well seems like some of you are confused about the different bulb types, etc... so i will try to give some info here and see how it can help first of all, when it comes to hid, yes there are a bit more components like the ballasts, relay, couple more wires, etc... but if you just look at the bulb, they are just bulbs, so it's not hard to talk about the type (set aside other components)

now when cars come with hid stock, it can only be two cases, either d2r or d2s. this is the bulb type, and they have their own distinct shape (base). d2r is for reflective housing (acura, lexus GS, LS, etc...), has the metal piece on it. d2s id for projective housing (bimmer, audi, lexus SC430, etc...), doesn't have the metal piece on the bulb. these are the ONLY two hid bulb that comes out from factory and will fit on any cars with stock hid. so if you get a car that comes with HID, it will ONLY be one of these two.

how most other cars that comes without hid, say gs300, lx470, etc... they have halogen. there are couple of bulb type for halogen, 9006 (GS low beam), 9005 (GS high beam), H1 (old gen bmw low beam), H7, etc.... a lot of them. no halogen headlight will use d2r or d2s bulb, coz'.... there is just no halogen bulb of that size.

so now say you want to put hid kit on your gs without hid. the low beam on your GS is 9006, so you would want to get a hid kit that comes with bulbs that have 9006 base so it will fit in the housing. however, like i said before, all hid bulbs, when out of factory, are either d2r or d2s. so what to do?

that's where companies like autolamps-online.com "re-base" the bulbs. they use either d2r or d2s bulbs, take off the original base, and put in the 9006 base, seal it, sell it to you, so you can just put in the bulb in your gs300. now whether they use d2r or d2s is their own choice, but there is little reason why they would use d2r coz' there is the metal piece which will reduce the light output. almost all the hid kit i see out there, companies use d2s bulbs, rebase them to whatever bulb type of your headlight (9006, 9005, etc...)

so what that means is, if you get a 9006 hid kit that uses d2s bulbs (like the one you get from autolamp or jason aka discountcycle), it will fit in your gs300 non hid housing no problem. no silicone, no rubber ring, no nothing. just put the bulb in, twist it, and it will be locked it tight just like your stock 9006 halogen bulbs.

however, sometimes people they go to junk yark or whatever, and they ripped off a STOCK hid setup from another car. for example you go there, found a crashed gs430 (hid is standard), you rip off the bulbs, ballasts, relays, etc... now you have a hid too. however, that bulb you get, it's d2r, it has DIFFERNCT base as your 9006 halogen setup. now if you want to put THAT kit in your car, you will need to somehow seal it in. the bulb will NOT be fit tight in the housing at all. you can use silicone, however it will be hard to change bulb later, etc....

i hope this clears a lot of confusion just ask if you have more quesiotns

 

I got this pic from the group buy link(hidconversionkits.com's HIDs)...hopefully this will help clairify some stuff.



The pic shows two bulbs : a Xenon 9006 in the bg and a halogen 9006 in the foreground. You can see that rebasing keeps the bulbs the same size so it's like you are putting in PIAAs when you swap in those Xenon bulbs. If you look at the filaments you will see that they are aligned and emit the light from the same location....this kinda makes it like a super bright halogen bulb. So with the rebase you are putting out the same beam pattern, only it's at a higher Kelvin and 3x brighter.

 

Great writeup Rominl!!

 

thanks, anything to help out the group

 

thanks rominl

 

Good job dude.

 

you guys are welcome in return just post up pics of your hid kit after install

 

No worries....I will as soon as I get off my lazy @$$ to do it.

Pete

 

will do. plus im going to post some pix of my dynomatted trunk there are a few spots that are crucial to cover.

 

99SHLude touched on this too, that if you take a bulb that's not meant to fit like rominl was talking about (or one that's been poorly rebased) the light may not be emitted from the same spot and this will really screw up your beam patterns.

Great write-up rominl, maybe sticky it for a while?

 

yes, supposedly if you seal it right it will be fine, but that's not easy

sticky? your wish is my command

 

Hey Rom, is ther any way to tell the difference between a good quality hid bulb and a bad one? I know you should find one that has the bulb molded to the halogen base but what about the bulb itself??

-c

 

umm..... i don't know exactly how to tell if a bulb is good, they pretty much look the same. but i know for philips bulb (6000k), you can see red sand in the middle of the glass tube, and the ground wire should be purple (old ones) or blue (new ones)

 

Very informative

Thanks Romini!

 

you welcome, just ask any questions you have