englishtony2002

Now I why the stealership wants $250 per HD bulb replacement, man what a job. After removing both front wheels and whell arch liners I have now swapped by low beam OEM HID's for a pair of 6000K's to match the color temp of the LED switchbacks in my parking\turn signals and the 6000K HID's in the fogs. See before and after below:

BEFORE (well during really)





AFTER

gibbyisgibby

Is there any change in light output?

princelybug

iTrader: (16)

^
Absolutely. In turns of output, it's not an upgrade, it's a downgrade. It might now match the OP's switchbacks, but vision is hampered, while affecting the vision of the person in front of the OP at night. In terms of looks alone, it might match better, but performance-wise it's detrimental.

It "looks" better, though!

englishtony2002

Pricelybug is right that the light output will suffer, a little. Down a couple hundred lumens from 4300, but boy do they look the part.

Excelerate

iTrader: (1)

The factory HID low beams are 4300k. K is for kelvin or color essentially. Lumen is light output. The stock bulbs are technically the brightest but the 5000k bulbs, which are a natural white appear brighter. Even the 6000k, which has a tint of blue, appears brighter although it actually isn't.

englishtony2002

Excelerate - while I get it that the lumen output for 6K is down on 4K, why do we humans see it, or perceive it as brighter? In fact if we human drivers see the light as brighter then surely it is? After all it is for the benefit of the human eye that we illuminate the road in order to see better.

Any additional comments?

Drove home from the office tonight on normal route as they did not appear any brighter, nor did they appear any less bright, just whiter, especially when traveling behind a lighter colored vehicle, white or silver for example.

niravp44

Did you change it on your own or you got it done outside? Thanks Nirav

Acura_Dude

Looks good. I really don't like how the OE bulbs in the 4th gen TL look anyway (seen it in person and it doesnt put out that crisp look like the other Acura models), especially after seeing so many 2G TSXs. TSX's OE bulbs look great, well the look i should say. It's definitely housing design.

Steven Bell

iTrader: (2)

Looks good Tony.

Livestrong_TL

I have a set of Lumes 6000k bulbs in my high beams. Haven't driven too much at night since I've had them installed. I think I might put the same bulbs in my lows as well.

eazy

iTrader: (8)

its not that we see it brighter. its just the color is different and you see it as brighter. 4300k has a yellowish color vs 5000k(white) and 6000k(white with bluish tint). you may not see the difference in lighting between your new bulbs vs the stock ones on a clear day. When its foggy, raining, or snowing, thats when you will notice the visibility isn't the same

eazy

iTrader: (8)

High beams and low beams are the same bulb sir. Theres no seperate bulb for low beams n high beams

Livestrong_TL

the DRL's are the same as high beams. The HID's are the low beam, therefore separate bulbs. Mine is a 4G as well

englishtony2002

Nirav, I did the job myself.

REMOVAL

As I quoted, removing one wheel at a time and unclipping the wheel arch liners gives you access to the back of the HID assembly.

First twist the side marker lamp from the headlight assembly and remove the wire clip from the frame and let it hang freely, this will aid access.

Twist off the 3" diameter water seal, anti-clockwise, by rotating it only like 1/16th of a turn, if you look closely you will see a small tab at the 12 O'Clock position (looks it it should have a screw in it but it does not), the turning movement is limited by it.

Then you will see a large silver "connector", this is the D2S connector, twist through less than 1/16th of turn very carefully anti-clockwise. NOTE THE ANGLE IT IS AT AFTER TWISTING, YOU WILL NEED TO OFFER IT BACK UP AT THE SAME ANGLE WHEN YOU REATTACH IT. Now pull it away from the bulb, i.e. out of the headlight assembly, it will stay there as it is attached to a ground wire.

Now you will be able to see the back of the bulb which is held in place with a spring clip, this needs to be unclipped on both sides. The bulb will now be free and can be pulled out of the headlight assembly.

RE-ASSEMBLING

Place the new bulb into the headlght and reattach the clip, paying special attention to the orientation of the small plastic lugs on the bulb - They must be at 3 O'Clock and 9 O'clock (aligned horizontally) - see below in the top right illustration - please ignore the bottom right part of the image it shows the lugs incorrectly., they are at 90 degrees to the notch at the top.





This will ensure that the notch you see at the top is correctly lined up with the housing. If you are using aftermarket D2S bulbs this plastic housing will be made to accomodate other variants (D2C etc.) so it will have more notches than shown above, so alignment is crucial.

Now carefully offer up the silver connector at the angle it was at after you twisted it off and twist it back on clockwise. Reattach the water seal and twist it clockwise to lock it.

If you are changing color temp of bulbs, TEST NOW. If you find that this bulb is defective now is the time as you can easily reinstall the old one and call the job off until another day, you certainly do not want to drive around with two different color bulbs.

That completes one side - repeat and enjoy your new lights.

englishtony2002

When you say you have 6000K in your high beams, you mean the non-HID DLR\High Beam? Or do you mean that you have 6000K in your HID projectors and want to fit them in your "lower" fogs too?

HID will not work in DRL\High Beam, they would simply bling everybody as they would act only a high beams as they are either on or off with no intermediate state as with the halogen DRL's.

eazy

iTrader: (8)

Yea thats right. OP saying 6000k high beams threw me off. DRL's are used for high beam as well. Low beam is by itself

FallenTSX

Its not the bulbs that makes the TSX headlights look better, its the lens. The TSX lens are cleaner and sharper vs the TL lens are foggier. I know, because when I did my headlights, I blacked them out, changed out the lens to TSX-Rs and got Philips 85122WX bulbs..just my .02

OP, what brand bulbs did you go with? looks good otherwise

-DeL

Acura_Dude

I agree I should have stated it has to be the lens instead of "housing design"as im pretty sure they use the same brand for bulbs. IMO 3G TL, 1G and 2G TSX-es have a great look, even with some fogginess to the headlight.

fsttyms1

This! You wont notice the loss in dry weather but when its wet or foggy that is where you will notice the reduction in useable light that is talked about.

Acura_Dude

I agree. I had 6000K bulbs in my last car and on smoothly paved roads it looked like I didn't have my lights on. It was like the light was absorbed into the darkness of the asphalt OR that light wasn't being reflected and scattered. Now the painted lines on the road reflected light pretty well. Illuminated GREAT. But rainy weather, it was easy to be seen, but hard to actually see on roadways in the dark, especially when there's extra light from street lights and buildings. Now when it's dry you're good to go.

englishtony2002

Actually bought a real cheap Xentec pair of 6K's ($15 shipped), wanted to scope out the effect first. Will order a brand name pair, probably at 5000K\5100K for the long haul, these are just a bit too blue for me.

Light intensity at close distance is really not noticably different from OEM, but longer distance suffers.

I am also interested in blacking out the headlight surrounds myself (like JNC provides) and this topic of the TSX lens is intriguing since I would be right in there and swap would be easy.

Anybody tell me what the difference between the TSX Lens and the TSX-R Lens that is referred to in multiple posts?

Also anybody that has swapped the TSX Lenses in tell me where they came from?

Thanks.

englishtony2002

Great feedback and now I have carried out my $15 test on 6000K's I will get a good pair of 5000K's, only a reduction of about 100 Lumens (from 3200 to 3100) against OEM 4300K, so about 3% loss, but a much whiter light.

FallenTSX

Not really sure the difference between the TSX and TSX-R lens are, couldn't really find the regular TSX lens and saying "TSX-R" sounds better I got my bulbs and lens from The Retrofit Source, which specializes in lighting and converting. Good guys and great customer service. I blacked out my own headlights and its pretty easy to do, as long as you know what your doing and willing to take the risk, but JnC does a great job at providing that service. Good luck!

-DeL

TLsMD

I changed both my headlight bulbs to phillips 6k and did not have to remove the wheels from the car....also changed the fog lights and put hids in them, also no wheels removed..

englishtony2002

Why go through all the extra hassle and clearance problems? Why not jack her up and pull the wheel, whole lot easier and quicker? I know it can be done without - but why?

TLsMD

why jack her up?....
turn the wheel all the way to the left and change the passanger light bulb...
turn the wheel all the way to the right and change the driver side bulb...
thats all..
took less than 10 minutes with no hassle of lifting her up and putting her down...she stayed on the floor

englishtony2002

So you remove the front lip spoiler and the push-button clips on the wheel arch liner and can get your hand up high enough to reach the headlight bulb? I was able to use that method to replace the parking bulbs btu could not reach the headlights that way.

You got arms like the dude in the Incredibles

TLsMD

Livestrong_TL

I replaced the Halogen high beam bulbs with a Lumens 6000K HID kit. My DRL's no longer work b/c there isn't enough power to have them come on. It's not an issue for me cause I actually turn my lights on all of the time

englishtony2002

Be careful Livestrong, after taking pictures of my modified LED DRL's it is apparent that the power reduction when in DRL mode is using Pulse Width Modulation, a DC version of what a household dimmer switch does. Is say it is apparent because you actually see the flicker on the camera LCD preview screen before taking the picture.

this haveing been said, it means that you are subjecting the HID Ballasts to voltage that is being modulated between 0v and 12v (nominal) DC voltage, a condition that will surely cause damage in the long term.

mdkxtreme

Vision is hampered? Cmon now. People have been running halogen headlight for decades and that didn't mean accidents were happening left and right. Even at 6000K the output still greatly surpass that of the conventional halogen bulb.

I don't get why people always go, "6000K and up will affect your vision." Seriously? If you have a hard time driving at night with 6000K HID headlight, then you shouldn't be driving at all.

Livestrong_TL

I haven't noticed a flicker at any point with the lights. The shop that installed them just said my DRL's wouldn't work because not enough power is being sent to power the DRL itself. I didn't think this was an issue because I always turn my lights on manually.
I wonder if I should have them removed now because I didn't know any of this previous to having them installed.

englishtony2002

Yep - you will not see them flicker when the car is supplying only the DRL voltage because it is not enough to fully power up the Ballasts, but I do not know what harm it might be doing to the Ballast circuitry. I have posted this specific question on a new thread to see if anybody out there knows if the TL uses PWM to supply the DRL's or not, lets see what turns up.

eazy

iTrader: (8)

What DRL kits are you both running?

Livestrong_TL

I replaced my high beams (DRL's) with Lumens 6000K HID

Livestrong_TL

Did you replace your high beams at all? Thanks for asking the question too, I'm curious to find this out myself now too

eazy

iTrader: (8)

So you got ballast/harness/bulbs? Did you buy a kit or bulbs only? I dont know what your Lumens 6000k HID includes

Livestrong_TL

Sorry Eazy, I did get a kit that includes, ballast, harness as well as bulbs.

eazy

iTrader: (8)

Okay. Is your kit directly connected to your battery? If not then thats probably why you don't got enough juice

Livestrong_TL

I'm not sure to be honest, I just assumed they were connected the same way the stock HID are connected which would be to the battery I would imagine