Retro-Solutions' Retro-Fit & 5000 K, 55 W High Output DIGITAL HID

Retro-Solutions’ Retro-Fit & 5000 K, 55

W High Output DIGITAL HID Kit Review

Author

Name: HQH

E-mail: hoang51 at gmail dot com

Website: http://www.geocities.com/HQH51/

Revision Date: N/A

Original Date: November 12, 2007

Background of Review

F IELD OF R EVIEW

HID, short for high intensity discharge, are known to be used in higher end automotive vehicle lighting. HID lights provide higher light output than conventional halogen lights that are still used in today’s automotive vehicles. Known in the markets are plug and play kits for converting conventional halogen lighting to HID lighting to provide greater light output. However, such plug and play conversion kit lack projectors, for which supplements the HID lights. Projectors give a clean cut, focused and evenly dispersed lighting pattern emitted from the vehicle’s headlights. Without projectors, the lighting will be severely limited to cone shape lighting in front of the vehicle with limited range.

Therefore, modifications to the conventional halogen headlights would be required to place projectors within them and complete the HID lighting system to have a more improved night vision with a new pattern of light and greater luminosity. Such process is known as retro-fit. In this review, a retro-fit and a HID kit will be presented.

D ESCRIPTION OF R ELATED R EVIEWS

Bulk of related reviews has been merged into one thread

1

. At one point of time, the related reviews were in separated threads. The following related reviews are listed in chronological order as indicated by said merged thread.

Review by m8xin

2,3

regarding a 5000 K, 55 watts high output DIGITAL plug and play

HID kit. The HID kit is fitted into stock halogen housing. Photos were provided.

Review by cuban50minacan50 showing a start up video

4

and a driving video

5

regarding a 4300 K, 55 watts high output DIGITAL plug and play HID kit.

Review by 03DSM-RSX

6

regarding a 6000 K, 55 watts high output DIGITAL plug and play HID kit. The HID kit was fitted into stock halogen housing. The review provided a contrast between cheap Chinese/eBay sold HID bulbs compared to the HID kit from

Retro-Solutions.

Review by SPARTAN141

7, 8, 9, 10

regarding 5000 K, 55 watts high output DIGITAL plug and play HID kit. The HID kit is fitted into stock halogen housing. Some photos were rather blurry, but nonetheless show how much lighting is outputted by the HID kit.

Review by klutch_gts, photos posted by RSX-CT

11

regarding 6000 K, 55 watts high output DIGITAL plug and play kit. It also shows stock (conventional halogen) comparison as well. Illumination from stock output is greatly overcast by the HID kit.

Review by Torquem

12

show photos of a 6000 K, 55 watts high output DIGITAL plug and play kit. Also showing are the cut offs for the plug and play kit, for which appears to be much better in comparison of other HID plug and play kit which creates great amount of glare.

Review by Importspeed

13

show photos taken with a camera phone of a 5000 K, 35 watts high output DIGITAL plug and play kit.

Review by resexy

14

show photos taken, however pictures are of poor quality when it comes to showing the HID lighting.

Review by Nikon1

15

regarding a 5000 K, 50 watts retro-fitted HID lights for which was made known in a thread by RSX-CT

16

. Also, in the thread by RSX-CT shows studio pictures of the retro-fitted 2005 – 2006 RSX headlight assemblies. However, Nikon1’s setup does not showcase the new 55 W DIGITAL high output HID kit in retro-fitted headlight assemblies.

According to these disclosed reviews, there is yet a review to showcase a 5000 K, 55 watts high output DIGITAL HID kit in retro-fitted headlight assemblies.

Summary of Review

The retro-fit was completed on a 2006 Acura RSX-S from Retro-Solutions. The retrofitting comprises a pair of TSX projectors, chrome shrouds, 55 watts digitally controlled ballasts with 5000 K, 55 watts rated HID DS2 type bulbs. Overall, the retro-fit and HID kit are both superb. There are minor issues observed, however, such observations do

not contribute to not having the retro-fit and the HID kit. Retro-fit and the HID kit combined offers greater visibility and higher light output compared to conventional halogen lighting, plug and play HID kit and 35 watts HID lights that generally come with today’s luxury cars.

Brief Description of Photos & Video

Provided with this review are photos taken from a Canon SD600. Some photos with

XenonDepot HID kit were taken from a Canon SD500 (in the past), however with the same setting as set forth with the SD600. Wherein photos were taken at night to capture the effect of lighting, the picture snap shot mode was set to manual, with the lighting adjustment set to day light. This allows a much more accurate color sensing with the camera when it comes to the color of the lights in the dark. Otherwise, colors would be auto balanced and would not capture the light’s color precisely. Also for the video, the lighting adjustment is set to day light for the same effect.

Photos 01 – 11 show headlight assemblies with the retro-fitted TSX projectors, chrome shrouds, and the wiring harness.

Photos 12 – 17 shows installation of the HID kit.

Photos 18 – 27 shows lighting comparison.

Photos 28 – 31 shows Acura TSX lighting.

Video 01 shows the initial start up of the 55 watts HID kit.

Detailed Description of Review

It all started a year after I got myself a XenonDepot

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plug and play HID kit for my RSX.

I had to get a loaner car while my RSX was being serviced for a couple of days. I had an Acura TSX as a loaner car. While I was driving that car around at night, I loved how

TSX’s projectors and the HID lights lit up the streets with great distance and angle.

Once I got my car back, I started to envy the fact that my RSX’s conventional halogen headlights housing with HID lights cannot do what TSX’s projectors do with HID lights.

Therefore, I started to investigate how much it would cost for me to be retro-fitted.

Retro-Solutions have an online calculator

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to estimate how much it would cost to be retro-fitted. Retro-Solutions

19

have some choices as to what projectors can be selected, ballasts to supply the power, and bulbs to light up your night life. Or in the end, you can

supply all of the parts and just request the actual retro-fitting of the projectors into the headlight assemblies.

I have chosen Retro-Solutions because in the past, when I was considering getting

HIDs, I had a choice whether to get a plug and play HID kit, do the retro-fitting myself, or get someone else to retro-fit, for which Retro-Solutions’ great experiences was a choice.

If I had retro-fitted myself, I wouldn’t trust myself molding back things all together after cutting into the headlight assemblies. Furthermore, I felt that there wasn’t much of DIY

(Do It Yourself) guide(s) to lead such complicated task. So I was left between a plug and play HID kit or finding someone to do the retro-fitting with experience. I decided that plug and play kit from XenonDepot was the way to go because it was cheaper and less of a hassle.

I got into contact with Retro-Solutions, to which Todd answered. Discussions about the

HID kit and retro-fitting took over for a few days. Communications with Todd was friendly, professional and pleasant. I finally laid down the deposit money and got in line.

Requesting retro-fitting from Retro-Solutions is an easy task. However, the wait time may be of concerned for some, because scheduling for the retro-fitting service is set in months, not days or weeks. It may persuade some to get retro-fitting from somewhere else, if not at all. Retro-fitting service is something not easy to find and done quick in abundance, as not many people are experienced with retro-fitting. However, the time spent waiting to be retro-fitted from Retro-Solutions was worth it in the end due to the high quality work. The results are amazing and are easily envious. Retro-fitting from

Retro-Solutions guarantees many things, many of those related to the quality of their workmanship

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. At least 1 year of warranty

21

on the retro-fitting work is provided as well.

One day, I finally got an e-mail from Todd indicating that my time slot was up for me for my retro-fitting. So that day, I un-mounted the headlight assemblies, packaged them up in two boxes as carefully as I can and shipped them off later that night. Roughly 2 weeks later, I got my headlights back. One thing I learned from my shipping experience was that I should have gotten bigger boxes so that way, I have more room to pad down the headlight assemblies. I barely had room for length wise. Everything else was decent size. One of the headlight assemblies had one of the mounting structure snapped off as

Todd indicated once he received the shipment. Therefore, it wasn’t Todd’s fault and it was due part on my packing and shipping roughness. However, Todd indicated that such mounting piece isn’t significant for support mounting the headlights onto the car. I wasn’t sure which mounting piece he was talking about until I received the headlights back. After receiving the headlights back, I realized what he was talking about and confirmed that such mounting piece doesn’t serve much of a support. The mounting piece that snapped was the upper thin plastic mounting piece. Therefore, I wasn’t worried about the severed mounting piece. Todd did attempt to fix the broken mounting

piece, but in the end, it broke off because the mounting piece was flimsy when I was remounting the headlight assembly back onto the car’s chassis. So protect those corners.

I visually inspected the headlight assemblies as thoroughly as one can. Photos 01 and

02 for the passenger’s side and photos 03 and 04 for the driver’s side suggest that there weren’t any flaws sighted in the retro-fitting work. The plastic housing for the headlights have plenty of particles reflecting off of and also some contours of the plastic housing warping the light that passes through. However, those are not to be concluded to be any workmanship defects. Visual inspection of the front of the headlights came to the conclusion that there were no flaws in the materials used for the projectors and the chrome shrouds. The chrome shrouds look very nice and shiny. I did notice that on the front plastic housing on both headlight assemblies that there were very minor glue spots, possibly rubbed off from fingers that were submitted to glue that were almost dried when handling the plastic housing. It was not a problem, as it only took water, paper towel, and minor scrubbing to remove the glue. The glue was not stained or permanently fixed. Furthermore, the resealing of the plastic housing did not appear to have any complications of resealing since the plastic housing needs to come off for modification.

Moving the inspection to the rear of the headlight assemblies, there were a couple of places that were sealed up with sealant from the modification. As seen in photo 05 , notably, the first is two thin wires (black and red) with pink female connectors (as seen in photo 07) coming from the side of the high beams and secondly, gaskets for the low beam parts as seen in photos. In photos 05 and 06, which are for both driver and passenger sides respectively, there is one part of the gasket that wasn’t sealed. The photos suggest that these are not used to completely seal off to provide water protection, but to have the gasket firmly mounted onto the back of the headlight assembly. The sealant around the gasket are not entirely messy and not everywhere.

So there wasn’t anything of concern about the gasket sealed on. Examination of the gaskets near the big wiring connectors (black and red) show that parts of what presumes to be part of connections to the projectors are poking at the gasket. It seems like there are tears in the gasket in the photo 06, but there are no tears at all. If there was a chance for an aesthetics change, this is the first part to be volunteered. The bumpy parts poking at the gasket suggest that the original gasket from the RSX headlight assemblies needs to be custom made for such protrusions. Stretching to accommodate the projectors and connectors may put strain on the gasket’s durability.

Now drawing attention to the bottom of the headlight assemblies, are pre-mounted 55 watts digital ballasts as seen in photos 08 and 09. They are sturdily held down by a pair of screws. As seen clearly in photo 08, the ballast information is provided. Noted is that

9-16 V and 18-36 V are colored in red. This appears to suggest that the ballast would at least operate in the range of 27-52 volts. However, that is not the case. Todd told me

that such indication is to actually suggest that the ballast is in compliance for 12 V and

24 V systems and that total voltage input to the ballast is 9-32 volts. Furthermore, power output is colored in as 55 watts on the ballast. In the lower right hand corner of the ballast reads “DSP BALLAST”. DSP stands for digital signal processing. So that would convey that these are the digitally controlled ballasts. Having digital controlled ballasts, according to Retro-Solutions

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would mean that the ballasts would have higher efficiency controlling power to the HID lights, and operates under 2 A of current to run the 55 watts HID bulbs. Furthermore, the ballasts are certified under CE, E11, UL, and

ISO 9001 standards. In a post made by Todd

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, he stated that the digital ballasts would also operate with less heat, therefore lasts longer.

After the inspection of the headlight assemblies, it appears that everything is in well order. Inspection is a must for any loose wires, mounting and the like, in order to prevent premature failure.

Next up is the wiring harness. Included in the package of the HID kit is a wiring harness that connects the ballasts to the RSX’s H1 lights wiring harness as seen in photo 10.

There is a fuse cover provided as seen in photo 11. If the lights fail to light up, checking the fuse would be a good start to check since it is easily seen by a small cut window.

There are two male end connectors (black and orange) that plug into each ballast. Of course, one wiring end is short for the driver side, and the longer wiring end is for the passenger side. You technically cannot reverse this because there is a wiring terminal

(shorter red jacket wire) that plugs to the positive battery side, and it’s a short length.

Also are two pairs of the pink connectors that connect to the pair of wires per headlight assemblies as seen in photo 07. A concern of the wiring harness supplied was that the length from the driver side to the passenger side appears to be a tight fit. More on the tight fit of the wiring harness later. Then there are H1 connectors (blue shielding with metal prong per wire). I was puzzled as to why the H1 connectors are provided as two small wire prongs and not made into a proper H1 male connector. This would be a second aesthetics recommendation to have changed. Having bare contacts like this would not closely seal the mating with the female H1 connector, therefore may subject the H1 connector to other elements getting in touch between the two. Last but not least, two pairs of ground wire (black), each grounding wire for each HID light.

After all the preliminary inspections are concluded, it is time to mount the headlight assemblies and wire everything to get some nice bright lights. Mounting the headlights and wiring the HID lights are not complicated this round, because I had past experience wiring my XenonDepot plug and play HID kit

24

. Therefore, with existent knowledge, I applied the same route of mounting the wiring harness for this HID kit.

Photo 12 shows where to plug in the H1 prongs from the wiring harness to the H1 wiring harness connector from the car. Also to note, it appears that the H1 prongs and the H1

wiring harness connector from the car may not like reversed polarity, i.e., potentially reversing the positive wire (white) and ground wire (black) when connecting to the H1 wiring harness to the car to the positive (red) and ground wire (black) and still have the

HID lights operating. I didn’t risk my chance of testing whether there is a reversal protection circuit or potentially blowing the fuse because of reverse polarity. This is another reason why it is aesthetically better to have a proper H1 male plug connector so that at least the alignment can be shown that it can’t be reversed (there’s a third connection from the car’s H1 wiring harness). If one were to somehow reverse the polarity, the fuse should blow first before anything else does if the circuit didn’t like reverse polarity. However, Todd informed me that reversing the H1 prongs in any way

(two ways to do so anyhow) into the H1 wiring harness would not result in any damage, since the HID ballast isn’t polarity sensitive. Good design for those who tend not to know which wire is positive and ground.

The relay part of the wiring harness was mounted on the lower chassis in the position below one of the support mount of the windshield fluid as shown in photo 13. The passenger side ballast connector (black and orange) along with the pair of pink connectors are strung along the front bumper chassis as partially seen in photo 13 and clearly shown in photo 14. Earlier, I mentioned that the passenger side wires appear to be a tight fit. Certainly, the observation was correct. There is barely any room for marginal stretching or providing some extra slack to prevent tight tugging. Also depicted in photo 15, the positive wire (red jacket) that connects to the battery with the fuse in the middle is pretty much stretching its limit. Therefore, a third aesthetical change to the wiring harness I would like to see is about at least a few more inches should be added to the length of the cabling of at least the passenger’s wiring and the positive wiring to the battery. I am unsure as to how the wiring was designed to fit the RSX and how it was designed to be cabled, but having cables running in the above engine bay to make a loose run is something that shouldn’t be considered, especially when the radiator is sitting in such space from below and there is at least one moving part in the engine compartment that I wouldn’t like to see wire(s) get brushed up against or subjected to great amount of heat generated by the motor.

After the cabling and install, Todd noted that the cabling of the wires was that most people would have cabled it over the radiator, along the inside edge of the upper radiator support, having to use zip ties. Also, going along the top, Todd suggested that if it was done so, a zip tie is needed for the harness back near the power steering pump, as the belt could fling or rip the harness out if caught by the belt.

Grounding positions for both ballasts can be connected as shown in the photos 16 and

17. For the driver side, the ground wire was already connected behind the windshield fluid. It might be necessary for one to remove the windshield fluid bottle to get to that nut, unless you have tools that can reach in tight places and remove it. For the

passenger side, the ground wire can be connected roughly in the same position as the driver side, without the windshield fluid blocking. Both ground locations are beneath the black box. Remove the 10 mm nut that is connecting other black wires to it and mount the grounding wire there and place the nut back in.

Before mounting the bumper on, a smart move to do is to test the lights to see if they turn on. The driver side turned on but the passenger side didn’t. I realized moments after that I forgot to ground the passenger side, hence the ground wire not shown mounted in photo 17. After fixing the ground neglecting, the passenger side light was able to turn on. The bumper was placed back on and the photo shoots begin. During the photo shoot, I noticed that the lights were not aligned correctly. It was getting late at night, therefore the next day, I had to retake the pictures and re-align the lights at proper height. I popped the question to Todd to see if the lights can be vertically aligned properly since I don’t know if they still work after the retro-fitting. Todd told me yes they can and gave me instructions how to

25

.

Since it was very late at night and cold, I decided to do everything the next day. During the next day, I started thinking, where would I find 25 feet, flat ground and able to measure according to the aiming instructions? Well, I didn’t go to school for nothing, so I took what limitations I had: my car sitting in a garage on flat cement, with a wall in front of at a short distant, and some mathematical calculations. Instructions were to have the car back 25 feet, and the lights’ low cutoff should drop 2.1 inches from the height of the headlights at the center focus. No big deal. I started to measure my headlight’s height, for which was about 65.2 cm off from the cement ground. Next, I measured from the headlights to the wall, which came to about 175 cm. I used centimeters as the measuring scale because it’s easier to come to fine tuning of height and length measuring at a short scaling distance.

Knowing that 2.1 inches (5.334 cm) dropped is a result of 25 feet (762 cm) back in length, which would translate to about 0.007 cm drop / cm back in length (math:

5.344/762). Since my car is 175 cm back in length, I would need to drop my cutoffs

1.225 cm from 65.2 cm measured height (math: 0.007x175). Therefore I need the cutoffs lined at about 64 cm. Armed with two yellow stickies, I placed them on the wall and adjusted the vertical alignment and I was set. This mathematical trick is useful if there aren’t any 25 feet of flat space and a wall.

There is no apparent out of angle rotation as can be seen in photo 013jpg. The cut off lines (thin blue horizontal lines above the white light, but the lower of the two heights from the step appearance) match in pairs and they appear to line up just perfectly. This further indicates that Retro-Solutions is more than capable of hacking up the housing, but also provides exact rotation of the projectors so that the cutoff lines matches horizontally. Notice that in photo 18, the cutoff lines distinguish where light can be

projected and where it cannot. Projectors provide cutoff shield that eliminates, if not reduces glare from what conventional halogen light housing suffers from.

The following comparisons are done in my own RSX with stock conventional halogen lighting (e.g., reflector bowls), my now obsolete XenonDepot (XD) 6000 K, 35 watts plug and play kit, and my current setup, TSX projectors with 5000 K, 55 watts high output

DIGITAL HID kit.

C OMPARATIVE E XAMPLE #1

For the first comparison, shots of lighting are taken in front of the garage from the driver side, wherein the car was more than 20 feet back. Compare between the following three photos: photo 19 that shows a conventional halogen lighting, photo 20 that shows a

XenonDepot plug and play HID kit lighting with more apparent glaring due to higher light intensity (6000 K), and photo 21 which shows how projectors with the digital high output

HID kit focus most of the light below certain height without significant glare.

Also, further observation from the three photos show just how sad and dim the conventional halogen lighting is outputting. Getting a HID kit further increases the light output and enables the driver to see much more clearly. It can sarcastically be put that, it’s like a night and day difference. However, a plug and play kit in conventional halogen housing doesn’t necessary enable where most of the light should be directed, as the apparent glare flaring up the center pillar, between the two garages. Projectors enable bright light to be directed towards the ground where it should be.


Going on with a second comparison, I take the car out on the street in front of my house. The comparison is now between the XD HID kit and the projector with HID kit. In photo 22, the XD HID kit shines bright light in a cone shape. Notice that the sidewalk and grass on the driver side are not lit up and that the lights are distantly limited up to about the white truck. In photo 23, the projectors HID kit was positioned further back on the road (by accident, forgot where I was stationed at), and it lit further down the road, all the way towards the house perpendicular to the car. It also lit up in a wide angle for which the sidewalks on both sides and grass were lit.

With further careful observation, one can see in photo 23 that the cutoff shields in the projectors are doing its job to limit where the bright lights are shining at. The Toyota

Camry (tan car on the left fully depicted) does not have light shinning anywhere near the windshield. Furthermore, bright light emitted does not reach the white truck’s windshield down the road on the right side of the street. Therefore, the projectors are limited to where light is permitted to travel thanks to the cutoff shields in the projectors. The light hitting the ground is spread out much more evenly compared to reflector bowls and that

the fine gradient of the light is more noticeable with the projectors. It is amazing how much light the projectors are distributing on the ground in front of the driver to see.


The next and third comparison, I have taken the car down the street to a place where I can take a picture without cars in front and free of obstacles. Presenting photos 24 and

25, shows XD HID kit and projectors HID kit lighting up the area respectively. In this comparative example, photo 24 shows how irregular the reflector bowls reflect light onto the ground. Many distinctive slanting edges can be seen on the left side near the outer range of where light begins to fade to darkness, which represents the contours of the reflector bowl. Photo 25 shows that the projectors apply the light evenly across the ground compared to the reflector bowls.


Fourth and final comparative example shows how much light the projector puts out and how limited reflector bowls are. The last place to take comparison photos is at a stop sign looking slightly up the street from where I live. Photo 26 shows off the projectors’ mighty lighting abilities compared to that of photo 27, which shows just how poor the conventional halogen light housing are. The reflector bowls could only shine light in front of the driver on the road, but does not light up the surrounding sides. Reflector bowls severely limits the driver’s view to only what’s in front of the vehicle. Comparing to how much light is emitted from the projectors as seen in photo 26, projectors promote increase safety awareness. By observing the differences between photos 26 and 27, grasses on both sides were pretty lit up by the projectors in photo 26 compared to the reflector bowls. Projectors are very helpful especially spotting when creatures of the night happens to cross the pending path for which the car takes (or anything on the side of the road). This further increases time reaction to avoid potential road hazards.

S UBJECTIVE O BSERVATIONS

As seen in the photos where the 55 watts HID kit was represented, a bit of yellow tint can be seen from the 5000 K bulbs. I can confirm that it isn’t the camera and that it is actually coming from the HID lights. However, over time the HID bulbs would increase in color temperature and the light will be much whiter than seen in the photos as I progressively use my HID lights. The HID lights will lose its yellowness from the increase of use in time. This knowledge also comes from past experience with my XD

HID kit, as it was nicely white with very little tint of blue detected. A year later, the XD

HID kit produced bluer tint to put it into the 6000 K rating range.

What isn’t entirely noticeable in the photos presented in the comparative examples is how much more light intensity of the 55 watts HID kit outputs. I don’t have on hand a 35

watts 5000 K HID kit to compare it to. Comparing light intensities with different color temperatures will not work, because as seen in the comparative examples between the

55 watts, 5000 K HID kit and 35 watts, 6000 K HID kit, it may look as if the 6000 K is actually much light intensive than the 5000 K bulbs. However, that is not the case, since the different color outputs distort how much lumens there actually are in the photos.

Therefore, not much can be said in comparison between my previous XD HID kit and current HID kit for light intensity due to differences in color temperature bulbs and how the lights are patterned on the ground.

For those who are just curious as to how the retro-fitted TSX projectors with the 55 watts HID kit compare to an actual Acura TSX with stock HID lights, photo 28 shows the

HID lights in front of the garage (compare to photos 19 – 21 for conventional halogen,

XD HID kit, and the 55 W HID kit, respectively; see comparative example #1). The first photo depicting the TSX car in front of the garage shows what an out of rotation projectors look like. The stair step pattern for each projectors do not line up. In other words, it should look something like this if it is properly aligned: __/

-------

__/

-------

for both projectors, for which the lower horizontal steps (not the upper horizontal ones) are overlapping and parallel. Both lower horizontal steps are like scissors in photo 28. As for how the intensities compare to the 55 W HID kit, it cannot technically be observed due to differences in light temperatures. The TSX HID lights do look pale in comparison with the 55 W HID kit though. Photo 29 shows the TSX on the street in front of my house

(compare to photos 22 – 23 for XD HID kit and the 55 W HID kit; see comparative example #2). When the TSX car was out on the street in front of my house, light intensities between the TSX’s HID lights and my 55 W HID lights. Ignoring the obvious light temperature color differences, one can observe that the TSX has two strong angled beam patterns projecting straight from the car near the center. However, the 55 W HID lights just flood the street with high intensive light that there is no distinguishable beam patterns in the center, even though the retro-fits are using the same type of TSX projectors. Furthermore, the light intensity appears to be much greater with the 55 W

HID kit since the lights at the boundary sides are lit up a bit more than what is seen in photo 29 for the TSX car. Such support for this is the smooth light gradient found in the

55 W HID photo versus the light gradient produced by the TSX car. Photo 30 shows the

TSX down the street free of obstacles (compare photos 24 – 25 for XD HID kit and the

55 W HID kit; see comparative example #3). Photo 31 shows the TSX at the stop sign street (compare photos 26 – 27 for XD HID kit and the 55 W HID kit; see comparative example #4). To further support the light gradients especially to the boundary sides as noted in the previous photos comparison, photo 31 shows that the TSX car’s light intensity is weaker as it progressives to the sides from the center, e.g., to the sidewalks on both sides of the street. Notice how the 55 W HID lights have much more light intensity in the same scenario where the light intensity does not drop off as much as the

TSX car’s light intensity as it progress from the center to the sides.

Todd has posted up a comparison between 35 watts and 55 watts HID lights with matching color temperature ratings

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. In the posted comparison, within each picture, the top light is coming from 35 watts, while the bottom is coming from 55 watts. One would notice how much brighter the light is coming from the center of the focal point for the 55 watts. The 55 watts has higher light intensity compared to the 35 watts as the distance from the focal point is moved away from. This is re-affirmed by the observation between photos 31 and 27 as noted above.

For those who notice that if one was to use power window in their car, having at least one window rolled up or down in a conventional halogen lighting system when the lights are on, would decrease the light intensity (i.e., dimmer) for the duration of the power windows usage. However, on both XD HID kit and the 55 watts HID kit, the intensity of the lights do not change one bit upon the usage of power window. The light intensity stays constant. Even at 20 watts higher than my previous HID kit, the light intensity still does not decrease, which is great thanks to the high efficient digital ballasts running at low current while still providing 55 watts of power. This is 10 watts shy of conventional halogen lighting too.

R ATING H IGHLIGHTS

Positives:

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High quality workmanship for the retro-fit, nice chrome shrouds paired with TSX projectors

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Warranty for the retro-fitting (1 year), warranty for the HID kit (3 years), unlimited for extra

•

Plug and play HID kit to allow usage of existing H1 wiring harness

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Projectors lighting up more area than reflector bowls can, greatly enhances night vision

•

High intensive lighting, yet still run on low current

Negatives:

•

Wait time

•

Stretched gasket

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Tight fit wiring cables

•

Nonexistent plug and play H1 plug connectors

The negatives can hardly weigh down the great advantages of having a retro-fitted HID kit placed into conventional halogen headlights. In light of the foregoing review, I would recommend anybody with some money on their hands and spend a little extra by getting a retro-fit instead of the usual plug and play kits for conventional halogen headlights.

Retro-Solutions did a fantastic job and have earned my praises for the quality work and

would recommend anybody to them. I would surely do business with Retro-Solutions again in the future if there would be another chance.

References

Below are references to online resources that were referenced throughout the review.

1 http://forums.clubrsx.com/showthread.php?t=518917

2 http://forums.clubrsx.com/showpost.php?p=15030149&postcount=1













15 http://www.acuraworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=79231


17 http://www.xenondepot.com

18 http://www.retro-solutions.com/estimatorjava.htm

19 http://www.retro-solutions.com

20 http://www.retro-solutions.com/hid.html

21 http://www.retro-solutions.com/info.html

22 http://www.retro-solutions.com/55wattballasts.html



25 http://www.retro-solutions.com/aiming.htm


Retro-Solutions' Retro-Fit & 5000 K, 55 W High Output DIGITAL HID

Retro-Solutions’ Retro-Fit & 5000 K, 55

W High Output DIGITAL HID Kit Review

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