Is aftermarket LED and HID lighting still popular?

Since I'll have my legacy off the road for a few months while I swap transmission and front end. I'll be putting in JDM lights that already have HID low beams but I want all other lights to match brightness and colors. Throwing around ideas on maybe piecing together and selling full LED conversions for Legacys. Any want or interest?

More so can someone school me on LED lighting and if headlight conversions are a wanted thing in the community?

In general, LED lighting is terrible and performs terrible and swapping an led light into a non led projector is even worse.

HIDs are still pretty popular but with the bixenon retroquik from TRS and people who want more doing various quad set ups, along with the relative ease of the jdm swap for most people, I'm not really sure the lgt community is chomping at the bit for a commercial solution.

If your thinking of swapping out the HID low beams in the JDM headlights I wouldn't do it. Put in Osram D2S HID bulbs (CBB, CBI or CBH) and the light output will be second to none. LEDs for everything else.

Go off the color scale listed for each bulb and you should get everything to match. Some maybe slighly off between brands of bulbs but just return those and get a higher/lower color on the scale.

Are those HID a direct replacement or do you need to change somethings around to make them work ?

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=osram+d2s+hid+bulbs&hvadid=78065450945943&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvqmt=e&tag=mh0b-20&ref=pd_sl_33mjzlsrk_e

Direct replacement for the JDM pre-facelift head lights. Not sure on JDM post-facelift but I'll find that out soon enough.

Huge fan of Osram's. Have them in both my Legacy and S2k and the light output is fantastic. Only downsides are the price and shorter lifespan compared to other HID bulbs.

Direct replacement for the JDM pre-facelift head lights. Not sure on JDM post-facelift but I'll find that out soon enough.

 

Huge fan of Osram's. Have them in both my Legacy and S2k and the light output is fantastic. Only downsides are the price and shorter lifespan compared to other HID bulbs.

 

I am a huge fan of the Osram's too. Had them in my TL and it was awesome, lit up the entire road. Then I put them in my LS 430, second to none. If they ar direct replacement for the JDM headlights that's good to know as I want a pair of those to put on my outback. I would definitely get the Osram if they will fit in your headlights, you won't be disappointed.

Retrofit is the way to go. Completely changing the projector with something designed much better > any OEM or plug and play option out there. It is expensive though and takes some skill I’d say. I just swapped out my Morimoto D2S 5.0 projectors with the new Morimoto MLED 2.0 Bi-LED projectors. Crazy how wide and bright they are over stock and actually much wider than the D2S 5.0 which was the previous flagship HID projector. The retro quick kit is another easier option but if you go through the trouble of opening the headlights, might as well go big or go home. The H1 Bixenon in that kit is child’s play in comparison to a D2S 5.0 or equivalent

Something to note with the JDM headlights (I run them too) is that the OEM ballasts are 50w I believe. Something to keep in mind that this may not perfectly match the D2S bulb you want to run unless you swap the ballast out too, which isn’t too difficult with the headlight already out of the car. Most aftermarket bulbs are 35w or 55w. If you’re trying to get the LED DRL in the JDM headlights to match your HID low beam, good luck. Hard to match an LED with an HID regardless of how close you can get to the Kelvin rating of the LED bulbs.

There are a lot of retailers like DiodeDynamics that already sell LED conversion kits.

Just to piggyback on this thread, can the OEM headlights handle a HID conversion?

If you’re talking about those cheap HID kits on eBay and Amazon, the proper answer is no. But, most people have been running them successfully without burning their projectors. I will admit, I did it for years with a good quality kit. OEM projectors are plastic, proper HID projectors are built for higher heat and most of them are solid metal. Cheaper kits run hotter, you risk burning the projector itself and cracking the lens of the headlight.

I wouldn't replace them with kits from eBay as I knew they ran a hotter than incandescent and those cheaper kits I seen cause issues. Where would someone get replacement kits?

Use a Morimoto Elite kit or DiodeDynamics.

I'm in the process of setting up a company that sells M-TECH and OSRAM lighthting which is why I'm asking about interest.

Myself and many others in the great white north have ot had good luck with Diode Dynamics so I want to offer something different.

I'm in the process of setting up a company that sells M-TECH and OSRAM lighthting which is why I'm asking about interest.

 

 

Myself and many others in the great white north have ot had good luck with Diode Dynamics so I want to offer something different.

With their products or their service?

I'd be interested to see more sort of plug and play solutions for custom led lighting. As in I'm looking at building my own panels with strip led and thermoplastic heat sinks for various projects in my vehicle and most strip lighting is either giving specs for house usage, or won't tell me if it's constant voltage vs constant current making it obnoxious to figure out what sort of boosters to use.

But that might be a little overly niche. And I'm pretty inexperienced. I might just be looking at the wrong things.

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I think OSRAM sells automotive specific LED strips for interiors, I'll PM you.

I'll be selling their products.

Retrofit is the way to go. Completely changing the projector with something designed much better > any OEM or plug and play option out there. It is expensive though and takes some skill I’d say. I just swapped out my Morimoto D2S 5.0 projectors with the new Morimoto MLED 2.0 Bi-LED projectors. Crazy how wide and bright they are over stock and actually much wider than the D2S 5.0 which was the previous flagship HID projector. The retro quick kit is another easier option but if you go through the trouble of opening the headlights, might as well go big or go home. The H1 Bixenon in that kit is child’s play in comparison to a D2S 5.0 or equivalent

 

Something to note with the JDM headlights (I run them too) is that the OEM ballasts are 50w I believe. Something to keep in mind that this may not perfectly match the D2S bulb you want to run unless you swap the ballast out too, which isn’t too difficult with the headlight already out of the car. Most aftermarket bulbs are 35w or 55w. If you’re trying to get the LED DRL in the JDM headlights to match your HID low beam, good luck. Hard to match an LED with an HID regardless of how close you can get to the Kelvin rating of the LED bulbs.

 

There are a lot of retailers like DiodeDynamics that already sell LED conversion kits.

Notorious would you be willing to sell your old morimoto kit? Would this work on the OEM USDM headlight? Or if not can you send me a link to the kit you bought from retrofit source?

Notorious would you be willing to sell your old morimoto kit? Would this work on the OEM USDM headlight? Or if not can you send me a link to the kit you bought from retrofit source?

I just bought some USDM headlights from the junkyard in great shape. I’m going to retrofit the old projectors onto those and will be selling them after a complete restore and retrofit. Message me if you’re interested but be aware that it won’t be cheap. I’ve been doing this for years actually.

Just browse their website and look around on hid planet. There's not really a kit for anything outside of the h1 retro quick. Beyond that everything is custom cutting and fitting. I've looked at the morimoto ds2 and they are quite a bit larger than the h1 and I'm not sure if they fit behind the stock shroud.

Really once you get into custom hid retrofits, bulbs and ballasts get a bit mix and match. Easy mode is gonna be just give trs a call and talk to them. You're likely going to get 35w morimoto ballasts, some morimoto bulbs, their wiring harness, and then a projector based on your desires.

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Retrofit is the way to go. Completely changing the projector with something designed much better > any OEM or plug and play option out there. It is expensive though and takes some skill I’d say. I just swapped out my Morimoto D2S 5.0 projectors with the new Morimoto MLED 2.0 Bi-LED projectors. Crazy how wide and bright they are over stock and actually much wider than the D2S 5.0 which was the previous flagship HID projector. The retro quick kit is another easier option but if you go through the trouble of opening the headlights, might as well go big or go home. The H1 Bixenon in that kit is child’s play in comparison to a D2S 5.0 or equivalent

 

Something to note with the JDM headlights (I run them too) is that the OEM ballasts are 50w I believe. Something to keep in mind that this may not perfectly match the D2S bulb you want to run unless you swap the ballast out too, which isn’t too difficult with the headlight already out of the car. Most aftermarket bulbs are 35w or 55w. If you’re trying to get the LED DRL in the JDM headlights to match your HID low beam, good luck. Hard to match an LED with an HID regardless of how close you can get to the Kelvin rating of the LED bulbs.

 

There are a lot of retailers like DiodeDynamics that already sell LED conversion kits.

That's the first comparitive feedback I've seen on the mled. I know we are way off thread topic but how do you feel they compare to other hid projectors? Fx-r, rx330, tl, etc. It seemed to me no one was very excited about led projectors.

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That's the first comparitive feedback I've seen on the mled. I know we are way off thread topic but how do you feel they compare to other hid projectors? Fx-r, rx330, tl, etc. It seemed to me no one was very excited about led projectors.

 

 

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Output is better distributed and overall brighter than the D2S 5.0. If you run “off road only” CBI’s on any HID projector they will obviously be brighter though but at those high Kelvin color ratings you’re really trading off usable light with looks.

Any 2.5 inch projector like the D2S will easily fit behind stock shrouds. It’s the 3.0+ projectors that will require some slight cutting.

Just put hids in high low and fog

OPT7 HIDS from ebay.

Just do the high beams... stupid bright

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I inserted Luma i5+ biLed via full disassembling

Perfect result, light like flash in the night