So-called xenon lights on eBay

[kevinpsw]

I've owned cars that have had xenons (they were quite an expensive extra) and I came to appreciate just how much better they were than the standard lights.

On ebay there are xenon bulbs offered:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/HONDA-NSX-3-0i-V6-24V-91-XENON-HEADLIGHT-BULBS_W0QQitemZ8052014814QQcategoryZ72235QQrdZ1QQc mdZViewItem

They seem too cheap to me to be any good.

Has anyone bought and installed such bulbs or others from elsewhere and found them to deliver a worthwhile improvement over the OEM type?

[markc]

In motor manufacturer/OEM speak, Xenon = H.I.D (High Intensity (Gas) Discharge) where the Gas is Xenon.

An H.I.D bulb is a totally differant type of bulb where the light source is an arc (of light) struck across a Xenon filled tube by a high voltage, rather than a metal filament which is usually sealed in Halogen filled tube, hence known as Halogen bulbs.

These aftermarket straight replacement bulbs may have Xenon in them but it doesn't make them Xenon's (HID's) or indeed any good.
They're often marketed as giving the "cool blue" look, but this is usually a blue coating and this actually reduces the light output. :?

The blue look associated with proper H.I.D systems is actually not really down to the colour (measured by light "temperature" in K's ie 4500K) but a visual trick played on the observer by the beam cut off mask casuing a sort of rainbow effect that these lamps require.

There's an excellent explanation of all things H.I.D here.... http://faqlight.carpassion.info/

Mark

[Papalazarou]

I have H.I.D lights on my mountainbike. :)

James.

[Mr_Spanners]

I have H.I.D lights on my mountainbike. :)

James.

.... and I bet they last about 40 mins with new batteries too!!! :shock: I ditched the lights on my MB and only go out in the daytime now!!! :wink:

Slightly off topic - sorry!!!

~Phil.

[Papalazarou]

These threads always go off topic!
The light is a 10/16 watt bulb giving the equivelent of 64 watts output using a 4.5 amp hour battery lithium iron battery. Normally I get 3-3.5 hours from it. the whole lot weighs a pound!

Cheers,

James

(I promise not to go this far off topic again!)

[DTA-Motorsport]

Hi there,

I'm in the "bulb" trade and can say with a high degree of confidence that the bulbs sold through the e-bay link above are (a) not suitable for an NSX and (b) do not actually contain Xenon gas.

The bulbs merely use a blue coating to "simulate" the blue hue of genuine HID systems (see explanation in previous posts).

You'll find that there are not a lot of aftermarket bulbs which give you brighter headlights. Some may be whiter than others (ie, if they contain Xenon gas mixed in with halogen) but inevitably they are still halogen bulbs and therefore yellowish in colour.

If you're after an aftermarket HID kit for your NSX which is a straight swap with the original bulbs then I can offer you our X5 kit. I've successfully installed a kit to Matt's car a few weeks ago and will be installing another kit to another NSX this coming Saturday. No modifications to the existing wiring loom are required and the whole conversion is completely reversible in minutes thereby allowing you to return to the stock setup. The kit comes in 6000K or 8000K (I highly recommend the former) and costs £250 (incl. delivery).

If you're serious about upgrading your car's headlights then I'd highly recommend changing to our HID systems. Don't bother with cheaper versions available through e-bay as they are prone to failure. The X5 kits are fully E-marked, carry a CE certification and are road legal in the UK and Europe. Independent tests have shown the X5 systems to be in the top three for built quality, reliability and value for money. These systems are also supplied to various car manufacturers, such as GM, Hyundai and TVR. Our systems are available in any bulb fitment so if you have other cars that require the upgrade then we have a kit available.

Dan

[Mr_Spanners]

Having read many horror stories of HID conversions causing melted headlight enclosures has anyone actually run a HID conversion long term on an NSX? (e.g longer than a year?)

I'm guessing the 6k output HID is safer but the pop-up light enclosures on the pre-01 cars are very small and heat dissipation may be an issue???

~Phil.

[DTA-Motorsport]

This is a common misconception.

Stock halogen head light bulbs are rated at 55W, HID bulbs are 35W and therefore burn "cooler" than standard halogen bulbs. I've not performed a scientific temperature test (yet) but using the very unscientific "hand on glass" technique I can confirm that Matt's HID equipped headlight was cooler to the touch than the halogen equipped light after 5 minutes of operation.

There are owners in the US who've been running HID kits in their NSX's since about 2002 and none of them have had any problems.

My first customer had a Corvette ZR1 (LT5) which also has pop-up lights. He's been running our HID kit conversion for about 18 months now and no problems reported. I've also got several kits in MR2's who've not had a problem.

I'm quite happy to say that our X5 kits are safe to use in pre-01 NSX's.

Dan

[markc]

To try to explain the "colour temperature" thing a little further....

Measured in Kelvin (K) it's a rating of the bulbs colour output NOT it's heat output. For reference...
3200K is Yellowish light and typical of good quality Halogen bulbs.
4100K is White light and hence the brightest light. Most OEM vehicles use these.
6000K is Blueish light and used by many aftermarket kits.
8000K is Purpleish light.

The heat output from the bulbs is certainly no more than a standard 55W Halogen bulb so melting your lenses won't be a problem unless the re-based bulb is too long and is poistioned too close to or even touches a part of the lense. This is far more likely to be caused by people fitting high output Halogen bulbs which are available with 65W,75W or even 100W power consumption and comensurate extra heat output. These high power Halogen bulbs can also hurt (melt) your wiring loom.

My JDM Type S came with a factory H.I.D system (made by Stanley) and therefore can use original D2S based bulbs. I recently put in a new pair of Philips 4100K bulbs which work brilliantly (no pun....) :)
Still not as good as my wifes S2000 though which uses Stanley 4100K's and no doubt a more modern lense design.

All pop-up lamp NSX's use a projector lense for the dipped beam lamp which apparently responds well to H.I.D upgrade. You will need re-based D2S bulbs to fit in the H1 (UK) or 9005 (US) lamp socket and the kits will supply you with these along with the ballast/ignitor to drive the bulb and a wiring loom to connect it all up.

Because the light source is so differant to a Halogen bulb, a projector lense designed for a Halogen bulb will never work as well as an original designed for H.I.D lense, but they still work MUCH better than any Halogen upgrade bulb you can get.

Hope this helps.

Mark

[ctrlaltdelboy]

great post Mark -many thanks :D

[mcibuk]

Good posts all round - very informative - Cheers :)

[DTA-Motorsport]

Thanks for the very informative post Mark - you certainly know your stuff!

From experience I have found that the HID upgrade I applied to Matt's 2000 3.2 car worked very well. However, there were a few points to make a note of, namely

(a) the HID bulb is slightly longer than the halogen bulb which means that it projects the light in a slightly different pattern
(b) there is an interference plate in the headlight housing which is supposed to flatten the top of the light projections. When the HID bulb was installed the plate caused the light to be projected far too low and the headlight needed to be realigned (a 5 minute job once you know what you're doing ...), and
(c) HID light reflects extremely well off reflective surfaces (such as road signs, cats eyes, registration plates, etc) but what it doesn't reflect of very well is dull surfaces. It is therefore imparative that if you upgrade to HID's that you get the allignment set properly or you'll be in danger of bumping into curbs you didn't see ...

All in all, the upgrade has resulted in a big improvement in visibility and driveability and it is an upgrade worth spending the money on.

Dan

[TheQuietOne]

I'm very pleased with mine (as mentioned in Dan's posts) now we have the height adjusted correctly! They are a real improvement on the candle-light originals, and with the white LED sidelights really give the car an updated yet not over the top look and feel + dipped driving is much improved (the real point I guess!).

As said before very interesting thread.

[sportyking]

What lights has an 01 (latest pop-up) got fitted?? They don't look like standard halogen lights to me, more like those projector thingies but the the light at night is nothing special. The dealer mentioned something about the lights changing through the years, is this so??

[TheQuietOne]

Mines an '00 with pop-ups and I've just had the upgrade. They are projectors, but with standard bulbs - hence the yellowish light output. I would assume our cars would have the same being a couple of the newest with pop-ups, it would be my guess that all the cars with pop ups have the same units, or perhaps they might have changed it from '97 and the 3.2's - but can't imagine they did until the fixed units. I'm waffelling so I'll wait for someone who knows better to join in... :wink: