Nice cutoff with those HID lights you have. Many of those HID kits are very bright, but scatter light everywhere. Makes it tough on other drivers.

Those LED lights posted in this thread sure do produce a lot of scatter & glare. I can tell who has a good setup & a poor one. Lots of very poor setups on the road these days.

 

Switches aren’t that hard, I already have my interior illumination hooked up to a 3 way switch...but I don’t have the drls on a switch they are just always on when the car is on. It’s just the two little fog lights at the bottom there. I’d like to get real fog lights put into the cutouts but from what I understand you have to take the bumper off to install....and THAT is a lot of work, and possible broken clips!

 

Thanks, but these are leds as well! Like I said earlier I had to re aim as they were quite high after install but working out quite well now, no flashing from other drivers, even had a few buddies drive at me and in front of me and they had no issues with glare.

 

Looks clean

 

Those are absolute shit. Those should not be allowed on the road and even considering installing them on your car should make you feel bad about yourself.

Look at the absolute horrid beam pattern. Now consider this. At the distance in the picture of maybe 6 feet from the bumper to the wall you have gained about 4 inches of height compared to stock light. That is several degrees of elevation change in the aiming of the bulb. Look at how shitty the pattern is. It is one large blob of light and is much much too intense with absolutely no focusing at all. That is a piss poor designed product and won't pass a proper inspection anywhere done by a competent tech.


Earlier in this thread a poster mentioned Hidplanet and HID retorfits. That is one method of dramatically improving your headlamp performance without being a complete assbag to everyone else on the road.

The picture that shows a pair of headlamp wall shots that looks like it was taken inside a tent is what headlamp should look like with stock halgoen reflectors. If it looks like anything else it is WRONG.

This guy knows a lot more about headlamps that I do and I have been reading and researching headlamp tech for more than 10 years. He is an absolute expert in automotive lighting and you should read what he has to say before you spend money on made in china junk that could leave you literally in the dark on the side of the road.

https://www.danielsternlighting.com/...lbs/bulbs.html
Daniel Stern Lighting Consultancy and Supply

As a side note for those that think that it doesn't matter how much their headlamps blind oncoming traffic. I have a co worker that wrecked his shoulder about 10 years ago. Riding a harley at night, he was blinded by an idiot in a suv with overly bright light and couldn't see the road or the fact that the road had a curve. Rode right off the road at highway speed, yeah your headlamps being overly bright blobs won't cause any problems at all.

And if you do cause a wreck and the other driver says that your headlamps were extra extra bright and they pull the bulbs to inspect them, want to guess who the liability will be on for your NON-DOT approved forward lighting?

 

I agree that glare is a real issue for oncoming traffic. I've seen enough purple HID bulbs in old Civics that I am well aware of what you're talking about, but I don't think these are even close to that. The lights have since been adjusted so the blob is down where it should be, and not pointed at the eyes of oncoming drivers. I will apologize for one thing, I'm bad with a camera, and with the house lights in the frame it's not a good representation.

I guess you'll just have to take my word for it, there really isn't bad glare when standing in front of the car, until you squat down so your eyes are where the light is actually aimed. Still, the other lights posted are definitely a better pattern. Kind of makes me wish I had seen that photo before ordering, and I might even switch to that setup. If you look at the post, though, Macswfc also had to adjust his lights down. Since they're adjustable, I'm not sure why that's something to get upset about.

One thing I have to disagree with, though- I've seen probably a few hundred collisions, and the only one where there was any kind of claim of equipment being responsible was a woman in a poorly lifted truck. Something in the lift kit broke, the entire rear axle and driveshaft tore off, and she spun through three lanes while hitting two other cars. She didn't get a ticket, and there was no inspection.

Actually, the only time a major accident investigation team comes out where I'm at is when someone either dies in a crash, or if it's a really high profile DUI. There was one recently where a car somehow went upside down through a fence and through one of the pumps at a gas station. Think they came out for that.

 

If you have a proper pattern that has to be lowered slightly that is completely different from a large unfocused blob of light that is not even slightly similar to what the optics are designed to emit. Wrong is wrong regardless of anything else.

Equipment failures that results in a wreck do happen. No different than a tire blowing out or snow on the road. That is entirely different from modifications that impair other drivers ability to operate their own vehicle safely.

It doesn't take a team of investigators to inspect a vehicle post crash. A normal patrol officer can look at a car and pull a bulb or take a picture. I have read way too many posts on way too many forums about this topic and after a while they all read the same with people posting the same reason/excuses for their headlamps. That is why I posted the link to Daniel stern's website. It is informative and he is the expert. I have been on the same forums as him for 15 or so years and he is a car guy as well. You should read some of the responses he has posted over the years on threads simliar to this.

And if you did read the links he does address the installation of LED bulbs in halogen based reflectors. And if you read the links you will also see that LED bulbs are in fact illegal in ALL halogen based headlamps, so are HID and HID projector retrofits at least in most 1st world nations like the US, Canada, and Europe.

 

Macsfwc, it's a subjective question, but would you say there is a big improvement in visibility over the stock bulbs? Significantly more perceived light output, or just a little?

 

I agree that Daniel Stern knows what he is talking about. In addition, I think most of the halogens that are advertised as being 100/90 watts are flat out lying. In any case, wattage doesn't necessarily correspond to light level. What you want is a bulb that puts out more light, not one that uses more watts. How do you measure the amount of light - I don't know for sure how to do it properly. I've seen "lumens" listed to compare brightness but I don't understand exactly how this works. The stock headlight I find them very unsatisfactory. As DS says in re to some oem lights, my Fit's lights don't put out enough light, they have a black hole, there is insufficient lateral light.

 

I think is definitely brighter, more crisp light if that makes sense. As you probably know though the light is more linear, you don’t get the wide throw and glow that you do from the halogens so I feel like there may be slightly less peripheral light, i mainly notice this when on roads that already have some lighting though, out in the boonies they look great it’s kind of weird. it’s hard to remember exactly what my halogens looked like. High beam is fantastic, lights up the road like no ones business waaaaay down the road.

 

Here's my IPF led


Low beam



High Beam