Shedding Some Light

Project Turbo Brick, our 1996 Volvo 850R wagon, is about to receive its first aftermarket safety feature. Yes, I know what you are thinking, it's a Volvo; what could possibly make this car safer? Well, our friends at CATZ USA asked us that very same question. And, of course they had an answer for us -- the CATZ HB3/4 HID headlamp replacement kit, a kit that will shed some light on our nighttime driving exercise.

If you haven't heard of HIDs, don't fear, this is not a venereal disease. Rather, HID is short for High-Intensity Discharge lamps. These lamps were, until recently, only available at the dealer as a factory install on higher priced vehicles such as BMW and Porsche. Of course they cost a grip of cash too. Today, factory replacement systems are available through companies like CATZ who sell complete kits ranging from $488 for low beam applications on up to $888 for high/low beam combinations. The CATZ HB3/4 we installed not only consists of the bulb replacement but also include ballasts and 20k volt igniters. More on that later.

There are many benefits to HIDs; the short version is they offer better efficiency and longer life than your standard filament light bulb, with color quality approaching that of incandescent lighting, the bright white light that is comparable to natural daylight. It's this "white" light that provides better illumination for all-weather driving, enabling the driver to see more clearly.

Natural Light So how do HIDs create such a natural light? To answer this, we went to Jeff Bendit of CATZ USA for a few words. Brace yourself, you are about to learn more than you probably expected to ever know about lights. According to Jeff, the CATZ HID lighting technology replaces the halogen filament of the light bulb with a capsule containing a mixture of xenon gas, metal halide and vaporized mercury. Light is emitted from these gases when the igniter discharges a 20k+ volt arc between two closely spaced electrodes hermetically sealed inside a small quartz capsule. Once the arc is established, the system's ballast lowers the voltage to a "normal" operating condition.

Once warmed up (10-15 seconds), the amount of light produced with a CATZ HID System is about three times greater than a standard halogen bulb while consuming about 35 percent less power. The color of light that is produced closely approximates the color temperature of natural daylight; however, this color can be manipulated by either altering the gas mixture or by coloring the glass tube.

Typically within all light spectrums, "white" is the brightest light you can have. The more color you add, the less bright your light becomes. This is the case with the CATZ HID kits. The 4,300K kits are the brightest, with the level of brightness going down one or two percent for each 1,000K going up. ("K" stands for Kelvin temperature; see the Web version for more details.) However, even the 6,300K kits are much brighter than that yielded by older halogen bulb technology.

When one claims a certain "K" color temperature, those colors will fluctuate depending on the housing to which you put the bulbs. This is because different housings (for example, one using a parabolic reflector, another using multi-surface reflector technology and another using projector lenses) will all have a part in slightly changing the electromagnetic spectrum, therefore changing the color slightly more towards the white spectrum or more towards the violet spectrum. (See Web version for "Colors of Light.")

Beam me up Scotty CATZ is one of the only aftermarket manufacturers that makes a high and low beam HID all-in-one kit. Interestingly, many people think that high beam simply means brighter. With halogen bulbs, it is true that the high beam has slightly more wattage than the low beam, but it is only about 10 watts, or about 0.5 percent, brighter. What really makes a high beam bright is in the aiming of the light, which is exactly what the CATZ HID does, utilizing the same watt bulb as the low beam. It is like looking at a flashlight from the side; it does not appear that bright. But if you were to look directly into the beam, it would be blinding (however, the light is projected above that line where it can be blinding to the oncoming traffic). A high beam for the most part works the same way. When you turn your high beams on, the beam pattern is moved up where oncoming drivers might be offended by it. It is just like someone aiming a flashlight into your eyes. That is why it is critical to re-align your headlights after any bulb replacement, especially HIDs.

As you can see, our installation went as planned. The CATZ HID kit made a substantial improvement over the factory halogen bulbs for our night prowling in the Turbo Brick. And, for those of you who are interested in installing HIDs on your ride, CA&E highly recommends that you read the instruction manual thoroughly prior to the installation as there are many precautions you should be concerned about. This goes for you installers as well -- we know how you operate.

Hopefully, we have "enlightened" you with this short tutorial. Sorry, we just couldn't resist.