Yeah ... that's the way I have mine too .. to reduce glare for oncoming driver's until I put the HID projectors in mine ... and get the proper beam pattern ... but for now ... I have cured distance lighting issues with these:

lol yeah nice that would do the trick hmm might get some hella predators for high beam long distance pencil spread

I am back.......

Hyena:

I have looked at the pics you posted and all I can say is: Ouch!
However, looking at the “bright sideâ€￾ of things: At least now you can see what you are doing when you tie your shoe laces. (haha).

That looks like a total mismatch.
Let me know following:

1-What type of reflector do you have in your aftermarket headlight assys?
Are they Parabolic, Free Form (which I doubt they are) or multi mirror ones?like?

2-You mentioned that the original Halogen bulbs used in these reflectors are H1.
Did you compare the location of the filament on the H1 vs. the HID arc?

3-Dose your HID bulbs have a shield of any kind? If so where are they located?

4-Put your welding glasses on, turn the headlights on and look straight into the reflectors (or take a picture of the light emitted from the inside of the reflectors). How does the light pattern inside the reflectors look

It looks to me that the focal points of the HID bulbs are way way off the mark in this setup.

Adjusting the headlights will not help you to fix the psycho light pattern you got at the moment.
There is a lot more you need to do to fix this problem if it can be fixed at all.
But once you have done them, it surely is going to make it much better.

Also if you take the pictures I asked for earlier and post them it would be very helpful to let you know what needs to be done in your case.

Hey Mavs
My reflectors are exactly the same as factory - ie parabolic
I didn't compare the 2 globes side by side, but I suspect the HID replacements are a little longer... (although this may be psychological due to the fact that they're all glass where as the halogens are metal until half way up the base)
The HIDs look exactly like THIS so no shield as such.
The HID arc looks like it's sitting just behind the large shield part (part of the headlights assembly)

Adjusting the headlights has made a big difference to the lighting and they're now fairly normal to drive with of a night, and certainly far superior to the halogens when it comes to lighting up road markings and signs alot further down the street. There's still a bit of a 'pattern' to the areas lit close to the car - fairly angular in shape rather than a diffuse glow, but overall I'm pretty happy with them.

I'll get you some more pics tonight or tomorrow

Some reflectors will work fine with HID bulbs and some will never work.
According to what you are telling me in your case you are one of the few lucky ones.
But let’s make sure that all is perfect and works 100%.

Do the reflectors have a flat one piece mirror inside of them or are there groves and lines in them?
Also the shield inside the headlight assy how does it look?
A pic taken from front and one from the side of the main reflector with lights off would be fine.

The length of the bulb glass is not important, however, the location of the Halogen filament vs. the HID arc (The part of the inner glass looking like a pregnant rice) is vital for the focal point and the light pattern emitted from the reflectors.

Since the amount of light emitted from a HID bulb is far more than what is emitted from a Halogen, you should obviously have more light reflected back from road signs etc.

The issue here is not how much light is in front of the car. It is if the light pattern created is good enough and how little glare the combination of HID bulb inside a specific reflector creates.
A pic of the light pattern in front of a large wall would be fine.

It will be much easier when I can see pics from the reflector, reflector shield, the bulb inside the reflector, the light inside the reflector and the light pattern on a wall in front of the car……to see if you need to fix anything or not.

Here is a pic of a Ford BA with an aftermarket kit in the standard Halogen reflector which we played with recently.
You should have seen it before we fixed the glare problem.

 

 

Attachments:

P1030035.jpg [ 43.73 KiB | Viewed 161 times ]

Wow ... that's only a small amount of beam ... doesn't look like it's projected on the road directly in front of it.

Looks like the photo was taken from inside the car as well.

Or was that on high-beam????

Yes the pic is taken from inside of the car.
No it is not Hi beam, but yes the beam pattern is adjusted a bit higher than it should be.
The idea is so you can see the cut off lines on the top, bottom and sides better.
A well harnessed beam pattern.
As you can see on the left side it is a bit higher, which means that once the beam pattern is lowered to where it should be you can see a longer stretch of road, any pedestrians (if any) and the road signs far brighter and better.
At the same time, oncoming traffic is also protected from any unnecessary and unwanted blinding glare.
This is a close as you can get to a beam pattern created by a HID Projector with this specific combination.

OK Mavs here's a few pics of my set up for you, I'll get the others you're after later when it gets dark (I'l have to go for a drive and find a wall)

I told a bit of a lie saying the reflectors are parabolic, they sort of are but are also segmented a bit and have the groves and lines you asked about

http://home.exetel.com.au/hyena/public/ ... shield.jpg
That's with the shield missing (aftermarket light I left in the oven a little too long... )

The reflector + shield

http://home.exetel.com.au/hyena/public/ ... shield.jpg

Shield close up

http://home.exetel.com.au/hyena/public/ ... shield.jpg

This is taken through the lens assembly (ie fitted to the car) showing the location of the HID arc area in relation to the reflector. They're the best pics I could get through the lens

http://home.exetel.com.au/hyena/public/HID/HL5-HID1.jpg
http://home.exetel.com.au/hyena/public/HID/HL5-HID2.jpg

And this is the outer lens

http://home.exetel.com.au/hyena/public/HID/HL4-lens.jpg

The pics in front of a wall:
One like the one I posted and 2 with the car approx. 1-1.5 metres from the wall, one from left and one from right headlight patterns on the wall.
Then the one from front facing the assy looking straight into the reflector. (Take it so that if you draw a line along the length of the bulb straight out, the camera lens is in middle and on a 90 degree angel to this line.)
Also If you can take one on a long stretch of road with nothing in front of the car.

OK, I just took a few head on pics into the lights and I'm seeing spots big time. haha

I dunno if these pics are any good, it's kinda hard to get it directly head on - half an inch too high and the pic exposes pretty dark, a little lower and it blows out the pic with light

Driver side
http://home.exetel.com.au/hyena/public/HID/H10.jpg
http://home.exetel.com.au/hyena/public/HID/H11.jpg

Passenger side
http://home.exetel.com.au/hyena/public/HID/H12.jpg
http://home.exetel.com.au/hyena/public/HID/H14.jpg

OK Mavs, here's the rest of the pics

The fine names should be fairly self explanatory.

http://home.exetel.com.au/hyena/public/ ... all-6m.jpg
http://home.exetel.com.au/hyena/public/ ... facing.jpg
http://home.exetel.com.au/hyena/public/ ... all-1m.jpg
http://home.exetel.com.au/hyena/public/ ... aight1.jpg
http://home.exetel.com.au/hyena/public/ ... aight2.jpg
http://home.exetel.com.au/hyena/public/ ... d-bend.jpg
http://home.exetel.com.au/hyena/public/ ... ad-dip.jpg
http://home.exetel.com.au/hyena/public/ ... hercar.jpg

Oh, and a little GIF too to show the ambient light



Some of the pics are a touch out of focus due to no flash and being hand held, but you should be able to make out what you need to. The passenger side seems to be at an angle instead of fairly flat like the drivers side. Is this part of the design so they angle more up the road or is there another adjustment somewhere to control that ? I can only find the one...


edit: I forgot to mention these are 6000k. The light they give off is brilliant white, but interestingly when compared to 2 factory HID cars I saw tonight they looked more yellow. They were that brilliant/purple white light when coming head on but as I looked back they looked more yellow on the road...

the projected beams patterns tho dont look right on the road...i mean sure they look bright as but..uh i dunno ...wanna see whats mavs says

Look pretty nice to me hey.. Im gonna be gettin a set like that soon

They look great in the ED-EL XR projector lenses I'll get some photos up soon.

Thanks for the pics.
Yes, it is difficult to take good head on pics, you need to use a tripod or something.
The camera lens has to be exactly in centre and in a 90 degrees angel to the tip of the bulb or in your case the shield in front of it.
Then you can see all the Hot and Cold Spots in the reflector.

I can see that after adjusting the headlights, you have a bit more light on the road, but there is still no proper beam pattern there.
I am not sure but is it this model that has a second adjustment screw but it is sort of almost inside the wheel arches???

I need to know if the bottom part of the shield in the reflector, is in one piece or does it have any opening/s?

Also I need to know what is the difference between the location of the H1 filament and HID arc?

Now all we have to do is to find out the H1 and the HID focal points and harness the HID one so we can recreate the same focal point as the H1.

Here is a pics to give you an idea of what we will be (hopefully) working to achieve.
Also I have marked your beam pastern with all the Hot (in Red) and Cold (in Blue) Spots.

The more detailed info and pics you give me the easier it will be to work out an acceptable fix.

 

 

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Good beam pattern.jpg [ 38.64 KiB | Viewed 148 times ]

Hot n Cold Spots.jpg [ 55.84 KiB | Viewed 138 times ]