Mazda Rotary Club

Right,

After ending up stopping sideways on a T-junction the other night cos it was wet and I didn;t know the roads, I\'ve come to the conclusion I need to be able to see a little bit further ahead of the car in the dark than I can at the moment.

Can anyone give me details of the headlight bulbs and point me at suitably brighter upgrades?
My headlights are standard (and crap) at the moment

you can get a hid headlight conversion for 599 all in which makes the lights cool like a  bmw and give you streams of lights!

Cheers bud, but I don\'t want to lose the pop-ups!
From what I hear the Knightsports pop-ups aren\'t any brighter so I figure the bulbs will do for the moment, though I would like to put in the KS ones at a later date.

Can anyone help with this?

You can get a fairly resonable upgrade bulb from Halfords. I\'ll dig out the part number if you can\'t find it by searching the forum. It\'s a HB472 something I think.

Has anyone had a HID upgrade fitted? I\'ve thought about doing this myself but wondered how good they actually were? I know some of the cheaper ones don\'t support dipped/full beam but I\'ve seen a couple of H4 compatible ones that do for around 600 Euros.

Cheers Ric,

found it.  In case anyone else stumbles on this...
http://www.mazdarotaryclub.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9866&highlight=headlight+bulb  

I don;t really get this HID business.  I know how they work but can you fit HID bulbs instead of standard ones?

HID - You can, but you need a full kit that includes "ballasts" bulbs, wiring etc. In theory, you\'re supposed to have a "self levelling" system which is what gets fitted to all OEM HID systems. I don\'t think this is necessary for aftermarket kits to make them legally compliant though,

I have heard that for HID to work properly it actually needs the reflectors within the headlamp unit to be specifically set up for it - hence why I am keen to know if anyone else has tried a conversion kit out on the FD.

Think I\'ll do the bulbs then and keep my ears open on the HID front.

thes hid kits are top shagger!!  you wouls still be able to keep the pop ups and just upgrade the bulbs to hid.  as for the self leveling system as far as i am aware these kits are fully legal and include all the wiring etc.  I have seen this kit on and old sierra cosworth it had no reflectors in the back of the headlights and what a difference that made!!  As far as the bulba are concerned its an easy car to get bulbs for the only thing with the bulbs are the run of the mill bulbs are 20 quid the pair and dont make that much a difference, whereas from a company called PIA they make bulbs that retail at around 70-100 quid so that is why i am noy sure about the £20 bulbs as i guess you get what you pay for!

i put some hid on my old impreza but had to go for the h4 dual beam kit..thay do give an improvement but worth 4-500 not sure.plus very tight for space and the hid connector is a bit bulky and not sure it would be watertight if interested check out autolampsonline

try buying a set of the diamond cut replacement units off ebay - I got them on my MR2 and they were top notch! way brighter than the old lights and to top it off the y had nice white bulbs with em and .... they were damn cheap. Keep your oild ones for your mot cos they aren\'t e approved so you might need to pop your old ones back in occasionally.

Just got the 7 and when I have money in the bank again then I\'m gonna get them again!

any issues with melting wires etc thou i understand sum brighter bulbs can have down sides too?
Si

I would  be wary of the "brighter" bulbs as often they are much higher wattage rating than is legal which is why they are not "E" approved.

You are risking overloading current draw on wiring etc. and it\'s not very nice for other road users when you are effectively using bulbs which are full beam brightness even when dipped.

Personally I like to have good lighting but I don\'t want to blind someone who is driving towards me. Think about it - not the smartest idea really as they are more likely to end up crashing into you!!!

The ones on ebay are a higher wattage, they were 75/80 wtts if i remember right but the pure white light they gave off didn\'t seem to effect other drivers - remember even though they are brighter they are still "dipped" and aimed at the road not straight ahead which is why I never had any problems with drivers "flashin" me etc.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7930470513&category=33710

these are the rx7 equivalents of what  i had in my mr2. i think including shipping you\'ll be set back around £35. They also look nicer too cause the glass is clear.

this was my mr2 with the lights in - pretty nice eh?

i never had any probs with th wires or too much current draw etc on it in the 8 months i was driving with them.

also if you wire em up right you can get em even more illegal as they do have little "sidelight" bulbs in them too, they can just be run from your existing sidelight wires and they\'re blue!!!

illegal but fun !!!

I\'ve been looking into this too, shipping should be about US$40 according to one response I got. Beware though, there are a couple of traders shipping from America charging £35 carriage !

Mart.

I just replaced the stock bulbs with some Osram Silverstar\'s (H4 size) This will give you \'some\' more light for around 15 quid.

The problem seems to lie in the the lenses. They seem a little too fogged/diffused as stock, so even sticking in super-bright, white lights doesn\'t help as much as on other cars.

There are endless threads on this in the US forums. From what I understand their lights are even worse !!!!

HTH
Alex.

gonna take a gamble and see what difference I get from the ones halfords sell as rally bulbs.

They\'re for off road so I\'ll see how bright and high the beam is.  -  If it blinds others I\'ll swap back but I think Smifta is right and it\'s the plastic that diffuses too much light.

we\'ll see.

well, went for halfrauds superbright bulbs - part code 472SB and they are much better - I can actually see more than 10 feet in front of the car now.  Ain\'t been out in the proper darkness yet, but they did seem a helluva lot better through town on the way home last night.

Interesting read, not really driven mine in the dark yet so can\'t really comment. I\'ve had a trawl though ebay and found these

Crystal cut lights (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=23009&item=7931687692&rd=1)

Anyone tried them?? WILL they even fit?? Are they worth a gamble for less than £50??

you can get an hid conversion for the stock lights

http://www.jt-imports.com/Knightsports_FD_List.htm

8 down bit prcy tho

i think u can get a uneversal convrsion kit however

What is the wattage of the standard dipped beam bulbs ?
Shark - What wattage were the ones from Halfrauds you used ?

I fancy a nice white light that I can actually see with but don\'t want to up the wattage too much and fry the wiring.

Rich

Your local A1 store can supply you with 100W H4 bulbs like mine:D

As mike said be wary of the strain on the wiring, though to be honest, I fitted mine without thinking, and have had no problems. Plus no-one flashing me as they are still dipped when erm ... dipped!

Only cost about £20 a pair and still going ...... even passed an MOT with them;)

In reply to the question about the diamond cut headlights ......

only thing i can say is they are easily worth the cash!

As i said earlier i had them on my mr2 and the difference was amazing! the light is blue white and even thoigh the bulbs are high wattage no flashes from other road users.

They are a definite buy for anyone with £30 or £40

This is em on my old mr2......brilliant and they even looked nicer too!

One of my customers got FD from Japan with HID SYSTEM fitted.  This was a H4-KIT which was fitted like the original one without any problems but some changes to wiring was necessary.
The light of the kit was SUPERB! Very nice, warm light with increase in light power. I recommend HID to everyone who has problems with the light or driving at night.

My girl- friend has had an accident coz she has problems driving at night, don\'t risk your life or any others, just improve your light system.

But light is not a problem on FD, but a very big Problem on FC.

FD owners can change the bulbs and will get improvement in light very easy and at reasonable price. Stock H4 bulbs are 55/60W which are standard to "E" requirements. Any other bulbs like 80/100 have no "E" approval, so using them can ending in loosing your insurance.
HID System have no "E" approval as well, using them in Europe on road cars is illegal, but nobody will check your bulbs as long as you have no extreme modification done to it.

FC lights are a big problem in my opinion. Some of them will loose on efficiency after some time of use. I have changed the bulbs on my winter FC to 80/100 units. You get much better light from 80/100 bulbs but in compare to xenon lights on BMW or Mercedes, the light is still not efficient enough. So if somebody will perform a test on the lights them are still to "dark" so I see no problems in using them. Nobody has flashed me up since I changed the bulbs so looks like it is OK to others as well.

Somebody post something about 600EUR for a complete HID set, so where was it from? I would change to HID System on my FC as soon as possible.

REgards
Iwan

I looked into HID, for my sleek lights, you can buy a kit from ebay about £300 or u can buy H11\'s (closest you can get to HID) for ££££££, trouble with brighter bulbs, is it can put too much load on the loom so should really be run thru a relay & depending on the material the lamp unit is made from it can tarnish the glass from the inside.

Proper bi-Xenon or what have you are better focussed than convential projector units - so not only are they brighter, but all the light goes in the right place. If you just whack brighter bulbs in you\'re more than likely spilling illegal / unsafe amounts of light onto the opposite  carriageway.

A new car with bi-Xenons in doesn\'t even need masking or adjusting for driving on the continent because none of the light escapes in the wrong direction.

I\'ve seen seen a couple of chavmobiles recently with superduper bulbs from Harrys in the standard crap housings and frankly, I haven\'t been able to see much else for five minutes afterwards. :cool Sounds like you\'ve checked you\'re not guilty though Shark...

I wonder if some of the benefit of just changing the bulb is because you\'re replacing old with new, rather than because of any improvement in bulb spec itself...

QuoteOriginally posted by hmltnangel
In reply to the question about the diamond cut headlights ......

only thing i can say is they are easily worth the cash!

As i said earlier i had them on my mr2 and the difference was amazing! the light is blue white and even thoigh the bulbs are high wattage no flashes from other road users.

They are a definite buy for anyone with £30 or £40

This is em on my old mr2......brilliant and they even looked nicer too!

If these are the ones you\'re thinking of:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=23009&item=7937329908&rd=1

then they don\'t look like they will fit an FD, but may possibly an FC. Looking at the Mazda EPC, the lamp units for the FC don\'t seem to have any clips attached to the units for mounting, whereas the FD lamps do. The ones advertised above appear not to have the mounting clips specifically for the FD. This is reflected in the price Mazda want for the lamps, something like 50 quid for an FC unit, but upto 250 for the FD ones!! Rediculous, but there you go!

I didn;t go for the rally jobs in the end - Halfords superbright are road legal.

I have hwoever checked with friends driving in front of me and they\'ve said that my lights are no brighter than the average on the road and that they are not disturbing.  Ain;t been flashed at either so figure I\'m not blinding anyone.

dunno andrew - i\'ve not actually got them yet for my fd! I\'m well skint after buying it! More important things to do as well! Just spent £100 bucks on a couple of solenoids and a new acv from jimmys! was doing the vac hose replacement and they were knackered so my spare cash is gone now too! still i did order stainless intake pipes. just to make it nicer!

mmmmmmmmmm..........stainless intakes...........I keep looking at them to...........haven\'t yet got around to buying any yet, though.......there is always next year!!:D

Oooh! How much are the SS intakes compared to the Ali ones?
Saves me polishing them;)

One of the FD\'s we have is fitted with a HID kit. Thou, it has not got pop up lights. I\'ll e mail a pic sometime next week.

We paid £500 for ours. However, some are much cheaper.

QuoteIn reply to the question about the diamond cut headlights ......

My mate\'s MR2 has those on.  Looks awesome  :Thumbs-up  
No, unfortunately those would not fit on a FD.  If you have a look at your head lamps, you\'ll notice that they are actually not rectangular.
So halford 472 SB is a good buy then.  Better get me some of those.  Getting really sick of the stock\'s useless yellow bulbs.  
Do they give a nice white/blue sort of look??

Cheers

What about these??

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/XENON-GAS-BULB-SET-FITS-MAZDA-MX5-RX7-RX8-323-3-SERIES_W0QQitemZ8023863437QQcategoryZ72235QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

The cheap ones are OK. They do light quite brightly but the focus is poor. Also, lifespan is short. I know Philips do one which work well.

QuoteI know Philips do one which work well.

Which one might that be?? :wave

Dont quote me on this but I think they are called Xtreme Blue. Retails around £40 a set.

Are they these ?

http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/products/ProductDetail.asp?cls=ROAD&pcode=RINP12972BVKIT

Gareth

That\'s the one!

Quote from: IwanFC lights are a big problem in my opinion.

What shape and size are the FC lights? if they are 7" round ones I\'d recoment you investigate the Quad optic halogen conversion you can get for the original mini!! £25 - £30 and the light out of them is fab!! Chainged the lights in my old MX5 to them and what an improvement!! Any mini store has them, or get a copy of mini world and there are loads of companies doing them!!


One option on the HID setup is what I\'m going to do: Find a dead BMw in a salvage yard and strip the lights out of it, and make a custom headlight set up!!!

Jono

these look even better than philips bluevision. They are philips diamond vision http://www.autolamps-online.com/halogen/diamondvisioncentre.htm