I think it's a North American thing and maybe other regions. All my vehicles behave this way. It's common that people modify the wiring to bypass itmurcod wrote:Really? Is that some USA/ Canada law, or a Kizashi thing?bootymac wrote:Fogs won't work while the high beams are on though.
I haven't got them on my Kizashi but other vehicles I've owned with factory fogs they'd work with parkers, low and high beam.
Swapping HID Headlights onto a non-HID Car
I assume it's to prevent people from blinding themselves with glare from the high beams in foggy conditionsmurcod wrote:Yes, they're actually quite useful with high beams out in the country areas (for spotting animals that are on the road edges eg. kangaroos - here in Australia.)
Definitely a regulation thing, not Kizashi-specific. My Impreza, Mazda3, and Kizashi all disabled fog lights when using high beam. I think it's to reduce glare to oncoming traffic so you don't blind people with high, low, and fog all at once. There is always that idiot who drives with his high beams on. I see one every night.
That being said, all of them on at the same time would be optimal for not only range illumination, but low and side illumination that fog lights offer. This set up is great for spotting deer or kangaroos on the side of the road as well as far off.
One of the reasons I love my LED high beams is that it does just that. The LEDs spread light everywhere. It's almost like highs and fogs are on together. While it may not throw a crisp beam of concentrated light above the low beams, it really lights up the whole area nicely. They work well with the HID low's projector beam.
While it may be retinal hell for oncoming traffic, it's quite nice in lighting up a dark road and its surroundings.
That being said, all of them on at the same time would be optimal for not only range illumination, but low and side illumination that fog lights offer. This set up is great for spotting deer or kangaroos on the side of the road as well as far off.
One of the reasons I love my LED high beams is that it does just that. The LEDs spread light everywhere. It's almost like highs and fogs are on together. While it may not throw a crisp beam of concentrated light above the low beams, it really lights up the whole area nicely. They work well with the HID low's projector beam.
While it may be retinal hell for oncoming traffic, it's quite nice in lighting up a dark road and its surroundings.
2011 Suzuki Kizashi Sport GTS 6MT (Black)
Thanks a lot murcod. Will definitely give it a go, tons of long deserted roads near my house.
Read your thread, thanks for that bootymac. I did also find the fogs a little lacking. So the highbeams going off while using fogs is only an american thing right? Not something that happens due to the modification? Cause right now the fog lamps and high beams work perfectly alright together.
KuroNekko, thanks a lot. Went through your thread. Couldn't put things clearer mate. I know putting HIDs in the high beam slot isn't recommended because they take a while to come up to their optimum output or something like that? I very rarely use the high beams, only to tell people that their beams are annoying me, or occasionally to check if there are any bad patches of road ahead when travelling at speed on roads that I'm not familiar with. Will certainly look into the LED high beam set up though. Don't the LEDs emit more far more heat though? Will that not burn out the reflector in the long run?
Read your thread, thanks for that bootymac. I did also find the fogs a little lacking. So the highbeams going off while using fogs is only an american thing right? Not something that happens due to the modification? Cause right now the fog lamps and high beams work perfectly alright together.
KuroNekko, thanks a lot. Went through your thread. Couldn't put things clearer mate. I know putting HIDs in the high beam slot isn't recommended because they take a while to come up to their optimum output or something like that? I very rarely use the high beams, only to tell people that their beams are annoying me, or occasionally to check if there are any bad patches of road ahead when travelling at speed on roads that I'm not familiar with. Will certainly look into the LED high beam set up though. Don't the LEDs emit more far more heat though? Will that not burn out the reflector in the long run?
No, LEDs create the least amount of heat. The reason they have fans is to cool themselves down from damaging themselves, not the housing. The LEDs themselves are just more heat sensitive. Halogens are by far the most heat-generating bulb and high wattage halogens can melt harnesses, reflector housings, etc.IshaanIan wrote:Thanks a lot murcod. Will definitely give it a go, tons of long deserted roads near my house.
Read your thread, thanks for that bootymac. I did also find the fogs a little lacking. So the highbeams going off while using fogs is only an american thing right? Not something that happens due to the modification? Cause right now the fog lamps and high beams work perfectly alright together.
KuroNekko, thanks a lot. Went through your thread. Couldn't put things clearer mate. I know putting HIDs in the high beam slot isn't recommended because they take a while to come up to their optimum output or something like that? I very rarely use the high beams, only to tell people that their beams are annoying me, or occasionally to check if there are any bad patches of road ahead when travelling at speed on roads that I'm not familiar with. Will certainly look into the LED high beam set up though. Don't the LEDs emit more far more heat though? Will that not burn out the reflector in the long run?
You can read all about my LED high beam kit in the link below. The only problem I'm having is with the DRL function that I believe you don't even have in India. You also luck out as with murcod in Australia since you guys can use highs and fogs together. Big Brother in North America doesn't want us doing that.
I personally recommend having the lights adjusted properly and then getting a low beam HID kit. Have that as a starting point instead of looking into a complete headlight overhaul. For your uses, a halogen high beam might be best.
LED conversion thread link:
http://www.kizashiclub.com/forum/viewto ... =32&t=2900
2011 Suzuki Kizashi Sport GTS 6MT (Black)
Perhaps upgrade the high beam to one of the brighter premium halogen bulbs? It's already been established that Suzuki fit the Philips Long Life bulbs from the factory- which have the longer life but less light output. http://www.kizashiclub.com/forum/viewto ... 46&p=25218
Edit: Osram make a H7 Rallye bulb which is 65 Watt and supposedly 2100 lumen - sounds like what you need. Perhaps fit them in low and high beam and then do an alignment
http://www.passatworld.com/forums/42-vo ... bulbs.html
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-OSRAM-H7 ... 485d4e72e8
Edit: Osram make a H7 Rallye bulb which is 65 Watt and supposedly 2100 lumen - sounds like what you need. Perhaps fit them in low and high beam and then do an alignment
http://www.passatworld.com/forums/42-vo ... bulbs.htmlhttp://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-OSRAM-H7 ... 485d4e72e8
David
I'm thinking that the housings can't be different for RHD and LHD markets and there's adjustments that can be made to either for either market. It would have been stupid to produce 4 different headlight assemblies for the car.~tc~ wrote:All those lights are going to be RHD pattern and worthless.
Why not just put in HIDs in the stock projectors?
In my experience, OEM stuff is always better than aftermarket unless it costs almost as much as OEM. There's no $500 HID kits (that I know of), so it's still a $100 kit being marked up to $200 (or whatever the prices are for the retrofit kits--100% markup, normal aftermarket distribution process, probably made for $10 in China or $50 in Japan, but not $300 factory units).
Plus, this will be a unique and useful mod (if possible). I've never been adverse to doing unique mods. I have one of only 5 Galants in the US that has Corvette C4 braking kit on it, and when I have time, I'll be the first to put the same kit on a CD5 Accord.
Thank you! Very good information. I wonder if the circuits are still 'live' in the harness. Obviously, they made a separate headlight harness so they could have two different types of headlights without changing the whole harness. The question is if its field serviceable.murcod wrote:Some thoughts I've had that might be relevant for you SamirD.
The factory HID head lights will have some sort of auto leveling system built into them. The service manual is still up (yay!) and it indicates the wiring for the auto leveling and bulbs uses the same plugs E178 and E179. So, perhaps those wires/pins relevant to the leveling, are just unpopulated in the plugs for halogen head lights? The drawings seem to show identical plugs for both.
Edit: KuroNekko's post reminded me! Without the drive circuit to the auto leveling you'll end up with the mechanism flopping around all over the place. (That's what the mechanism did on a HID equipped vehicle I did some work on - in that vehicle the leveling system had broken.) Check the service manual too, the auto leveling system is very complex.
You know, the easiest way to test this will be to swap a headlight with one of you guys from down under.
Who's game? Who wants the lovely US halogens? If my guess is right about the main harness being the same for the HID and non-HID cars, the main harness should have all the connectors for switches and such. I'd just need to know where to put them.KuroNekko wrote:I see you created a new thread on the topic, so I'll mention it here too:
The replacement OEM HID harness (headlight to firewall) will need to include leveling control and probably headlight washer control.
Without getting this wiring plus the control buttons, you may run into issues. Many OEM HID headlights have auto-tilt that tilts the bulb down when the car is turned off and tilts them up when the car is started. You need to make sure the car will do this with a headlight swap so the headlight is not aimed incorrectly when driven.
Getting the proper drive pattern shouldn't be an issue if you get the headlight from a LHD market like Germany or other European countries other than the UK. However, India, Australia, and Japan all are RHD. Regardless, headlight beam patterns appear to be more for reducing glare to oncoming traffic than anything.
I agree with ~tc~ that going with an aftermarket HID kit is much better. It will be cheaper and easier to deal with not to mention it will have warranty coverage and an abundance of upgrade/replacement parts.
~tc~ and I both have Morimoto kits from theretrofitsource.com and we both like our kits. He has 4300K bulbs and I have 5000K. They come with a 5 year warranty on the entire kit. That's hard to beat when getting factory HIDs from a foreign market will probably cost you at least 3 times what the kit cost us and have no warranty coverage.
Does the Kizashi have the tilt-down feature?
I don't worry about warranties. I've seen it when distributing auto parts that it's all about failure rate. Warranties still cost money because you have to do the labor, even if the parts are free. Plus, there's probably no swap without being charged something, so that's another hassle.
An OEM part is designed to last and has been thoroughly tested for durability. Most aftermarket parts are designed to last as long as the profit made off the original sale. Then you have to get another one. And most people are fine with this (hence all the HID ebay crap). Sure, there won't be much support. But if this works, I won't really need it.