Just ordered an HID kit

[Mikewire]

So I did a little research on Audizine (way more Audi info and owners than vortecks) about HID kits for Audi and decided on a DDM Slim Ballast 55W 6000K kit that should fit right into my projectors. Right now I have stock Valeo halogen projectors, but noticed they suck at night (esp. compared to the Jetta's PIAA extemes thank you Aeron) - and I was going to get new halogen bulbs, but for the price of the kit I decided to take a chance and give it a shot This DDM kit only requires one hole drilled on the back cover for wiring and has a grommet included so it's sealed, comes with bulbs and should be a 1 hour install. FYI they have HID kits for just about any application and bulb type and they are pretty inexpensive, but do your homework before doing anything with your stock halogen projectors. If anybody is interested I will do a quick write up and comparison on the HID's vs. halogens.

Link here if anyone is interested

[Roadhog]

As long as they are in projectors. Jasons HID's in his mk4 seriously blinded me when he was behind me. Like, I couldn't see a damn thing due to the reflections in all my mirrors.

[Mikewire]

Right - supposedly these are the same basic cut off and beam pattern as the HID projectors, but the projector opening is a little smaller and the lens is slightly different. Good reviews and people seem to really like them, and for $100 you can't really go wrong.

lol at Jason with the reflector HID's. I bet he gets flashed a lot, and not by women.

[Dubber]

I would be extremely interested in a before and after shot - I am considering doing this myself - tell me what ya find out =)

[Roadhog]

lol at Jason with the reflector HID's. I bet he gets flashed a lot, and not by women.

Yeah, it was so bad I had to pull over and let him go in front of me so I could see the road.

[Checkers]

FYI

After some serious research I'll never put HID's in any of my cars.
Here's why:

Sure they look cool but here's the facts.

Ok, lets clear things up for light bulbs, just the facts. Lets start with HIDs.

If your vehicle did not come with HIDs, does do a conversion of mess around with that HIDs do tend to be brighter, but they also have a very hot color shift which is a bad thing, and is part of the reason the Europeans are changing their regulations on headlights. If your vehicle does use HIDs, go for a bulb that does a warmer color shift. I will explain later.

For halogen bulbs they are naturally warm light i.e. yellow. The hotter the bulb, the brighter and whiter it appears. There is a thermal limit however, and that limit is found with bulbs like the Xtravision. The bulb is still slightly yellow oriented, but is very bright. This is the bulb I use myself because I know the truth about light and the way it is perceived. The Silverstar is an Xtravision bulb with a different gas blend, and a coating on the bulb that removes some of the light in part of the spectrum. The result is a bulb that appears whiter, which the eyes perceive as brighter, but notice how I said that some light is being removed. The Silverstar is in reality, dimmer than the Xtravision.

The details of why light that has more blue in it appears to be whiter is somewhat complicated, but a lot of it has to do with the energy content of blue light, and how much it excites the retina, and how much blue light refracts.

As most of us learned in science, the light we see is part of a spectrum. Each color is a different frequency, and the higher the frequency, the higher the energy of that light. Red has the lowest wavelength and the lowest energy content. Blue has the highest frequency and the highest energy content (technically violet is higher, but that color is not common from light sources.) and as a result, when it strikes the retina, it produces more of a reaction than red light does. This is why red light is used in darkrooms in photography. Red light excites the eyes so little that your ability to see in the dark is not compromised. Yellow light is not far removed from red light, and in many ways is perceived the same way, its light has little effect on the retina, so the eyes can quickly recover from exposure to it and see in dimly lit areas. Blue light on the other hand has a very high energy content and when it strikes the retina, is overwhelms the cells. In order to again become sensitive to low levels of light, they must reset. The high energy content of the blue light makes the eyes perceive it to be brighter, the flooding effect it has on the retina makes it impossible or at least difficult to see that is in more dimly lit areas.

The next problem with higher frequency light has to do with refraction. Low frequency light bends very little when it passes through a prism or passes through a boundary layer. As the frequency gets higher more refraction occurs. This is why a prism casts the colors of the rainbow out in a line where refer to as a color spectrum. Blue light in fact, refracts so much, that it can go where it is not desired. Let me explain a little more about how the eyes work, so you can see where I am going with this.

Inside our eyes are two types of retinal cells. One type is called the cone cell and they are only sensitive to the the brightness or relative brightness of a light source. These cells do not determine color, and are also the primary source of vision in dim lighting. They also have a long chemical rest time, which is why is you go from a lit room to a dark room, it takes several minutes for the eyes to adjusts and you can start to see objects in the room. The other type of cell is the cone cell. The cone cells contain prisms that split the light onto different receptors, allowing us to see different colors. When red light hits the cell it refracts very little, and falls onto the red receptor. When green light hits the cell, it bends somewhat more and lands on the green receptor. But when blue light hits the cell, most of it hits the blue receptor, but the blue refracts so much that some of it also lands on the red and green receptors, and sometimes even neighboring cells. Because blue is perceived across all three cells, the result is the eyes perceive it as somewhat white.

This should make it fairly clear that the blue light being brighter is only and illusion. But then one might ask, if the eyes perceive this light to be brighter, then shouldn't it still help you see better? Seeing in the dark, which is why you even use headlights, is more dependent upon contrast than brightness. Since blue light floods the eye, it reduces the contrast. Also because blue is highly refractive, it makes things indistinct. If you get a chance, here is a simple test to confirm this. If you can see a distant blue neon sign, observe the edges of it. Thy appear sort of fuzzy don't they? In fact you can't read blue neon from nearly as far as you can other color neon signs. This is because of the refraction, the light is bending so much both inside the eye, but also as it passes through the air. This is why the sky appears to be blue. This blue light is also what makes many HIDs and blue tinted lights dangerous. The blind oncoming traffic, and the effect can endanger the driver of the vehicle in adverse weather conditions. When you drive in snow, fog, or rain low frequency light such as reds and yellows cut through those things fairly well, allowing you to see the road, signs, and other objects and markings. But blue light refracts so much that is scatters inside the water droplets of rain, and fog, and inside the crystals of snow. This scattering prevents you from seeing what you need to see. Worse yet, it can send much of this light right back at you, creating the same effect for you as the headlights would otherwise cause oncoming traffic. It blinds and dazzles the drivers of vehicles.

HID lights are legal, but laws are being revised because DOT councils are recognizing that these cars are a problem. The European safety boards are also revising there standards, in an effort to limit the color temperature of the bulbs. HIDs are the biggest offenders, though warm HID lights which are closer in color to halogens are available. Silverstars are considered safe and legal, but they have no benefits over regular bulbs. Bulbs such as Xtravision are within the legal limits for brightness without a blue color shift, making them ideal. They also cost less than Silverstars, and technically last longer, since the color filters on the Silverstars trap more heat inside reducing the life of the filament. i use Xtravision myself, and am pleased, especially when I drive in adverse weather. I know that HIDs are terrible in fog, because when I pass one of them, all you can see in front of them is this big white cone of light, but you can't see much road. All you can see is the fog.

So, for best results you shoul'd just make sure and relay your headlights as close to the actual light as you can and make sure the grounds are clean, big, and as close to the light as possible.

Just what my research has told me!

I haven't had actual HID's but I know the blue headlights I had in the GTI seemed bright at first but then I realized after driving with white headlights again that I couldn't focus as easily with the blue ones. I also seem to squint more with blue.

[Mikewire]

Ya there's a million opinions out there on the interweb, and I think you know my thought on opinions. These are a 55W 6000k Xenon bulb so it's pretty much white, with a bluish tinge, but not totally blue. The main reason I am going with these is because they will output more than twice the number of lumens than a standard halogen bulb, so night driving will be brighter. So really it's not about the look or the color, but more about the lumens/brightness. I figure I'll give them a shot for the cost, and if I don't like them I can go back to halogens.

[Roadhog]

HID's in projectors = win
HID's in non projectors = win but retarded

[Rennwagen1]

win but retarded

Is that like a street race between two civics?!?!

[Roadhog]

win but retarded

Is that like a street race between two civics?!?!

Nah, that's fail and retarded.