| Before I go on a bit of a rant, I do have HID's in my Z (4200K kit from Kaixen). HID conversion kits are a bad idea in general for most cars. HID bulbs (despite the choice of base) throw light all around, most bulbs designed for reflector lamps do not do this. So if you've got a reflector lamp and put an HID bulb in it you're going to throw light all over the place and honestly it doesn't look good and is dangerous to other drivers. If you have a projector lamp and install a HID bulb, the problem becomes cutoff. Basically the project housing lens is designed for a very specific bulb. As a result, the light from the HID bulb doesn't get the sharp cutoff it requires. HID bulbs in a halogen projector housing isn't great but is better than HID's in a reflector housing. The Z32 headlight is an optics nightmare. The reason I say this is the glass itself is highly angled with respect to the light beam. The glass also isn't very thin. As a result the beam pattern for each wavelength of light may be quite different. In effect a prism effect. Still they work and from what I've seen, changing out the project lens helps quite a bit. Finally, let me say something about color temperature. In terms of lighting you want to choose a bulb that has the lowest color temperature but highest lumens. That's part of the reason cockpits in aircraft are lighted in red light not white. High color temperature bulbs cast off more UV light than lower color bulbs. UV light is what destroys your night vision. And night vision is important to seeing at night (more so than power of a lamp). It takes about 30 minutes for you're eyes to adapt to darkness. It takes only a split second for your night vision to be reset.
"The 300ZX Turbo is a dance; it's a song; it's rolling, roaring automotive art. There is no color that doesn't suit it. There is no mood-lifting chemical substance it can't replace." - Automobile Magazine |
