So I bought a '00 Prelude and the previous owner had a CATZ HID kit installed on the car. The HID's were not hooked up & the bulbs where not included. I just bought some 10000k bulbs to put in the car thinking they looked closest to the Luxury car look. I did some searches on them here and people say they suck & look ricerish. I am anti-rice and don't to look like a tool. I have not installed them yet, and was wondering if I should just return them & get 6000k or lower. I guess I should have searched the bulbs before purchasing, but sadly I did not. Any suggestions would be helpful. Please dont talk too much crap about me buying these. Just an honest mistake. Thanks.

 

Send the vendor an email and try to exchange them, most sellers are good about this...

As for "anti-rice" look I'd personally go with 5000k, it's pure white and will give you the best light output.... The higher the K the less usable light possible and the more likely you'd not be able to see a damned thing at night...

 

Will do. Thanks. Also, I've been doing some searching about retrofitting headlights, but I didn't see anything about Preludes? Is this able/needed to be done on a Prelude?

 

There have been several retro'd preludes, I can't remeber but I thought I saw a guide over on preludepower.com....


just a random pic off google images via preludezone.com...

 

So what exactly does the retrofit headlight do? Does it just make it a more precise beam? I really like the look of the stock headlight, but don't want to **** anyone off so it is probably worth the sacrifice. I appreciate the non-judgmental help.

 

Retrofit will give you that "luxury" and expensive headlight looks. Just imagine TL/S2000/Euro cut off on your stock headlights.

 

It's exactly as the term states, you are installing or retrofitting hid projectors from other cars (TL/TSX/S2000/BMW's/ect..) into your non hid headlights to have the controlled and quality output the units you are installing are designed with...


What you end up doing is getting a back up set of headlights (cause it's easier to make mistakes on the ones not your dailys), heat them in an oven (250-300 for 4-8 mins depending while watching), slowly pealing the clear lense off the black body and then once it's seperated you then start making space to tuck the projector into the headlight. Alot of people will mount the projector as far back as possible for simplicity (less to cut) but you then have to figure out how to seal the back of the projector and if it will clear in the back of the headlight, I am more of a fan of putting all ove the projector possible into the headlight (less stuff haning out the back for a cleaner install) but it requires more cutting, fitting, support and the parts to then hide the projector if you don't want the raw industrial look...

If you want more information about how to do this head over to HIDPlanet forums, it's a great site with alot of information as well as a sale area to find projectors and equipment...

 

does the daytime/parking light in the headlight assembly have to be disconnected in order for the hid's to work? I tried hooking the 10,000k bulbs up just to make sure the ballast's are still in working condition, and the ballast's ticked and lights flickered about 5 times then everything quit working. The headlights I purchased have two connections coming from the back. I hooked one of the connections into the larger connection coming from the ballast, and there is a smaller connection which I assume is for high beams that I left disconnected, then I plugged the positive wire from the ballast into the stock headlight plug & left the negative alone (it was still previously grounded from the original owner). I don't know if something else needs to be connected. Anyway, I will definitely purchase some projector headlights w/ 6000k max headlights.

 

I honestly couldn't say with out knowing what the kit and wiring looks like...

Most ballast have an input plug for power and then should have a cable coming out with two connectors to connect to the bulb. Now if it's a slim ballast or uses an external ignitor it'll have a little box inline from the ballast to the bulbs but it's all generally hard to mess up... Again I'm not sure what you're looking at and can't suggest what to do to help, if you could get a pic of the set up I could give better help...

 

Don't go anything past 6000k.

 

4100K-4300K has the best light output.

By doing a retrofit, you can get the color that you see on OEM-equipped HID, which has a band of color right at the top of the cutoff line. Light output will also be much more controlled, even, and MUCH wider than stock headlights, or even HID in the stock halogen housings.

 

Does anyone know a link to a DIY retrofit install? I will post pics of my HID setup/issues as soon as possible. My work schedule has been nuts lately.

 

try HID Planet... hidplanet.com