BiXenon conversion for Prius?

5971 Views 8 Replies 6 Participants Last post by jamesont, May 20, 2003

jdbower

Discussion Starter · Mar 15, 2003

One of the features of my M class that I've become addicted to are the BiXenon headlights - they provide a nice crisp cutoff without any glare to the other drivers. Are there any worthwhile HID conversion kits available for the Prius? I'm not looking for any of the silly Xenon-look bulbs that are tinted blue or, even worse, purple so they provide less light output than the stock bulbs. Ideally I'd like a full projector housing replacement running around 4500 Kelvins that will allow me to keep the high beams, but any upgrade that won't just scatter the light into the oncoming traffic would be worth looking into.

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jadjman

· #2 · Mar 17, 2003

No, and you'd have a hard time finding "Altezza" taillamps, cold-air induction intake, freeflow catalytic converter and/or muffler, or full-body fiberglass kits for the Prius either.

In all seriousness... doubt there's much of a market for it... at least not yet. I sold my '95 Miata when I bought my Prius, and despite the fairly robust aftermarket support for the Miata, a true HID kit only debuted last year... and it's certainly not a bi-xenon one.

The only way currently realistic by any stretch of the word would be to swap in an available bi-xenon kit, and then do the fiberglass and bodywork to accomodate it. It's been done before for other cars, but most of them have 19-inch alloys too. :twisted:

Nick

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jdbower

Discussion Starter · #3 · Mar 17, 2003

I was afraid of that

Don't worry, I'm not interested in your other mods

. I did see this very amusing LED exhaust tip at a car parts shop, I'll get it after I slap on the TRO and "VTEK" badges to give it some real horsepower :wink: :

Guess I'm out of luck for better headlights for now, that's always a problem with a specialty car. I wonder why the M class has some aftermarket BiXenons when there's an OEM version available? I guess to answer my own question some of them tint the OEM lenses purple to make them brighter (Kelvin temperature = lumens, right? Can't wait to try out some 18000K lights, isn't that in the ultraviolet spectrum?) :twisted:

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mgithens

· #4 · May 16, 2003

aftermarket xenons

There are aftermarket xenon kits, but from experience I can tell you that they are not the same.

I currently own a '01 325i and I wanted it now, so I didn't get to spec my car and Xenons were not on this one. So I did a little research and found some aftermarket Xenons that mount in the stock reflector housing. My BMW has H7 bulbs and the kit actually could connect directly to the factory wiring. The light was bright and extremely white, it just didn't have the sharp cut off that you are used to.

NOTE TO THOSE UNINFORMED:
Xenon bulbs are not available at Pepboys, they are not $20 each, they are not purple, they are not blue - they are white. The system operates by taking your 12V electrical system and ramping it up to approximately 20,000 V. This 20,000V is then passed into the bulb which is nothing more than two special wires separated by a small gap and the xenon comes in, because that is the gas that is used to keep everything stable. The whiteness of the light is caused by the heat of the "spark". So a low temperature lamp like a Halogen is really yellow, but as the heat increases so does the whiteness. The blue and purple color is caused by the area around the whiteness actually, and is not from the bulb. People with cheap bulbs are not fooling anybody and they are not seeing the same thing. The measure of brightness is in lumens, and HIDs (at 35Watts) produce more than twice the lumens of any "legal" (55Watts) halogen bulb.

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petteri

· #5 · May 16, 2003

e-code lights

I don't have a Prius but here's an idea. I know that in Europe a different beam pattern is used. You could check to see if the European version of the prius does in fact have different lights. Some car companies use the same light both in the USA an the EU. If the EU lights are indeed different they may provide some of what your looking for, ie a sharp cut-off and not blinding oncoming traffic. Of course these lights are NOT leagal to use in the USA but many do anyway.

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mgithens

· #6 · May 16, 2003

maxed out prius...??

I have always joked, that today we got our ricers with Civics and they brag about having Nitrous and Fuel Management... in the near future we are gonna start to see Hybrid owners brag about having Nitrous and a 3 Farad Capacitor!!!!

then what a FLUX CAPACITOR??

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mrv

· #7 · May 16, 2003

Re: e-code lights

petteri said:
I don't have a Prius but here's an idea. I know that in Europe a different beam pattern is used. You could check to see if the European version of the prius does in fact have different lights. Some car companies use the same light both in the USA an the EU. If the EU lights are indeed different they may provide some of what your looking for, ie a sharp cut-off and not blinding oncoming traffic. Of course these lights are NOT leagal to use in the USA but many do anyway.

the Prius in the UK (and mayhaps the
rest of Europe) have, in place of the
interior light dimmer wheel (rheostat?),
a headlight adjuster knob which will
allow you to reaim your headlights so
as not to blind oncoming cars.

Not being very techie, I didn't pay
much attention the last time the HID
lamps came up in discussion, but I
seem to remember something about the
headlight circuit actually running through
some very tiny wires in the light switch
stalk that's on the steering wheel, which
would be very expensive to replace if
it were abused... I'd suggest a search
on the various Prius Mods and Technical
sites for older thoughts on the issue.

(But the 2004 has been announced as
having the HIDs as an option!)

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petteri

· #8 · May 16, 2003

Replacing the headlights with the euro versions shouldn't require any major re-wiring. You would lose the leveling ability but the headlights would retain all the other benefits of the EU codes. The levelling switch is required in the EU to off-set any tilting of the car by weight in the trunk/hatch. A Yahoo! seach for e-codes should give some info. I wouldn't equate this with any of the "ricer" type of mods done to hondas and such. I'd consider this a saftey upgrade.

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jamesont

· #9 · May 20, 2003

Re: maxed out prius...??

mgithens said:
I have always joked, that today we got our ricers with Civics and they brag about having Nitrous and Fuel Management... in the near future we are gonna start to see Hybrid owners brag about having Nitrous and a 3 Farad Capacitor!!!!

then what a FLUX CAPACITOR??

Oh come on, only 3? 3 Farads isn't that big. Atleast for this application, in any electrical circuit that is a huge amount of cap. I do VLSI layout so I'm used to working with pico and femto farads (10^-15) But you can buy 1 farad caps, a prof of mine used one in a physics demo once, it was about the size of 6 quarters stacked on top of each other

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