Caspers Headlight Brightener

[turbojd]

Steve, I bought my glare shields on ebay for like $18.00, I only converted my low beams to hid. I'm pretty sure if you get a bi-zenon bulb they have a built in glare shield around the bulb already. You might want to look into that a little more tho.

[Steve Wood]

okay, I will do some searching/asking

[Steve Wood]

Ok, after a bit more reading and some contradictory impressions/statements, I think I believe this at the moment...   \


Over the past few years, I have seen a lot of screaming about how bad it is to try to use HID lights in reflectors that were not specifically designed for them, but there are plenty of people showing results that say it can safely done without endangering oncoming traffic while greatly improving the original lights.  There are some things that need to be done to get it as optimum as possible to achieve this, however.

Converting to HID using H4 housings is not as good as a well designed HID light/housing but it is probably a helluva lot better than what we have.  The beam spread will not be as wide nor quite as well controlled as good HID units.

The Hella and Cibie H4 housings in the E-Code (ECE) design are probably the best bet for ultimate performance.  The Cibie seems to be considered the best particularly with regard to distributing light to the sides.  It costs about twice the Hella, and the Hella is much more expensive than the Autopal housings, however.  It is important to use the E-Code, or E-Code style, of housing in order to get the best light cut off vertically.  The US DOT housings are designed to throw some light up to illuminate signs above the road and this is a bad thing when used with HID lights that are about three times more powerful than our conventional lights.  Use the glare shield mentioned below to minimize any upward light.

The Autopal housings are referred to as Euro style but are not truly certified as E-Code.  The statement that they are E marked is not the same as E-Code or ECE, but, the pictures of them projecting a beam is very close to the pattern projected by the E-Code units and they are about 1/3 the price.   Most people are happy with them and they are not cheap plastic pieces of junk.  I ordered a set for $43 including shipping off Ebay.  Be sure they are for left hand drive cars driven on the right hand side of the road!

There are 35w and 55w HID versions offered.  The DDM bulbs are rated to 60 watts and the difference is provided by the ballast.

The 55 w versions probably don't work as well when it comes to light control when used in an H4 housing and may cause glare problems and/or a lack of focused light.  It might be interesting to try them as high beams. 

The Hi/Lo bi-xenon bulbs are magnetically shifted to provide low beam and High beam.  When they go to High, there may not be as much light on the road in front of the car.  They, may not work well in H4 housings because of this.  The 35w single xenon bulb is probably the better way to go if you want to see the sides of the road and immediately in front of the car at all times.  That is opinion, not necessarily fact, developed after reading and looking at pictures.

The D2S bulb is what is used for  the H4 housing with the below glare shield.

The glare shield is required with the D2S HID bulb in an H4 housing to prevent light bouncing from the bottom of the reflector upward into oncoming traffic's eyes.  I see it referred to as the Casper shield in many places.  http://www.casperselectronics.com/store2/product_info.php?products_id=693  This uses the standard bulb (D2S) and not those sold as H4 replacements.  There may be others sold as the same thing but I have not seen them in searches.  Some of the bulbs being sold have a shield, but, I am not sure they work as well as these from what I read/see.

With regard to color temperature, the higher one goes past 5000 K, the bluer the lights become and the less visible to human eye illumination is provided.  With age, the color temperature rises and the bluer the light becomes.  For that reason, those that do a lot of night time driving may be better off sticking to the 4500-5000 range.  6000 is pretty good, but, when it shifts darker, you may not see as much.  Darker the blue, the less you see, but, you increase the likelyhood of being ticketed by the cops for using an illegal light when they need to write tickets.

Regular ballasts sometimes are known for radio interference.  The digital ballasts-not so much.

A weak voltage source and/or a bad ground can cause flickering as well as excessive heat and shorter component life.  HID lights require more amperage as they warm up, but, pull very little current after they have done so.  I strongly suggest using a relay to drive a pair of lights in order to avoid possible problems.  A benefit is that the factory light switch will not see the load it used to and should last longer.

Bulb life should be quite long as there is no filament to burn out.  After a considerable period, the usable light may diminish as the color shifts darker.

Looks like Turbojd is costing me some money, but, not as much as going to Hellas and good halogen bulbs. 


I am ordering this HID kit from DMM  http://www.ddmtuning.com/Products/Apexcone-Raptor-HID-Kit  I'm going with the 4500K D2S bulbs


along with the relay harness   http://www.ddmtuning.com/Products/DDE-Relay-Harness


I ordered a pair of these housings  http://www.ebay.com/itm/165mm-H4656-H4-EURO-CONVERSION-HEADLIGHTS-/330549982609?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&vxp=mtr&hash=item4cf6507591#ht_1796wt_1398


And will order the glare shield I linked above from John.

[Steve Wood]

I am still confused on the bulbs.  The Caspers site says the glare shield is for stock D2S or D2R bulbs and will not fit others. 

The DMM site sells kits but does not mention shields or if the bulbs are "stock" or what they fit other than they are for H4 housing.  I sent them a note and asked...Their bulbs are a heckuva lot cheaper than stock listings I find.  It is all JD's fault for telling us how easy it is! lol

[turbojd]

I am still confused on the bulbs.  The Caspers site says the glare shield is for stock D2S or D2R bulbs and will not fit others. 

The DMM site sells kits but does not mention shields or if the bulbs are "stock" or what they fit other than they are for H4 housing.  I sent them a note and asked...Their bulbs are a heckuva lot cheaper than stock listings I find.  It is all JD's fault for telling us how easy it is! lol

Most H4 bulbs have a shield on the bottom of the bulb. I followed John at Caspers advice on one of his write ups to use the D2s bulb with the glare shield, rather then a H4 bulb, the H4 bulb would fit right into the housing and snap shut. If you use the D2s bulb like I did you will need the aluminum glare shield. The D2s bulbs are true HID bulbs used in Audi's, Bmw, Mercedes etc. They are not some rebased bulb with a glare shield around it. They are relatively cheap to replace also, and plentiful available. If you order the D2s bulb kit it is $15.00 dollars more than the H4, this is because they give you the Amp to D2s connector adapters needed to connect to the back of the D2s bulb.  It's all my fault, see what I started!!!

[Steve Wood]

Does not help that I have this pressing need to always know "why"

[Steve Wood]

ah, I just did not go far enuf down the list to see the D2S option....in the DMM kit listings...gra dually, things are coming into focus

[Steve Wood]

OK, JD, got another question...  Will the relay harness they sell support two lights?

it appears to me that the DMM ballasts only pull a max of six amps as opposed to the 50--100 amp claims I have seen when the lights are being fired up.

Did not see a bi xenon lamp in the D2S section.  I have seen a few pics where the ground was not lit up up when switched to Highs, but, I have also seen some where it did appear light was still on the ground while on Highs.

I would guess that if you installed D2S bulbs in the highbeam housing and aimed them higher and wired so that two low beam lights and two high beams came on when kicking up to High beams, that would solve all problems. As I said earlier, I hardly ever get to use Highs for any prolonged period, any way

[turbojd]

OK, JD, got another question...  Will the relay harness they sell support two lights?

it appears to me that the DMM ballasts only pull a max of six amps as opposed to the 50--100 amp claims I have seen when the lights are being fired up.

Did not see a bi xenon lamp in the D2S section.  I have seen a few pics where the ground was not lit up up when switched to Highs, but, I have also seen some where it did appear light was still on the ground while on Highs.

I would guess that if you installed D2S bulbs in the highbeam housing and aimed them higher and wired so that two low beam lights and two high beams came on when kicking up to High beams, that would solve all problems. As I said earlier, I hardly ever get to use Highs for any prolonged period, any way

I didn't buy the relay harness from them, I purchased one from ebay, but it looks like that harness will support the low beams, If you go with a bt-zenon kit or 4 D2s bulbs, I believe you will need a bi-zenon wiring harness for that. For my hid conversion (low beam only) I only needed a regular harness. From what I can see, if you use the D2s bulbs, and want High beams also (bi- zenon) you will need 4 bulbs (D2s) and wire it up that way with the harness as you said.

[daveismissing]

The trip down to BG was all in the rain and the stock headlights were brutally dim.
I've been looking at/for solutions for a while and appreciate Steve sorting thru the BS.

Too bad the real Philips ballasts are so pricey, that would be my first choice.
I did see some comment about the Autopals not sealing well but they were the round ones.
   

I have the kit installed in my car...I didn't notice a difference, but other people with TRs did.  Same thing for those power window motors and wiring harness upgrade I've got, I didn't notice a difference with those either but other people were amazed at how "fast" they are now. 

Your car has been babied all it's life unlike many.
With the second car I'm realizing cosmetically perfect does not necessarily mean internals are less worn out, or maintained/reassembled correctly. Anti-rattle bits etc. My driver's doors were fast and tight- except for the rusty bottom 2 inches. eek

 

[Steve Wood]

Dave, I think JD is the one that is sorting thru all the mess for us   What you see from me is my typical thought process as I continue in my old age to want to know as much as possible and understand everything before I do anything.  Google has made it worse because it gives so many answers that often conflict.  I have friends that cannot understand how I can go into a store and buy something without looking at all the options.  They don't understand that I have already sorted thru the options before I got there.

On the bi-xenons, I would like to try and see for myself before committing.  I think I will put a set of the regular D2S bulbs in the low beams for starters.  Then someday, I might try the bi-xenons in the normal high beams only-only draw back that I see there is that some may start flashing me (with headlights) because they think I am on bright with four headlights showing.-in reality, I will probably never get past the low beam D2S's

Dave, I think we must be reading the same sites as I saw something about the round AutoPals leaking as well.  Not sure the beam pattern is as good either as the 165mm rectangulars.

[turbojd]

Thats exactly what I wanted to do first Steve, start out with the (low) beam hid and see if I liked it first. Get the relay harness for the hid set up, some will say that you don't need it, but I don't want to take any chances putting all that draw at startup on the stock wiring and headlight switch. Plus by using the harness and going to the battery, your ballasts are going to receive full power instantly. This will eliminate the possible flickering associated by some who do not use the harness and go direct from the battery. I am totally satisfied with my hid's, beam pattern is nice, so is the cutoff point. The 6000k bulbs have a hint of blue to them, but for me they're perfect!

[turbojd]

Well, I got all caught up in talking about the hid kit and looks itself, I ran across a few minor modifications that had to made along the way when I went to install them on the car. My D2s shields that I bought, (don't know if this is all of them) I had to use a dremel with a carbide round bit I had in there, and just go round the inside of the hole and open it up some, reason being is because the D2s bulbs didn't seat in there perfect, after a quick hit with the dremel they were perfect. Like I said, I'm not sure if this is all of the shields. It's no big deal tho. Next, being that these are H4 housings, they will give you the rubber boot that goes on the back of the housing to cover the bulb backing, it was made for an H4 bulb. I had to take a razor blade and just put a slice in the boot to make it fit the D2s connector nice and tight. This is so no moisture can get in there. Finally, you will have to take a pair of pliers and bend the tabs of the headlight bucket out a little to allow for the new headlight and D2s connector to clear. That was it for the mods, Quite easy mods.

[Steve Wood]

Yep, these cars are too old to rely on the factory wiring.

My gut feeling is that the regular D2S bulb in the High beams aimed up to be right on top of the low beam pattern would be the way to go...that way the road would be flooded with light from the front of the car onward.  Seems it would be the best way to use conventional h4 housings.

[turbojd]

The mods above are quite easy! Yeah, like you said try the lows and see how you like them, you can always go bi-zenon later!