I still don't understand what the commotion is all about wiring these lights in with a separate voltage source from the battery. It is completely unnecessary. The Civic has a separate fused circuit to each headlamp, and each circuit is rated at a minimum of 20 amps.

Further, essentially the same lighting wiring harness is used in in the ROW cars that have HID lamps, and are more than robust to handle the start-up current spike of the HID ballast. If there was an issue with the ballast, the circuit fuse would blow long before there was damage to the wiring harness.

While there is nothing wrong with using the direct battery connect, it is just unnecessary.

 

Where did you get the wiring data from?

 

I got the wiring data from the electrical schematics in the Honda Tech info CDs. Plus you can just look at the wiring, it is all 16-18 gauge, which is the same as the HID bulb pigtails that are provided with the battery direct connect harness. The fuse panel is pretty self explanatory with L/R 20a fuses for both low and high beams.

 

Thats good to know but Im still a little worried about long term issues seeing as Im not an electrician I've just read a lot of horror stories and witnessed one myself.

 

I really would have liked to see a picture of your cut off line with the OE bulbs and then again with the HID's without moving the car in a dark area. Without seeing that it's difficult to say that they don't produce glare for oncoming drivers. I would have liked to see a comparison between the OE and HID light output that is cast to the sides and upper left.

I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, but a lot of reflector designs are not capable of handling HID bulbs and produce excessive glare for oncoming traffic. The glare might not be bad at all distances from your car, it may get worse as you approach it.

This is one of the reason why companies exist to do HID projector retrofits for cars with regular halogen reflector housings. It is not as cheap, but the results are extremely better than a solution like this.
Take a look at these pics for an HID retrofit to see what you can get.
Stock STi HID (OE Reflector housing and OE HID bulb)

Your Civid HIDs

S2000 Projector Retrofit in OE STi housing



Comparing these shots to yours, it looks like your lights have a lot more sides of your beam pattern. More light in these directions could mean more glare for oncoming traffic. It would be cool to see an picture of a stock civic and your car. Do you know anyone in your area where you could get comparison pics?

Again, I'm not trying to be a jerk. I agree 100% that the civic's oe lights are trash, but looking at those cut offs, I can't imagine that they don't produce glare.

 

The photo that I posted is not actually from my Civics HID conversion. It is a photo from a post on 8th Generation Honda Civic that I copied. The debate over beam focus, dispersion, glare, etc, really seems like a moot point to me, as my retrofit lights seem to be just fine. I will have to consider going out one evening and actually taking a photo of them so the debate can continue.

The HID retrofit lights seem to be more that satisfactory from the drivers seat, and I have yet to receive a complaint from any other car that has driven past me at night or anyone that I have come up from behind on.

With any type of technology, there are a variety of solutions, some have advantages over others, and all have different costs to implement. The HID solution that I have chosen has a very good price/performance, and I am very satisfied with it.

I have 2 other HID equipped cars, one has a Hella low-beam projector HID lamp, and the other has a Bi-xenon HID lamp. The retrofit rig that I have in the Honda performs on a par with those systems.

If someone is dissatisfied with these lamps, I would be more than willing to allow them to upgrade my Civic to something that they would feel more comfortable with.

 

OK, I took some photos of the HID retrofit and a reference photo of my Bi-Xenon HID lamps on my other car.

First the HID retrofit:



Then the Bi-Xenon lights:



While the retrofit upper cutoff is not as sharp, the scatter is just as good as the Bi-Xenon lamps. For the price, I maintain that they are more than satisfactory.

Also notice that the retrofit lights seem to have a whiter color than the Bi-Xenons.

 

I really like your concrete house, Gary. Good for teh hurricanes.

 

It looks like this kit should fit an 07 model as well? I checked the specs for both 06 and 07 models but didn't see any differences. In fact, I couldn't tell any differences between the two.

 

Ok, that looks much better than the other picture. There even if it's not a sharp cutoff, there still is a cutoff which will take care of glare. That other picture that you posted looked like a mess, yours has a much nicer looking pattern.

The difference in color could be a few things:
1. Projector lights often have a different color at cutoff which can appear to filter down to the rest of the light, on some cheaper projectors this color can wash down into the main part of the beam. If you look at the picture of the S2000 projector I posted you can see the blue at the cutoff line and the almost instantly changes to white.

2. Over time HID bulbs tend to "color shift". As they age they tend to rise up a bit on the color temp scale. A stock 4300K bulb may end up looking more like a 5000+K bulb after a few years, giving a little bit more of a blue tint.

3. Your bulbs in your bi's might be a higher color temp than the civic's...which would give you the difference in color right out of the box.

I'm glad you posted that up, it looks pretty good. It appears that the oem reflector housings handle the HID's pretty well. I really wonder why that other picture looks so different than yours.

btw, what car are your bi's on?