HID lights bulk buy.....

I intend to get a bulk purchase of HID lights in so I get the Lumens I want at the price I want.

I am aiming for 4800 lumens, a very white light with HID on both high and low beam. I took a set over to the States last november and "forced" the race team I was with to let us put them on the car and they were great. Instead of being 3 to 4 seconds a lap off my day time pace, I got to less than a second to day time pace as I could SEE where I was going!

If I get enough bulk together the price could be around the £100 mark. This has not been finalised but a casual comment by me on another thread has sparked some interest now!

If you are interested please say so here and I will get on with finalising price and other details. There is no committment on anyones behalf at this stage.

Malcolm,
I'm in.
One point to note is that H4 headlamps come in 2 sizes.
There is 43t, which is the modern variant, and 45t, the older style. The bulbs are 43mm and 45mm diameter respectively.
Most of our headlamps are 45t, so if you want to use modern high intensity or blue-style bulbs, you have to buy an adapter ring (which I know where to get hold of).
Would you please check which H4 variant you are buying, Malcolm?
Tony

So would these be for Headlights or driving lights for the GT40?

I may be interested depending upon end price and fitment concerns..

Malc,
Are they for Road use or Racing?

Brett

Road use headlights.

I attended the Autosport show yesterday and found a stand selling HID lights. They had a row of lights set up as a demonstration. This showed me the brightest and whitest were rated at 6000 and not the 4300 I had previously thought. Therefore these are the ones I am now going to be getting.

I have requirements for 5 sets so far.

Malcolm, this is the complete kit? bulbs, including the wiring harness and ballast thingy?

Malc,

Sounds good, thx for doing the legwork.

Can you confirm, is this a HID kit to replace the bulb in the GTD headlight, or a complete light unit?

Is it HID dip and main or just main?

Regds,

Ok apart from my needing to double check the 43mm or 45mm issue I can now confirm that I can get bi xenon lights ie main and dipped beams at 6000 brightness and colour temp including all 4 ballast thingies and wiring loom and fitting instructions but not a GT40 headlight bowl etc for £115 plus postage. This is a VAT included price which I have rounded to a convenient figure.

You need 4 ballast thingies as you have two per side, one each for dipped and main beams. Glenn and I fitted a set in under an hour never having seen the kit before or the car before.

I will only get an indication of delivery timescales when I place the bulk order so if you need this tomorrow, sorry, no chance.

Also please note this is not likely to be SVA compliant so use regular Halogen systems for SVA.

I have the valeo type headlights - if they will fit them count me in.

Before buying, I did a lot of research on suitable Xenon lamp systems for my car. I now have bi-xenon H4 (dipping) headlamps plus xenon H1 driving lamps and they are a fantastic improvement, almost like driving in daylight.

One point to be wary of. Although being advertised as only consuming 35 watts / 3 amps the great majority of ballasts available actually consume 9 -10+ amps each on start up and then settle after a few seconds to around 5 - 6 amps each. Unless you have calculated for this in the lighting cable gauge of the loom, you will have a problem of the lights flickering and refusing to strike an arc. At worst this can blow the capacitor in the ballast and wreck it.

Unless your loom can handle it, only buy ballasts with a low start up requirement of about 4.5 amps and which then drop to 3.5 amps when up to temperature. I bought mine from the UK supplier HIDS4U and who are excellent to deal with technically too.

Incidentally, the bi-xenon H4 mounting will require an adaptor flange to be machined to fit the older style bulb fitting in GT40 headlamps. If anyone requires them, I have some Hella/Philips/Denso ballasts available so drop me a personal email.

Chris Notley said:

Incidentally, the bi-xenon H4 mounting will require an adaptor flange to be machined to fit the older style bulb fitting in GT40 headlamps.

Click to expand...

This sounds like the 43t/45t adapter ring that I mentioned, Chris.
Available for £3.50 each at Paul Goff's Bulb Site.
Tony

Just to advise I have now placed the order for the lights, 10 sets, which should be with me within two weeks. I will fit a set to my 40 first and then the door is open to others who wish to buy.

Someone has asked if the price is per light or a pair. It is for a pair ie 4 boosters and two bulbs and wiring kit. I will post photos when the stuff arrives.

Just to update and say the lights have now arrived at my house so I will be fitting sets to my cars soon to ensure I got it right and then I will post some pictures and confirm postage costs etc. Then the till will be open on a first come first served basis acknowledging those that have already said they want a set.

Ready when you are Malcolm and thanks again for your time and trouble.
Cheers
Mike Pass

Time to bring this thread back to life!

I have at long last fitted my HIDs to my GTD. What a difference! I used to drive on full beam and no one flashed me! Now I have wonderful night time vision and am very pleased with the new lights I have.

Some extra things to point out before you buy.

Firstly my car required the T45/T43 adapter rings that Tony Hunt mention above. The supplier mentioned sent them out and they worked perfectly. My headlights is made for the 45 mm bulbs but this ring made the 43 mm bulbs fit. The ring needed a firm push to seat fully but did the job. The headlights I have were supplied by GTD so maybe if you have a GTD you will need these rings too.

I mounted the booster packs inside the light box each side. They just bolt to the side wall, quite simple. The relay mount also bolts inside the light box.

I had to make a 1 inch hole in each light box so pass the cabling from one side of the car to the other. It needed to be this large to get the booster connector blocks through, the wire bundle itslef is quite slim and cable tied to my hinge bar simply enough. If you have a GTD standard wiring loom you will already have the front loom tied to the hinge bar.

The bulbs sit in teh adpater ring well however the wire spring clip onone side does touch the ceramic rear part of the bulb. I used a cable tie to hold the spring wires in and am happy there is no looseness in how the bulb seats.

I ran the positive power feed in 17 amp cable from my electrical cut out switch mounted on my front clip. The earth I connected into the existing earth wire in the front lighting loom.

On the GTD supplied headlights there is the ability to switch the headlights from left to right hand drive for when on the continent. I made the mistake of having one light set one way and the other the other way! Got severely flashed by other cars for that but a quick swap over and all is well now.

I took my car to Dave Parker at Bordon Tyre and Exhaust and put it on their MOT light rig. Other than tell me I had the left hand drive setting on one side, there was no need to re-align my lights and the MOT tester said he would pass my car.

The boosters make a quiet noise as they warm up.

Overall it took me about two hours to fit the lights taking my time ot try and make a neat job of it.


Driving is wonderful at night time now. Dipped beam is amazing. Full beam is much better than before but actually I would not class it as amazing, just a lot, lot better. On my car the dipped filament goes out when you switch to full beam. If that wasn't the case (how do you find out what should happen?) and both dipped and full beam came on together that then would be awesome.

I have also fitted a set to my Vito Van and have a set down for Wendy's Saab. And a set to keep for racing. Paul Thompson has a set on his motorbike and can give his opinion as to how good these lights are.

Anyway very glad I made the switch and am now happy to sell on my surplus kits. Price of £115 is still the same (no vat) and postage will be at cost, I guess under a tenner for UK orders. I have PM and emailed the guys who said a clear yes above to see if they are still interested and would give priority to them for the next two weeks to confirm their order. Otherwise on a first come first served basis. Please contact me if interested.

I'll echo what Malc says about nightime driving (riding)... They are awesome! I thought there might be a problem as most HIDs have different shaped lenses (projector lenses?) and my bike was just a standard 55/60W H4 too but they work just great!

I extended the cables (high voltage silicon ins required) so I could mount the ballasts under the seat and the conversion looks very neat. They are pretty much guaranteed for life as they don't have a filament to break as such, being a discharge type lamp. They fire up at about 22000v!! and then run at about 80v BUT draw less current than standard halogen type lamps once lit and also run cooler (remember you get halogen cookers for a reason).

I've also fitted to a friends bike and whilst he never used to like riding at night, he now loves it. It was also interesting in that on recent group-rideouts, I can sit at the back of a large pack of bikes and the person leading says they can clearly spot my headlight a mile off - Crystal white that makes the all the others look like a 'yellow glow' in comparison. Plus I've NOT BEEN FLASHED by approaching traffic once - solo or with pillion.:thumbsup:

So - a bit thumbs up in my opinion, Malc - hang on to a couple of sets for me, one for Bjorn's 40 and another for some bikes I'm converting.

Ps - I've also fitted a 'switchable' diode between the low and high beam circuits, so that on high beam I can have both beams if I want (Seriously Bright!! ) but can isolate them for MOT purposes as I THINK they have to be separate for the test...

I have a 99 build DRB GT40 - Australia, does anyone know if these lights fit into this car. If they do I would like a set.

Regards
Jason

Jason, if you have H4 bulbs then they should fit. Clearly postage to Aus may be a bit dearer than a tenner!