| they say "retrofit kit" If they are talking about the plug & play kits that simply include the bulb and ballast for your stock/OEM projectors....those kits suck in my experience.... YES they put out better light than stock halogen bulbs
NO they do not perform like modern OEM HID projector headlights because you are using the original projectors which are not designed for that lighting performance level with crisp, well defined cutoffs and bright even lighting output Instead what you will get from a Kaixen kit or any othe other "retrofit kits" is basically brighter stock lights that flicker the initial moment when you turn them on and may have different hue to them (depending on what "K" value you buy). There will be uneven lighting, brightspots, and poorly defined cutoff. If "brighter than stock" is ALL you care about, these kits are cheap enough to be well worth the money I suppose. If you are trying to modernize the car wherever you can and what you REALLY want is lighting performance on par with modern OEM HID headlights, then you have two choices: 1- Buy the 99 lights. I havent seen the output first hand but it stands to reason that they should fit the bill. While 99 was a long time ago, projector based HIDs havent changed in any significant way all this time and considering cars like the S2000 and Audi TT as well as many others had your desired level of lighting performance so it stands to reason that the '99 OEM'ers should perform about the same....unless Nissan just called up DDM and bought a few thousand of their crap retrofit kits and threw them in a fancier looking OEM housing. 2-You will need to "retrofit" actual modern projectors into the Z32 headlight housing and use the appropriate bulb/ballasts for the projectors you chose. This obviously is NOT plug & play and requires pretty significant and easily screwed up work on your part. You will have to crack open a set of lights, remove the OEM projectors, then do whatever cutting/dremeling/epoxying necessary to get your modern projectors in their places. The crux of the job is finding the right projector requiring the LEAST amount of work to get them in place. People have chosen projectors from out of Acura TSX's, Honda S2000's, etc...but I have only seen it done once or maybe twice here. This job can go badly in so many ways, for example the headlights can fog the hell up and buildup condensation on the inside glass if you do not take the appropriate preventative steps WHILE putting your headlights back together, and you should probably be prepared to ruin at least one set of OEM housings if you have never done this kind of stuff before......BUT if you get it right THEN you will get what you are looking for at a much lower price than $2k.
THAT is the full rundown of "upgrading" your Z32 headlights. You cannot buy DDM or any other $50 kit and expect lighting output performance on par with your wife's Murano convertible.
  "We pretended to work, and they pretended to pay us."
--Mikhail Khodorkovsky "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."
--Winston Churchill "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
--Benjamin Franklin "Government is not reason. It is not eloquent. It is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
"The last official act of any government is to loot the treasury."
--George Washington END THE FED
....learn why, in 42 minutes |
