The 348/355 Light Thread (OEM vs GE Nighthawk vs HIR vs HID)

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Cool. Stock 348 lights should be in the 15 to 25 range (well, on my 348, anyway) at 12 feet. Your HID's should be substantially brighter with a 40 reading.

No batteries on that meter...light itself powers it (no settings to change, the dials on top of the light meter are for setting up a camera, I think).

What measurement did you get at 6 feet?

 

Yikes! We may need to revise the above for Xenon HID bulb/ballast peak measurement numbers now.

 

This site uses a different light meter with different units to test OEM bulbs vs HIR at 18 inches distance and measured a 75% improvement in illumination: http://www.hirheadlights.com

 

There are some online sites that have an issue with proper installation of HID's due to lense pattern. Apparently HID won't deliver all 3100 lumens through every lense with every style of installation.

I'm not HID experienced so I can't say if that is impacting your readings.

But your HID readings are still showing substantially more light at 12 feet than what the stock bulbs put out.

That being said, I'm pretty confident that I got all 1900 lumens out of my HIR low-beam bulbs.

So is HID dead with the arrival of HIR? Probably not. I'd suspect that a good installation of HID in lenses that are appropriate for HID ballast systems would put out a lot more light from those 3100+ lumen arrangements than anyone is going to get out of 1900 lumen HIR bulbs.

But...

HIR bulbs are going to put out more light than any OEM bulbs, and may broadcast more light than *some* HID systems in those cases where the stock lenses that are being re-used aren't ideal for HID.

That makes me think that a lot of people will go to HIR for a light upgrade, with only a select group going to the added expense/time/hassle of HID for that extra illumination.


Now, should we do the measurements at 12 inches instead of at 12 feet?

Perhaps not. I'd argue that we should be measuring at even greater distances to more accurately reflect (grin) what we see as drivers on the road.

 

That's what I paid to the HIR light seller on eBay for my 2 9012 bulbs, and that's what I have installed, tested, measured, photographed, and posted here on this thread.

You have to clip two edges off of the plastic base of each 9012 HIR bulb to get them to properly fit into the Ferrari 348 light housing (designed for the 9006 low beam bulbs), but that just takes some large sheers and 10 seconds of your time. Snip, snip. You're done. Easy.

I've been pleased so far driving around at night with the HIR 9012's. No one has hit their high beams on me in response, either in town or out.

And I can actually see ahead of me at night, now!

It's a very pleasing white color, too. Not yellow at all.

This is most certainly the type of bulb improvement that 348 owners should adopt.

 

The Volvo guys and BMW guys reviewed the HIR's:

http://volvospeed.com/Reviews/HIR.php
http://www.bmwcca.org/members/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Let_There_Be_E36_Light&page=2


That BMW link includes the sort of light graph that might make more sense than my peak light value measurements, too.

 

OK, this is interesting. The BMW bench test above showed 80 footcandles measured from 16 feet for the 9012 HIR low beam bulbs (using 12.6 volts DC direct from a power supply on a bench, not through car wiring).

So now I'm thinking that my "80" reading with my Dejur light meter at 12 feet was really 80 foot-candles for my HIR 9012 bulbs. Pretty cool!

I wasn't confident about the units of measurements before now, but this looks promising.

Here's their light graph:
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The units of measurement for the DeJur light meter appear to be in foot-candles per the BMW bench test (linked in posts #39 and 40).

That BMW bench test also includes a light diagram for the 9012 HIR bulb that may be the "isocandela" diagram that you suggest.

The BMW bench test of the HIR 9012 bulb, combined with Cinemagic's Dejur measurement of HID lighting (same meter but different Fchatter doing the testing independently), would seem to give reasonable, multi-source confirmation to this foot-candle measurement table:

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OEM low beams are 9006/H4 bulbs. Light rating: 15
GE NightHawks "9006." Light rating: 25
GE/Toshiba HIR 9012. Light rating: 80
HID bulb/ballast kit installations. Light rating: 40

OEM high beams are 9005/H3 bulbs. Light rating: 120.
GE Nighthawk "9005" H3 high beams. Light rating: 150.

 

I bought my 2 HIR 9012 bulbs from [email protected] on eBay, but I didn't see any listed for sale at the moment. Send him an email and I suspect that he'll give you his paypal information so that you can buy what you need from him.

That would make a good test that would be better than me speculating on why your HID measurements are so different than what we would have expected compared to HIR. Lots of 348/355 brothers would surely benefit from knowing if HID or HIR is truly better.

 

You have to trim 1 black plastic tab on the base of each 9012 HIR bulb (at the 12 O'Clock position). Any knife, razor, scissors, or sheers will suffice. Snip. Snip. Snip. You're done. Easy.

Then you just twist the bulb into the socket identically to an OEM 9006 bulb. Nothing else to it.


Here's a before and after picture of the cuts (yellow lines in last pic show the black plastic area that was removed):
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You are The Man!

That's so cool because not only will you be able to do a side-by-side comparison of the 9012 HIR versus HID low beams, but you'll also be the FIRST to measure/test the 9011 HIR high beams.