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well i dont wanna be disappointed again, so im for sure going with 55w. i know the chrome on halogen projectors holds up just fine and they get much hotter than hid projector. i think it will be okay. if not, well i will learn a very expensive lesson lol. technically the "chrome" layer is metallic and should not be affected by heat. ive been running boosted halogens for many hours at a time and the stock reflector is still perfect. those things get really hot too and even warm up the outer lens cover quite a bit.

 
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okay im bored so im gonna tear up that link in the first post. first, if anyone here pays more than $100 for a 35w KIT, somethings wrong with you. they are all over ebay for even less than 100 so search around. all comes from the same factory.

lets address their questions next. 1. lets see, your lights are 3x brighter but they still wont blind traffic? wtf? lets see, halogen bulb housings give off glare, but it is at the maximum allowed by a legal headlight. now assuming their kit is the best ever and puts the arc tube EXACTLY where the filament was before, that means you will have 3x the legal limit of glare. yes. lol. hmm, there is also this crazy assumption that just because your BULBS are 3x brighter, so will be the output on the ground. wrong. depending on the housing they are used in, very little light may actually make it to the ground. aspecially if the housing was not designed for hid. so in some cases, you could actually be losing good light AND increasing glare to other drivers. wow that sounds great.

no extra wiring eh? wow what a magical hid kit. maybe they have the super special ballasts that don't draw the normal 20+ amps during the first few seconds of operation. maybe they actually won't cause the stock wiring to burn and melt due to drawing more than the recommended current. oh but once the bulbs warm up a minute later, they are getting 35w so everything's fine. loool right.

 
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damn.. this is a good thread.
Subscribed.
I'm actually looking forward to doing a retrofit during the summer (I hope).
I'd like to try and figure out what projector would be best for the OEM style foglights for 04-05.

 
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projector fog light retro in those oem housing will be very difficult. i was working with some 01-03 trying to widen the rear housing and its all metal. i went through a whole dremel bit and barely made a dent. and ended up scratching alot of chrome when it slipped lol. it wont be easy to cut. what type of bulb do they use, i might know a brighter version if you just want more light out of em.

 
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I tried retro fitting a projector into the oem style fog lights for an 04-05 and it is no easy task, so I gave up. There isn't that much room in there. I took the yellow projector out of an is300 and it barely fits with cutting. There was no way to mount it and I did not want to use jb weld to hold it in place. The back is plastic and pretty much melts from the frictional heat generated from the dremel.

The bulbs are an H8 (ebay) and H11 (OEM honda)

 
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Damn.. sound like a lot of work, well the bulb type .. H11.
I do want some bright ones..

Currently, I'm using the eBay fog lights and the adjuster (the nut that you can use to aim the light) is not accurate at all. So I was thinking about a retrofit.. but as I was thinking about it, just like you've mentioned, it would be hard to retrofit. The fog light's projection of the light isn't crazy, but it could be a lot better.
I'd get some shots of the lighting, but my car is in the body shop.

 
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Ok you beat me to it. lol

But, damn.. yeah, it would be pretty bad *** to get these 04-05 oem style projectors retrofitted.

 
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Believe me, I wanted those is300 projectors in there, but there was no way to do it without completely destroying the fog lights. Good thing ebay fogs are cheap now.

 
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yeah.
Have you seen the 04-05 oem style fogs that have the housing blacked out? I should have waited for those before buying the clear ones. lol

But as for the retro, I guess I'll be looking into it. I wished that our year foglight housing was made a bit similar to like the 01-03s.. but with the same triangle shape, just so it is a bit easier to pop in a projector.

 
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I saw the blacked out ones. They look nice. They would match blacked out headlights perfectly.

 
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Ok ere'body, I did some research on the whole concept of high intensity discharge lighting, bulbs used, ballast circuit design, current draw, startup, ignition, steady-state operation etc...specifically for automotive applications.

After finding and reading a bunch of whitepapers that were way over my head, I did manage to find a master's thesis very closely related to the subject.

[quotations from page 8 of attachment]
(3) Take-over stage (T3 » 300 ms):
Once the ignition pulse breaks through the lamp, the lamp impedance will drastically drop to a few tens of ohms. The lamp requires a high initial current of 12 A maximum for a short time in order to sustain the arc before the ballast can react to the ignition. This current is referred to as the takeover current and is delivered by discharging some energy storage capacitor into the arc. The required discharge time constant is in the range of a few hundreds of microseconds. The take-over capacitor will pre-charge during turn on and deliver the inrush current immediately after the ignition.

(5) Run-up stage (T5 » 10 s):
The automotive lamp has to be driven in order to meet the SAE specification for the light output vs. time. While the steady state power is 35 W, the transient power needed to achieve the required output characteristics when driving a cold lamp can be as high as 75 W. It is
characterized by a maximum current (2.6 A) and maximum power (75 W) delivered into the lamp for electrode temperature considerations.
[end quote]

While the digital circuit design & theory of the ballast was way beyond the scope of this thread, the paper did a great job of explaining how a bulb+ballast works, the stages of operation, and eventually, why HID systems are so sensitive.

What I got from this was, as each ballast must store up enough energy to dissipate 12A for ignition. Yes, the ballasts do end up drawing 35W at steady-state, but the ignition current draw is the problem.

If the ballasts are hooked up to the stock headlight wiring (designed for 55/65W bulbs and not much higher), trying to pull 12A through a 20-24 gauge wire will either cause such a massive voltage drop that the ballast will fail to charge (and fail to ignite the bulb), or something catches on fire. In the paper, it also discusses how restarting the bulb over and over leads to decreased life. Each failed start means an unnecessary restart.

Either way, I suggest that everyone just hook up each ballast to the battery via a big enough relay; this should take care of the problem. PepBoys sells 30A automotive relays in my area for about $3-4 each.

By using relays to supply power directly from the battery (using decent gauge wire), you should get more on/off cycles out of the bulb(s), longer life, less chance of flicker/extinguishment, and most of all, minimized risk of fire.

Thanks to electric130 for the help on this one earlier in the thread, Mr. Hu for his 105 page thesis, and all youz for putting up with my gibberish. I included pages 1-25 if anyone wants to take a look. Hope this helps.

 
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good info. more people should be thinking like you instead of assuming the stock wiring can handle it. i know most of us have seen the stock wires and i can say they barely look thick enough to power a turn signal.

for the fogs, if you have h11 app, you can fit H9 bulb in its place by simply shaving off one of the prongs on the bulb. then instead of 1200 lumen, you get 2100 lumen almost double the output per bulb will prolly also glare alot more, so use them as driving lights only (same rules as using hi beams).

 
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I was looking at the 55w hid system and do you have any idea what the lumen rating is on them?

 
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it says 35-40% right, so that would make it around 4000 lumen maybe a bit more? that seems right based on the pics they show as being noticable. i can def tell the 500 lumen dif with my halogen boost.

 
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hmmmm heres a though....a lens swap on the tyc projector maybe? or is it the whole projector housing itself that HAS to be swapped out?

 
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its mainly the bowl shape thats the problem. it just has no research put into it, my fog projectors even have a better spread than those. the lens are actually quite good, if i remember its a totally clear lens, which allows for maximum output. alot of oem projectors are coming with fresnel lens which has fuzzy patterns or ring on them and people are swapping them for clear versions if available. since the hid bulb is the same brightness, its the bowl that determines the pattern and amount of light output.

 
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I have an 04' Civic with Sylvania Silverstar bulbs. It doesnt look too bad. It is better than the Halogen bulb but not as good as HID. When I get a Civic Si in 2009, Im going to send the headlights to customlightz.com and have them retrofitted with TSX projectors. I dont want to do it myself because I know I will mess it up.

 
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yeah those guys have done a ton of 8thgen civic headlights and they all look good. go over to 8thcivic.com and check their retrofit post thread.

 
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hmmmm ok then, heres a thought. Say someone has a decent quality HID kit, but now they want to do it right with the proper projectors. Could the bulb be rebased or something or the wiring be redone to work with say a d2s bulb? I am trying to ask all the questions I think others with no knowlege of the subject would want to see the answers too. This thread will help people that are interested in the topic I am sure.

 
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if you buy a full aftermarket kit, chances are it will be some kind of halogen base like H4. so you will not be able to use the bulbs if you go with oem projectors later. but you can reuse the ballasts if you buy a pair of conversion harness from AMP (aftermarket ballast connection) to D2S (oem connection). you will also need to buy d2s base hid bulbs to fit the projectors.

 
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like gearbox said, it's the projector bowl that's the problem. again, like he said, if you have an aftermarket kit, then you could either do what he said and buy some adapter wires and some quality OEM bulbs (best solution), or you can get some cheap HID bulbs from ebay for the kits for around $30-40 with a D2S base and it will have the AMP connectors. i was close to doing this to make my low beams match the color of my HID fogs, but then i pulled my head out of my **** and stuck with my OEM Philips 85122+ bulbs for my low beams. yeah, they may not be as blue as some other HID's, but damn are they bright!!!!

 
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The ballasts I have can use d2s bulbs too with the right wiring. They are the xenith xenon ones that are advertised on honda tech. Everyone that has them loves them so far. So once I get the projectors I will just have to get the d2s and the wiring. I know I won't be satisfied now with the HID's in the TYC projectors but this is a DD so I need to do everything one step at a time. I HOPE to be able to learn enough about this so I could install the projectors in the TYC's correctly in a day...but on the weekend just in case.

 
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well small projectors will be easy to fit, but they will also suck. stuff like valeo and e46 are a great fit without modding anything, but the output is not great. so idk, and you have limited space in there due to the shrouds. the halogen projectors are fairly small to begin with.

 
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I am sure even if i took the easy route with valeo's or e46's it would still be a marked improvement considering they were designed for hid. Is circumference the limiting factor?

 
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Like I said gear, I too am doing a TL retrofit (already have the projectors), I'm just wondering if I should break my back trying to locate stock bulbs/harnesses/ballasts, or should I go aftermarket?

I mean, will every d2s bulb/ballast/harness setup plug right into the TL projectors?

 
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you can get aftermarket d2s kit and ballasts, HOWEVER i have seen alot of cases where the bulb was not designed properly. some case were so bad that the focal point was changed, and this drastically reduced the light output. so its a gamble. if you are staying stock 35w, you can get oem hardware for a little more than a kit setup. i see top quality ballast pairs selling on hidplanet for $150 shipped or even less, and bulbs around 50 for used. so idk, take your pick. if you go aftermarket, do not pay more than around 100 for the whole kit. they are really cheap on ebay but again theres the quality issue. ive seen aftermarket bulbs that look way off from the normal size of the arc tube. im going hi wattage, so obviously i wont be able to use oem hid bulb because they dont make any over 35w for automotive apps. www.retro-solutions.com sells that stuff and only $180 shipped for full 55w kit.

valeos are okay, but after a while driving around you will get depressed when you pull up next to a tl or tsx and have to wonder if your lights are even turned on. id say valeo hid is barely an improvement over halogen. heres a few pics to show you.

boosted halogen philips XP bulbs in stock reflector H4 (~2000lumen per bulb)



boosted catz H4 halogen 3900K coated bulbs



stock valeo hid projectors with osram bulbs (~3200lumen per bulb). and a bunch more valeo pics from the archives not that impressive. in fact ive driven past audis and my halogens seemed just as bright as their hid which made me laugh a little.

 
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oh yeah another huge problem of retro in projector housing is it will shake like a **** over bumps. mainly due to the crappy soft plastic they use for the materials. every bump would shake my projectors even tho i had em glued in tight to the housing. it was the whole headlamp that was shaking from car vibration.

 
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So I should just try to hit a junkyard or post up on HIDplanet to buy stock TL ballasts and bulbs? My username on HIDplanet is oneday, btw.

I'm probably going to do it in my stock headlamp housings, not projector housings.

 
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you can get any ballast really, so long as its d2s since thats the bulb the TL projector takes. some good ones are the matsushita gen3, hella gen3, panasonic, tl, denso, etc. valeo ballast kinda suck, one of mine got ruined from water cause it has alot of holes in the housing for venting but easy for water to get in. bulbs, i would recommend the philips 85122+ bulbs that are the brightest at 3400 lumen, compared to regular 85122 at 3200 lumen. the + are a bit more yellowish, but brighter. osram sucks.

 
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seems like i gotta piece these things together. I was looking at ebay and there are so many choices in terms of ballasts, bulbs, and harnesses. doh. thanks for all the input. I should probably spend another month or so on hidplanet before i invest in anything. haha.