I put in about 4 hours of time aligning my headlights according to Daniel Stern's fancy instructions. I kept aligning until I got the horizontal and vertical adjustments just right. There is no doubt that the lights are bright especially with phillips hir bulbs but the lights seem to emit strange patterns all over the road and even more strange patterns to the left and right. Just wanted to see if anyone has noticed a very different beam pattern with their 93 lights.

Thanks

Hid bulbs are giving you the strange patterns.

Ah I missed that because you typed 'hir'. I thought that was a model of bulb. Yes, it has nothing to do with the '93 headligts other than the fact that they were designed for 'normal' halogen type bulbs. HIDs MUST be housed in proper projector housings or you will get that strange spread of light and cut off that you are talking about. It is also worth noting that the patterns you see on the ground are only the light that is being thrown downwards. There is going to be a fair amount of light that is going to be thrown up and to the sides as well, which is actually really distracting (and even dangerous) to the drivers of oncoming traffic.

You can retrofit projector housings into the '93 lights but it is time consuming and expensive. The cheapest way to get a decent spread pattern is to replace your HIDs in the headlights with stock halogen bulbs (a slightly higher wattage works well if you want more light). Then you can relocate your HIDs to something like the USDM/JDM projector foglights and wire them up as driving lights.

Paul

You all are too funny....HIR bulbs not HID bulbs. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif They are halogen bulbs and certainly not a gimic just in case you are wondering. I never had these issues with my 91-92 stockers using the same bulbs.

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Well in that case, the bulbs were still not designed for the housings. Normal halogen bulbs create no noticable weird patterns or cuttoffs. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/dunno.gif

I'll try some stock 9006 bulbs then and verify that. Interesting how they worked just fine in the 91-92 housings though. Sure light the road and never get flashed just look weird. I wonder if a pic would help.

It might if you can get a photo to show the patterns, it isn't always easy. But putting stock bulbs in might also help for diagnostic purposes because if they produce the same patterns then you know it is the housings doing it. Is there any cracking or peeling of the reflectors in the '93 housings?

This is what you should be using.

The retrofitsource

If anything you should be using these Projectors

Sorry thought you were using HIDS

Yeah, I know getting those pics can be difficult to show what is going on. I might just try the stockers. The 93 housings are brand new so luckily I can rule all of that out (I am sure you know all of the rebuilding I did on the 91-92 lights). It could always be that I am very fussy about the pattern so I wanted to see if anyone else is arsed about it and no one seems to be. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

My neighbor who is a senior mechanic thinks that I am nuts lol. He test drove with me and thinks it is just fine.

Quoting cheekychimp:
It might if you can get a photo to show the patterns, it isn't always easy. But putting stock bulbs in might also help for diagnostic purposes because if they produce the same patterns then you know it is the housings doing it. Is there any cracking or peeling of the reflectors in the '93 housings?

No problem, I know that it hasn't really been discussed much here, but outside of this forum it has been intensely discussed.

Quoting SleepinGVR4:
Sorry thought you were using HIDS

Where did you get brand new 93s by the way and how much did they cost?

CTM (a member here) sold me a set.