Hey all...
Some time ago I embarked upon a project to convert the TJ Sports 'parabolic' headlights from a halogen low beam to a HID (Xenon - D2S) low beam.

The pictures so far map the journey - the results are impressive to say the least, but are unfortunatly not legal for on road use - you probably could use them but risk being made to change the halogens back in.

My take on this is that if people are allowed to drive around with badly aligned headlights, blue bulbs, green bulbs - why can't you do a conversion that is worthwhile. Meh. The difference with HID's is like you were driving around with the parkers on before.

The only modification is to cut the glare shield, so that the D2S bulb return wire isn't fouled - it is at 30,000V on startup so it has to be 5mm away from any metal. The glare is barely within acceptable limits, but there are a lot of bad headlight going around these days - see the beam pattern photo to see how it looks.

The glare issue suprisingly comes from a compromise that is made by all free form reflector headlights - if the HID bulb was the same brightness as a halogen, it wouldn't be a problem, unfortunatly it is 3 times brighter (3000 lumens vs. 1000 lumens) so the glare that wouldn't normally be a problem is three times brighter.

As you can see from the photos, I have taken a parabolic headlight apart in the name of advancing aussie magna members headlights :) Don't worry, it was bent anyway, and it can be reassembled.

I completly dissasembled it to work out how to fit the next (LEGAL) stage of the modification - retrofitting stock BMW HID BIXENON projectors into the low beam headlights - the bixenon is a xenon low/high beam, and on high beam it puts driving lights to shame.

I have some on order from the states, so I should get them sooner or later! :) Yes, I know that e-code projectors designed for the states (RHD) need to be modified with the shutter from a LHD country - that isn't that bad.

I will be aiming for a stock projector look for the lows when I am finished, so I am also ordering the chrome trim rings to give a 'stock' finish to the conversion.

Cheers
Heath Young

Good work, but i like to take the cheap way out, and i'd rather get this new Blue Vision thing from Philips, its basically a bulb which looks bluer than even HID...i think, the light output is actually less than standard and it has a colour temperature of 5000k

A light that is more blue is actually a poorer light for driving since there is more glare and less useable color spectrum. What you want is a whiter light, and HID is intended to be white however the blue is just a by-product of the xenon excitement process.

i thought it looked blue because it's so white that compared to the halogen yellow lights it looks blue

I think you are referring to Diamond vision, they are 5000K, using Quartz.
They claim that the bulb will last longer than the life of your car. for a once off payment of around $110~140 you have yourself a pair off ever lasting bulbs.

blue vision isn't that hot, probably only 4500k or 4600, maybe 4700....

My take on this is that if people are allowed to drive around with badly aligned headlights, blue bulbs, green bulbs - why can't you do a conversion that is worthwhile.

Good on you for having a go...

But that reasoning is like saying "well he does that..so why cant I?"

No offence, just seemed like weird reasoning.

Anyway, I'd like to see how they light up if you can show us somehow.

nice job. good to see some people giving it a go instead of just talking about it. any pics on what the car looks like with the lights on now?

xenon head lights is illegal. is that right?

OK - a little clarification on the legality of all of this - it is illegal to retrofit halogen globes into fittings that were not originally designed for them, ie. if you fit a D2S or D2R into the socket where a H7 was originally fitted (which is what I have done) then, yes, it is illegal.

The reason why it is illegal is simply because you can no longer control the amount of glare or cutoff points or side illumination. While it will work OK (highly dependent on headlight design, age and bulb placement) you will never get the same beam pattern because the two bulbs are completly different animals - the arc could be in the same position X,Y,Z but it will not work like a filament because its geometry is all wrong.

OK - having said that, if a headlight that has been designed for the use of a D2S/D2R bulb - for example, the bixenon headlight out of a 2003 Audi A6/RS6 / BMW 5 Series E39 (which is what I will be using) - you have a headlight with legal cutoffs, E-code pattern (rather than the unified pattern on the parabolics) that is in all respects superior to what it replaced.

I do need to find out what sort of testing I need to get done to get the headlights engineer passed - headlight telemetry etc. They are extremely slack on headlight testing in Australia anyways...

Killbilly - as for my reasoning, well, I just get annoyed that when there are worthwhile conversions that make a much better difference than some of these rice lamps that they are not legal - I suppose that you wouldn't want people putting HID's in H4 sockets in old commodores with no headlight aiming... not good.

Cheers
Heath Young

I have the crystal vision from phillips, they are not all they are cracked up to be.
I initially did the high / low
about 7 months later i did the inner high globes and then saw how much effect had been lost on the older outer lights which had that yellow look again.

Don't forget that the BMWs etc have auto leveling headlights as well which
is a requirement.

The Australian BMW's don't actually have autolevelling - Australia's rules on HID lights is somewhat lax in this respect - this is a european regulation, along with washers/wipers.

I do agree that this may make life a bit hard :P

Cheers
Heath Young

Are you sure, my old man's beemer definaly has auto leveling, should know as he is constantly bagging the rada. lol

Auto levelling is for low beams only, if you were to fit a bixenon projector in place of the high beam, then technically this would be legal.

6. Can I change my headlights to Xenon gas discharge?
Yes! But...For low beam applications a replacement of existing halogen bulbs against a new Xenon headlamp is necessary. In addition to that, a cleaning & automatic leveling device is required by law when using Xenon for low beam applications.

Hmmm....

Cheers
Heath Young

Hmm, this is a rather interesting project.

I really like the look of those projector lamps, and that is why one of my reasons for a project of mine I was going to use a VT Commo (No i havn't done it yet) since it would have been a cheap base to work on, and i can get the Monaro projector lamps, or one of the VY luxury models if i was gonna have that frontend.

But if we can get these to work legally on a Magna, that would be awesome.

Btw the projector lights on the Commo's (well the VYii Berlina i'm sure of) do not have the auto levelling feature. However I havnt had much time to inspect the headlight system as a whole yet.

One thing I noticed from your pics was the absence of the lens system. Did you forget about this or was one of your design considerations was to avoid the need to use them, thereby making it cheaper to implement?

Dan.

I cant believe how hard it is to convert to xenon headlights which will actually give you better lightsing. surely there must be some company out there that has researched the conversion and knows how to do it all legal.

>Hmm, this is a rather interesting project.

Thanks for your interest :)

>I really like the look of those projector lamps, and that is why one of my reasons for a project of mine I was going to use a VT Commo (No i havn't done it yet) since >it would have been a cheap base to work on, and i can get the Monaro projector lamps, or one of the VY luxury models if i was gonna have that frontend.

The projector lamps sure look nice :) But the projector units used in the Commodores are not designed for a HID bulb - in all honesty though, the optics of a projector lend themselves far better to a conversion than a reflector headlight ever has.

>But if we can get these to work legally on a Magna, that would be awesome.

I am still working on the legality issue, and also the not pissing other drivers off issue - ie. excessive glare - the reason for moving away from reflector headlights. The original photos I posted are a cute but highly illegal conversion. To make the HID's work legally, you have to use the whole approved shebang - bulbs, ballasts and most importantly the e-marked ECN approved projector. The projector needs also to be fitted in a suitable housing (ie. clear front) and must be fully adjustable.

>Btw the projector lights on the Commo's (well the VYii Berlina i'm sure of) do not have the auto levelling feature. >However I havnt had much time to inspect the headlight system as a whole yet.

I will tell you now that there is no halogen based projection system that does, as there is no legal requirement for it to have such. The only reason why there are automatic levellers on Euro cars is the legal requirement for them to have one - where it is legal not to fit these to factory cars (say the US) they are not fitted - it is not cost effective. The Beemers have them fitted because there is a legal requirement, but only after 2000 IIRC.

>One thing I noticed from your pics was the absence of the lens system. Did you forget about this or was one of your >design considerations was to avoid the need to use them, thereby making it cheaper to implement?

Like I said before, the photos are of an illegal conversion, that uses the stock parabolic low-beam reflector with a D2S in a H7 adaptor plate. The reflector is FF (free form) and the front glass is (kind of) a fresnel lens on the corners, because the problem with FF reflectors is that they have medeocre side lighting.
If a projector headlight is fitted in the space of the FF reflector, the light will pass through the clear, rather than the fresnel section, causing no issues with beam telemetry. You could not do this with the standard executive headlights.

Cheers
Heath Young

More information - I am getting in contact with DOTARS to get a copy of ADR 46 and hopefully ADR 77 and ADR 78 - strangely they are not listed though.

The original headlamps (both parabolic and normal execs) seem to lack all of the ECE approval stamps! Very strange, since our ADR's are based on the ECE standards...

I will try to get a ruling on this - the issue with self levelling and washers is a European LAW not an ECE design regulation - hence not required by ADR's.

Cheers
Heath Young

Killbilly - as for my reasoning, well, I just get annoyed that when there are worthwhile conversions that make a much better difference than some of these rice lamps that they are not legal - I suppose that you wouldn't want people putting HID's in H4 sockets in old commodores with no headlight aiming... not good.

Fair enough :D Just guess it was worded badly before ;) No hard feelings mate.

Hey all - a bit of an update on the HID conversion. The news on the legality is not good unfortunatly, even with the ECE compliant projectors, the conversion is illegal, and never will be legal (sulk).

I have been looking into fitting the projector headlights, and the biggest concern is that they are HUGE - a 3" lens and a 7" long body make retrofitting a bit of a nightmare!

So far, the options are as follows for those who wish to convert to HID (none legal)

1) Modify the Sports parabolics (not really a parabolic, more a free-form/parabolic hybrid) by removing the centre of the glare shield and placing a D2S HID bulb in the h7 socket (with adaptor)

Problems:
- Illegal
- Bulb is insecure as clips fail to hold correctly (as the H7 is normally fitted in a 'standoff')
- Bulb is too low inside the headlight meaning that it is extremely difficult to connect the high voltage lead without having to cut plastic out of the boot/casing
- By removing the centre of the glare shield, this exposes the top of the bulb, which is quite unpleasant to look at!
- The glare that would normally be present with a halogen bulb is now three times brighter - ewww!
- The bad design of the parabolic headlight stands out like a sore thumb - insufficient side lighting, hotspots galore... The brightness of the forground illumination tricks the eye into thinking that these headlights are brighter than the standard non-parabolics.

2) Swap back to the standard (non-parabolic) headlights, and fit the 'Casper Electronics' H4 shield - which is VERY effective.

Problems:
- Illegal
- Lose the sports headlights :(

Option 2 is more appealing, simply because the headlights are unmodified, the adaptor holds the bulb reasonably well with a slight modification (drill and tap one screw), the holder itself is held well in the socket by the standard clip, the standard rubber boot fits over the bulb end and keeps it sealed properly, the high voltage connector fits properly, you keep the parker bulbs, and the high beam is unaffected. You also regain the side illumination

From the outside it has the characteristic light of the HID (looks like a Mercedes) but is not annoying and glarey - chances are it would pass rego and it is extremly doubtful it would be picked up/on by a cop. Also so much easier to fit a standard H4 for rego or *ahem* a defect clearance if you were worried :) Also looks stock, rather than dodgy jobbed!

I now need to get some of the adaptors to play with - ordering from the US (again!)

Cheers
Heath Young