NDAZONE

My Infiniti has to have the worst headlights out of all four cars that I regularly drive. I can't get over the fact that even my '86 Z has more effective headlights. Anyway, I checked XenonKing.com and now they offer a H4 Bi-Xenon HID Kit
(Xenon Low Beam/Xenon High Beam) for a total of $1,149.98 USD. Pretty expensive. I was wondering if anyone has had any experiences with aftermarket xenon lights. My main concern is blinding everyone on the road since my car was originally fitted with halogen lights. Also, I am pretty sure that unlike the S headlights these new bulbs will lack the distinct cut off of light. All opinions on the subject are appreciated.

corey415

Since you have an S2000, you have come to appreciate the intensity, color, and cutoff that the car's HID projectors provide. I assume you would want something similar to that in your Infiniti G20t.

If you install a HID kit, your output will be nowhere close to what your S2000 provides. You would be using halogen optics for HID, which is a bad thing to do. I can safely assume that your infiniti has halogen reflectors. Couple this an H4 HID kit like the one you suggested, and you will have horrible glare, a piss poor cutoff, and your lighting pattern will be quite bad. You will most likely have a crap load of light right in front of the car (like within 10 feet only), which really doesnt help you at all.

Worst of all, that kit cost 1g! Forget that. The best thing to do is a HID retrofit. You'll need to buy OEM HID projectors (even S2k projectors if you desire); and install them into your g20 headlights. If you cant do this yourself, you can pay others to do it for you.

Go to here

pbm317

I've had good experience installing an HID Kit from XenonDepot on my '03 4Runner. It had halogen reflectors, but the cut off patterns were similar to what they were with the halogen lights. There was no excessive glare from my experience. I even drove in front of it in another car, both before and after the conversion, and couldn't note any specific difference. Lots of cars with HID have reflectors (older LS430, RX300, IS300, etc) If you're really paranoid, you can angle your headlights a little further down.

Make sure to get the right temperature. Higher temps might be more "blue" but they have lower output. I believe OEM temp is closer to 4200K (I don't remember the exact number).

Mine was closer to $400 I believe, but it wasn't a bixenon kit.

Good luck!

NDAZONE

That sounds somewhat feasible being that I still have my original S2000 headlights. It still sounds pretty expensive though and I am not too sure how good it would look.

Penforhire

For $300 (a group-buy price, shipped straight from China), I recently installed an H4 HID conversion in my motorcycle (FJR1300). These were 4300K color "capsules" that replace the H4 bulbs, along with ignitors, ballasts, relays, a brain box, a diode, and a mess of wires.

This works great for low beams. My beam shape is perfect and the brightness is just WOW. The problem is the high-beam. High/low H4 bulbs place the high filament in a different position than the low beam. My conversion included 12V "shutters" that open up but the discharge does not move. So my high beams are wimpy. I might as well have gone for the low-beam only design for $100 less ($200 total).

There are other capsule designs that move back in addition to opening a shutter and these are probably better (but have rumored reliability issues).

corey415

The most expensive part of a HID retrofit is getting the HID projectors, HID ballasts/ignitors, and HID bulbs. If you want someone else to do the labor for the actual HID retrofit, that will cost around 200-350 bucks (going rate on the hidplanet forums). In the end, it will end up around the same ballpark (or even less) as the $1000 HID kit.

The problem though with using an S2k projector is that you will lose your high beam function. I recommend using 04+ Acura TL bixenon projectors instead.

Read the forum I gave you. Research the FAQ's, the Hidplanet university, and look at the pictures sections. Don't rush into getting a HID kit, because you may end up regretting it.

corey415

Older HID reflector setups are quite different than a regular halogen reflector setup. Just because they are both reflectors doesn't mean that you can mix and match the light source. A HID bulb outputs nearly 3 times the lumen output of a regular halogen bulbs. There will be definitely be glare and/or hotspots. Also, aiming down your headlights will make the hotspot in front of the car even worse.

Do you have any pictures of your cutoff? I am talking about a 30-40 foot distance from a wall. I am curious how it looks like.

Dr. WOT

There is a such this a reflector HIDs but the housings use much different optics than halogen reflectors. Generally speaking, HID retrofit kits in halogen reflector housings don't work great. It is fine for getting the look, but if you are really concered with output, as is the case here, I don't think you'll be happy with the results for the price.

I have no experience with them but www.hidtech.com seem to do good work, they retrofit bixenon projectors into any kind of headlight you want.