Although I like the xenon low beam lights, the high beams are no good on my car (2004 6sp). I have replaced the standard halogen bulbs with 100W bulbs in an effort to improve the high beam range. Still not much good! I do a lot of open road driving here in New Zealand, using high beam most of the time. Anyone got any suggestions/comments??

 

I'm working on some HID hi beams. I have the hardware, and now the local glacier has receded enough to get out of my garage, I can get around to some assembly.
Will post pics and results sometime this summer.

S

 

I guess I'll need keep my eyes peeled til then. I too have wondered about this.

 

agreed

 

If you go HID to the high beams you may have problems with them....HID's are not designed to be turned on/off at a rapid rate. I was told that they weren't good for that application by one of the manufacturers

 

Aren't the OEMs 65 watts? 100 watts is a significant increase in current. This could cause problems with your wiring harness or connectors melting. You'd probably be better off getting good high-efficiency 65watt lamps, like Xtravision, and getting more lumens per watt rather than increasing your wattage and not necessarily getting more light.

http://www.sylvania.com/ConsumerProd...ce/Xtravision/

And there are reasons why HIDs aren't used for high-beams even though the lumens per watt are excellent. HID lighting tends to cause extreme glare for oncoming eyes and so we have the very strict cutoff patterns for the low-beams. But sharp cutoffs and high-beams don't mix. With high-beams you're trying to throw as much light far down the road as possible. If the same pattern were used with an HID bulb the glare would be severe, and a safety issue. And, as mentioned HID don't lend themselves well to flashing.

 

Yep, standard is 65 Watts. Agreed about the xtra current and the HID probs for High Beam. Wondering what the diff is with my lights compared to the peeps who say theirs are good. Even with the 100 watt (blue - for matched white light with the HIDs) there is only about 10% more light when switching to high beam - hardly noticable..... Whats the difference with those who work properly??????????????

 

If you got "blue" lamps that in itself explains why you are not seeing a big improvement despite the increased wattage. Incandescent bulbs don't look "HID blue" because Tungsten melts before the output reaches that color temperature. To give a blue appearance, the bulbs are coated so that only the bluish end of the spectrum is emitted. The rest of the light that the bulb is actually producing is then wasted. Sort of like putting sunglasses on your headlamps! If you want the best output and seeing, stop playing games with the color and get plain, clear, "white" bulbs. Not "hyper-white", "HID-white", "Ultra-white", etc. Those are for fashion.

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/t...e/bad/bad.html

 

very true.

Maybe you need an IR system if you do a lot of open range driving.

 

I agree, having a separate set of xenon high beams probably isn't a good idea.

What about Bi-Xenon's though? How difficult would it be to retrofit our projectors with a bi-xenon cutoff shield? Or maybe even replace the projectors entirely with ones that already have a bi- circuit...

 

Don't newer BMW's have this (high beam Xenons?). I wonder if they keep a normal halogen high beam for flashing though....

 

Yeah BMWs do have this. I dont think they have any halogen bulb, just a single xenon, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

 

I have an A4 with bi-xenons installed. There's no seperate light for flashing your highs. I do believe they use different bulbs than the 8's though, because on my 8 it takes a few moments for the xenons to "warm up" to their brightest. On the A4 they pretty much just flick on.

 

OK, I'll see if I can find some bulbs with clear lenses - the ones I got are these;
http://www.eautoworks.com/html/ord-L...te-1-38110.htm

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by MattPaulin

OK, I'll see if I can find some bulbs with clear lenses - the ones I got are these;
http://www.eautoworks.com/html/ord-L...te-1-38110.htm

Sorry...those are NOT clear, the name says it all. Stay away form those cheap brands and get some like these you can't like wrong with OEM.