Legal HID Headlights?

bretthans · 11-08-2005, 09:22 PM

Has anyone come up with a legal HID headlight for the Insight? NH may be the "Live Free or Die State," but it's pretty restrictive on safety inspections. Legally they require DOT-approved headlights, but I don't know how strictly this is enforced by inspection stations.

H4 or other retrofits using the existing reflector are not street legal, so the only (hypothetical, of course) possibilities I see are:

1) Add auxiliary lights. This would help with lighting, but it would take more power instead of less, kind of defeating one advantage of HID lighting.

2) Leave the stock wiring in place and swap it back in before an inspection. Probably not recommended.

3) Somehow mount an OEM headlight from another car in place of the Insight headlights. I have no idea how this would work or if it would be legal.

Any thoughts?

Insightful Trekker · 11-08-2005, 11:38 PM

Replacement HID "look-alike" bulbs are available.

Sylvania "Silver Star"

I like'em

HTH!

Rick · 11-09-2005, 01:09 AM

Well, far as I understand the law the only way to legally have HID's is if your car either A) came with them from the factory, or B) had the option and you replaced the parts with all the oem pieces necessary for it to be like it came with them. So technically you can't legally have them because the Insight never had that option.

Now would they ever know? Depends. In Arizona the only inspection we have is an emissions inspection, which new cars are exempt from for 5 years anyways. I have HID's (real ones) and have not had any problems with the law what so ever. Way I figure it, every Escalade with their reflector HID's are way, way WAY more annoying then my lights down so low, and with proper positioning in the housing and a glare shield. Me, I sacraficed my brights, I didn't get the moving reflector units. So this might be an issue with your inspection if they want to see your brights.

All things considered, if you did have an issue with them there's no reason why they would be difficult to put back to stock. I just have spade connectors going in to my factory head light bulb wiring harness. I could pull the bulbs, ballsast and wires in a couple minutes and pop the halogen bulbs back in in a couple of minutes.

Of course, not that I would recommend doing anything illegal.

bretthans · 11-10-2005, 05:50 AM

The 20-30% increased light output from the Silver Stars would certainly be an improvement, but I'd really like more light.

From surfing the net, I get about the same impression as Rick on HID legality. That's what I was afriad of.

Replacing the bulbs in the stock headlamp would allow me to revert it to stock, but the stock headlamp was not really designed for HIDs. A projector-type lens would be better for me and for other drivers, but would not allow reversion to stock without considerable expense. Looks like no easy decisions here. Sounds like I will have to compromise.

As always, thanks for the input.

P.S., in NH your vehicle can belch out all the smoke and pollution you want but you'd better not violate any of a large number of safety rules, such as having a sticker in the wrong place on your window.

Rick · 11-10-2005, 12:23 PM

True the housings aren't designed for HID's specifically, but so long as you put the little gas discharge pocket in the right place in the housing (I have a set of these: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/H4-Adapt ... 6694QQrdZ1 )

It makes the beam pattern pretty good and the little U shaped shield does what the little one inside of the H4 low beam bulb does and puts the light down on the road instead of up in the air. Let me put it this way, I have a friend who had a Honda S2000 with some fairly annoying factory projector HID's. Of the times I've ridden in that car with him at night we've had more people flash their brights at us thinking ours were on than I've ever had happen with the Insight. And not all factory HID's are the nice projector type. Look at a Cadillac Escalade, they're reflectors which don't produce the nice cut off line projectors do, and they're way up high and very annoying to other drivers.

Of course you may have issues with state inspection. I suppose the question is would they know what they're looking at?

b1shmu63 · 11-11-2005, 03:48 AM

Do they have a high beam arc and a low beam arc?

bpapa9013 · 11-11-2005, 04:02 AM

I was actually thinking about grabbing a pair of replacement headlight enclosures and just cutting out the backing a little and fitting in some closed beam projector HID AUX lights. Not a particularly elegant solution, not sure if they would be legal either (the AUX lights would be DOT approved, but only as AUX lights would that make a difference?)

bretthans · 11-11-2005, 01:07 PM

I doubt using the aux lights as headlights would be legal, but my original thought was cut off the back of the stock headlight and insert an OEM HID headlight from another vehicle. It seems that is also not legal, plus I'd have to buy a spare housing or ruin your existing one.

Thanks for the link, Rick, now I see what you are talking about. I think it's worth a try. In fact, that seller has an entire H4 setup as a kit for what seems to be a decent price. If I can't use it then at least I can revert to stock and use the kit for auxiliary HID lights.

Like Rick, I would lose the high beams, but out here there is so much traffic I rarely get to use them anyway.

Rick · 11-11-2005, 05:38 PM

You won't miss your high beams at all. I drive at night out on the open highway fairly often and that was part of the justification for the HID's. There are plenty of opportunities where I could use High Beams, but they're not missed at all. The HID beams project farther than any high beam halogen would anyways. I also feel much safer with them too, being able to see that much farther could make a huge difference in reaction time if something were to happen. At the least they're already saved one cat's life (seriously).

Also if you really wanted to get fancy with it, you could get some projectors from some other car and bake your headlights apart and mount the projector inside. I don't think this is legal either, but I really doubt the inspectors would know any better. You can even get projectors that move up for a "high beam". Of course I would get someone who knows what they're doing in order to do this mod, you could potentially ruin a set of headlights, which is not cheap to replace. I was kind of thinking about trying this, but just couldn't justify the risk or expense.

Dougie · 11-12-2005, 12:13 AM

Couldn't you just use higher wattage bulbs? I have 100/80 bulbs in my old Miata and it makes a huge difference. One risk is melting the plastic parts, which the Miata doesn't have because it just uses traditional 7" round lights, all metal and glass.

Or an add-on like this: http://www.hella.com/produktion/HellaPo ... _Xenon.jsp