the length and width of an entire bulb. These infinite number of "single points" of light are now reflecting light at odd angles instead of just directly ahead. The end result is light being scattered all over, producing Glare. At 50, i'm sure you've played with a Mag or mini-mag light and how you can focus or broaden the beam by moving the bulb forwards or backwards inside the parabolic reflector. A filament based bulb in a reflector housing would be represented by a well focused Mag light with a good beam. Holding the Mag light at a wall, Back that mag light bulb out to see the glare that shines on the ground, walls, & ceilings around you, then move it all the way in to see a similar effect. An HID bulb in a reflector housing produces the same light patter as that inward and outward most positions on the mag light... and EVERYTHING in-between. The light that reflects off of other things around you (such as roadsigns, brush, the pavement directly in front of the car... aka too close for you to do anything about if something was in the road... overhead lamp posts, branches, etc...) causes your pupil to constrict so you see less at night. This only gets worse with bad weather.

Manufacturers know this which is why most chose to use Projector headlamps as they use the glass projector to focus the beam. For those vehicles that offer HIDs with Reflector housings, you'll notice that the headlamps for trim levels with and without HIDs have different headlamp housings. For example, My previous car, the Nissan Altima, offered HIDs as part of the premium package. The headlamp assemblies were different part numbers due to the way the reflectors were designed. They had special cutoffs and the reflectors were shaped a little differently to take care of the issues I mentioned above. HID retrofit Kits in the non-HID housings looked much worse and produced way more glare than the factory HID setup.

On your other point of More lumen = more light = better vision is not necessarily valid. If the beam is Focused properly, you are 100% correct. In the case of an HID Kit (not involving projector Retrofits) you dont' have focused light and while your lumen output is higher, your visibility isn't better. And that's what lighting is all about.

As for the 6000K lights, that's on the higher end of good visibility. The human eye sees best around the 4000K range of the color spectrum so in all reality, a 4200K bulb with a lower lumen output rating will produce more Visible light than an 8000K bulb with a higher lumen output because the human eye doesn't see as well in bluish lighting.

~SB

 

This sounds all good, but seeing is believing. My STI comes with HID's standard and the quality of my night vision is greatly increased when compared with any of my other halogen vehicles. I love driving the STI at night. When I put the Phillips HIDs in my Goldwing, my vision with the HID is vastly better as it is easier to overdrive the headlights on a motorcycle IMO. I think that people will differ in their opinion on which spectrum of light they prefer. The Goldwing HID is 6k and I am not sure what my STI is, but it is definately a lower spectrum. The upgrade from halogen to HID is an improvement, hence the popularity of the HID lights from Acura, which people have been using for quite a while to improve their lighting. I plan on upgrading the Fit with HID's, although I am pretty happy with the low beam spread. The high beams are very weak in my opinion and this is where I believe the HIDs will really shine. I live in a rural area and quality lights make a world of difference. You are absolutely right that a projector lighting system designed specifically for an HID is better than just adding an HID bulb/ballast as a retrofit, but an HID bulb/ballast is a big improvement over the stock lighting. I am hoping that the improvement will be as good as it was for my Goldwing motorcycle.

 

SB, D... Man, you guys are really lighting it up on this thread. All good posts by the way. And to add back on thread, the Fit's fog lights would be like parking lights compared to the STi's.

 

For the STI, it makes sense... your STI has projectors or reflectors designed for HID Bulbs. this is nothing like an HID retrofit Kit.

As for the Phillips for the goldwing... what retrofit Kit are you talking about or are these "HID Look" filament based bulbs. I didn't think that Phillips made any real HID Retrofit Kits with the ballasts etc... That I believe was left to the non-big brand name companies since the HID retrofit Kits are technically Illegal to use on a road-going car.

~SB

 

They are the real deal with ballasts. The motorcycle community is big on HID and retrofits are common. I thought it was just as common with the car industry. This time I am going with a Matsushita HID as they light up to full brightness quicker than the Phillips.

 

Unfortunately, they are just as popular with the car industry. There are way too many cars that have HIDs installed that produce tons and tons of glare. The darker the area is at night that you live in, the worse the glare is. Here in VT it is awful, especially as you head into the mountains. I guess motorcycles aren't as big of an issue up here as other places as in the summer, when most motorcycles are out, it gets dark really late and by the time it begins to get dark early, it's too cold to ride a motorcycle.

~SB

 

Screw HID's.

I run PIAA Twin beams in my headlights and PIAA 2500k's in my Fog lights.

I love my headlights as they do a way better job then many bulbs out there are making great light. They're a 3000k low and a 6000k? or super white high beam and they dont reflect much snow/rain/fog.


I then bought my PIAA fogs and they make a HUUUGEEEE difference. They do an awesome job of lighting up the ditch and closer to the car area and cut through fog/snow/rain super well.


And as someone said when you live somewhere with critters good light is essential to seeing them and taking action. My low beams make a considerable amount more light then OEM and similar bulbs and saved my ass last year from hitting a huge buck that ran into the road and slid on his belly trying to avoid me. That was in my 09 base anbd with my 12 sport and my fogs I have zero issue seeing anything on the side of the road that would pose a threat to me.




And anyone who puts an HID bulb in a halogen housing is a retard. Plain and simple. We went over this last winter in a big thread. I can go get more pictures with my camera this year again if need be.

 

At this point, I suppose its to each his own. I believe that the HIDs have a much more cleaner light which gives my visual input a much cleaner site picture with better clarity/definition. This is especially true when used with the low/high beams vs just the fog lights. If your assumption is that HID's belong in reflector/projector systems which were specifically designed for them, I agree. However, if you are assuming that you cannot get better vision by converting to HID's, I have to disagree. The lower end vehicles like the Fit do not enjoy the advanced lighting features of the more expensive brethen. Higher end vehicles do use HID's and now some LED's. Cost is the main consideration as HID's and LED's are much more expensive to produce. If a forum member wishes to have better lighting, HID is a great alternative. There is no LED retrofit at the time which doesn't require major modification of the lighting system.

 

Just tonight I had the opportunity to drive with the regular low beams and fog lights on. I have to say they seemed to fill in the areas the low beams didn't. I'm ok with that.

 

There's no disagreement that HIDs produce better light. the problem is when people apply HIDs to an improper housing (reflector not designed for HIDs). It may improve the lighting in some circumstances but it will also be worse in some. The 100% guarantee is that you will be creating glare for oncoming drivers. I'll disagree that HID overall is "Better" lighting but it is brighter lighting.

The most important part about lighting is that you have quality light in the place where you need it (and only in that place) and HID drop-in kits for Halogen reflectors simply cannot accomplish this. Impact on other drivers is just as important and doesn't seem to be considered here as the glare can be blinding which is a serious safety issue.

~SB

 

Unfortunately, I suffered a deer hit on my week old Fit. I immediately went to Cycle Gear and bought two H4 headlight HID's and two H11 HIDs for the fog lights. I should have done it much earlier. The lighting is much better, especially the high beams, which seems pretty useless stock. I never had oncoming traffic flash me so I know they aren't bothersome. The fogs did not improve but I like that they match the hue of my headlights. The stock fogs are junk IMO. Cycle Gear has them on sale now for $54 a light.

The negative for the H4 HID kit from Cycle Gear is that it was not plug and play as for my other vehicles. I had to install a ground and a line to the battery. My plan is to install quality HID lights from Phillips or Matsushita as the Cycle Gear lights do not compare. So here it is. The cheap HID's are much better than stock. I'm sure quality HIDs will really light up the night. Don't be worried about blinding oncoming traffic as the reflector design appears to be adequate for an HID upgrade.

 

How long ago was the deer hit? Sorry to hear about the crunch.

As for the blinding of oncoming traffic, there could be many reasons you haven't been "flashed" by oncoming drivers. Looks like you are in an area of California that doesn't get real dark at night and the ambient light may also have something to do with that. Here in VT, a drop-in Kit on any vehicle causes massive glare partially because it gets so dark at night. I wouldn't promote doing this as 99% of the people out there with HID drop-ins are producing glare to other drivers. Promote doing it right with a Projector retrofit.

~SB

 

Saturday morning at 4 am. Dark as get go because the moon had set. Lucky for me, the deer was down already. Just couldn't see it until I was right on top of it and nowhere to go. I just centered it and the rest is history. Concrete divider 3' to my left and a car directly to my right. Tore off the chin spoiler and broke off the two plastic engine/trans undertrays. I put the Fit on jacks and was throwing chunks of meat to my dogs to eat before it turned rank. It was everywhere. The front bumper is scuffed but I'm impressed at its durability!

Who makes a projector retrofit for a Fit? I'm game if it doesn't involve too much of my time or money. Otherwise, the HID's are here to stay! No more Travis Pastrana jumps over dead deer for me.

 

A few people on here have the Morimoto retrofit kits. a Quick search of Morimoto projectors brings it right up.

~SB

 

Nice. Looks like a good retrofit for many of my vehicles. Thanks, I'll look into it further. I just emailed them for a complete parts list so I can price this out.

 

Just ordered the Morimoto FX-R Bi-Zenon projector kit for $340 shipped. Includes everything I need including projectors, ballasts, HID bulbs, shrouds, and control harness. It will be a nice rainy day project. I just edited this post because I also ordered Morimoto HID's for the fogs to match the hue of the new projector headlights. Both will are the 4300k light spectrum and I may go projector on the fogs when funds permit.