North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

I'm thinking of doing a HID upgrade for my 2005 hilux. Dont do enough bush work to jusifly spend big buck on pair of hid spottie. Plus not keen to come back from fishing to find them stolen.
I been on ebay and they range in price from $70 to $170 for the 55w 6000k . I thinking of the 55w but 4300k so they are whiter and brighter.

I read some people claim the ac ballast is better then the dc and other claim dc is better.

Has anyone done this conversion and what type/Brand are you using?

what brightness are you legally alowed to upgrade your headlights. Even in low beam the 55w seem excessively bright for around town.

Hi balau, Mate the only way you can legally upgrade to hid's in your headlights is to have them meet ADR'S. Which means the headlights must be self leveling and have a spray washer to clear the lens so the light does not refract and blind other drivers. I could be wrong (which wouldn't be the first time if i was). But i reckon you'll end up with a canary on your windscreen and the added expense of being sent to MVR to have the defect removed. I ended up with upgrading my spotties to hid's so they only operated on the activation of high-beam and have been fine since.

Wes

Another option is to upgrade your bulbs to something like Narva Plus 100 or similar

http://www.narva.com.au/products/browse ... nce-globes

I have just bought some but waiting on them in the post.

I'll let ya know how they go next weekend once they are fitted.

As Wes said it is illegal to fit HIDs unless the vehicle has self levelling headlights. A lot of people do it though, I have a few mates with the upgrade done and haven't had a problem with the law yet.

Another option is the bulb upgrade. I put IPF Fatboys in my last car and they were a massive improvement over standard. They were pretty pricey though.

Hi balou

What Wes said is the only way to do it and remain within the Australian Design Rules unless the hi-lux uses separate headlights for high and low beam. Quite a number use h/lights with single H4 bulbs with which u can run into problems with the transport dept.

A 35watt HID bulb of 6000K will not produce as much glare as a 55 watt HID bulb of 6000k but will still be significant.

The 4300K option is the way to go.

They'll produce a lot more light than your existing halogen bulbs but will be the same colour. 2700 lumens per 35 watt bulb as opposed to 900 lumens per 50 watt bulb for halogen.

Little glare and won't attract attention. U may still need to adjust your headlight cut-off level down a bit with the h/light adjustment screws.

That's the compromise for you to avoid separate spotties I'm afraid.

Digital ballasts are smaller.

I have a hid high beam conversion on of my cars and it was a geat upgrade. I didn't do the low beam as I think it is a bit silly to blind the driver of the car that is driving towards ya at up to 130 kph.

Hi Shepps
Do you have separate hibeam and lowbeam headlights?

ronje wrote:Hi balou

What Wes said is the only way to do it and remain within the Australian Design Rules unless the hi-lux uses separate headlights for high and low beam. Quite a number use h/lights with single H4 bulbs with which u can run into problems with the transport dept.

A 35watt HID bulb of 6000K will not produce as much glare as a 55 watt HID bulb of 6000k but will still be significant.

The 4300K option is the way to go.

They'll produce a lot more light than your existing halogen bulbs but will be the same colour. 2700 lumens per 35 watt bulb as opposed to 900 lumens per 50 watt bulb for halogen.

Little glare and won't attract attention. U may still need to adjust your headlight cut-off level down a bit with the h/light adjustment screws.

That's the compromise for you to avoid separate spotties I'm afraid.

Digital ballasts are smaller.

My lux has a a single bulb that does high/low. So in order to get unwanted attention form the boys in Blue I might got the 35w ones. Just u tube the install and it looks easy enough .

bhawkless89 wrote:Another option is to upgrade your bulbs to something like Narva Plus 100 or similar

http://www.narva.com.au/products/browse ... nce-globes

I have just bought some but waiting on them in the post.

I'll let ya know how they go next weekend once they are fitted.

These look great as well and alot easier to fit, look forward to hearing some feedback.

It took me less than an hour to fit mine....55w 7k with digital ballast......$89.95 e-bay 95soarer was the dealer.Fitted and adjusted the height and acctually took them out on the channel island rd and drove towards my vehicle and adjusted accordingly as to not 'flash' anyone else coming the other way.......i think it's imoprtant to do this as they are very bright.

One headlight with 2 globes. Low beam is a spread projector type and high is a spot with a 9005 globe. I replaced the high beam globe with a 55w hid set up.

I have 4 other cars with 7" round h4 headlights and have tried h4 kits in them, I removed the kits as it was affecting other drivers and the light beam it's self was next to useless as it wasn't focused and was jut scattered everywhere.

$400 on some cheap lights and ya can see where you are going without affecting other people

Hi Balou

Sounds like u've got it sorted.

You'll see a big difference between 55w halogens and 35 watt hids. Up to you whether u get 4300k or higher. Less chance of attracting attention with 4300k. I wouldn't go higher than 6000K. Too bluish and will attract the crabs.

Do what Shep did to see if cut-off needs to be lowered. With 4300k I don't think you'll need to worry. After all, how many vehicles do you see coming towards you where the lights are all out of whack anyway?

Installation is easy. Just 12 volts to the ballast and igniter and then straight to the new H4 HID bulb.

Be aware that some toyota vehicles use negative switching to their lights which may impact on how u go about it.

Suzukis use negative switching as well. If I use a relay I wire it so the wire that changes from + to - is the earth that switches the relay. With the hid I just pluged the ballast into the globe plug and swapped the wires around until I found the combo that worked.

Thaks Sheps.
Didn't know that about Suzukis.