HID for Prius III - DDM HID details

Welcome aboard!

Sorry can't help with the HID questions but there are many very knowledgeable folks on here that can.

 

First to answer your questions...

1) Standard 9003 bulbs, 55W.

2) There is one bulb with 2 filaments, that is how you get your high beam with the stock halogens.

DDM (true DDM, not "ebay DDM") make ok to adequate ballasts. I actually have a pair in my Prius right now. However, I prefer the old-school Denso ballasts found in most Toyota/Lexus vehicles pre-D4S/D4R switchover. If you can find those, use those. I am saving my last pair for a LS460 east-asia market bi-xenon retrofit.

The "converter" is the ballast. It takes 12v-ish and makes it a couple hundred volts for initial ignition, then backs it down to 80-90v depending on the model. Behind the headlights is the wheel well which has nothing there and a bit of vacant space. A couple sheet metal screws through the mounting holes works well.

Now the bigger issue. You have halogen reflectors. These reflectors take the minimal light output from the halogen bulb and spread it the best they can infront of you as well as up above. Because the US uses reflective road signage, some light must go off into the weeds and above the road to illuminate signs. Not so in the EU and why their headlight beam patterns are so different. It takes a certain amount of light to make the sign glow, and the US DOT has given a requirement for how much light must make it up there to be legal. Now this light is not picking signs and only illuminating signs, it is blasting the whole upper vision with light. So obviously there is a maximum limit too, or else you will be blinded with glare by everyone else on the road.

With a halogen reflector, a certain amount goes up, lets say X%. Now you are wanting to stick in HID lighting. The lumens for your same wattage is waaaaaaaaaay higher. Usually HID systems run at 35W (standard) and produce 3-5 times more light depending on ballast, bulb, projector, and lens quality/age/design.

So your reflector that is shooting X% of the light skywards, is still shooting X% of the light skywards. Only now X% is much much more than before because the absolute value is higher.

If we say X is 10 for simplicity, and with halogen you have some magic unit-less figure of 50 "lights", 5 "lights" goes up into peoples' eyes and the road signs. Now you have 150 lights with HID. 15 lights go into people's eyes and road signs. This is illegal, produces a bunch of glare, and is annoying to all drivers.

If you want HID lighting there are 2.5 options.

Option #1, the cheap route: Buy some halogen projector ebay replacement headlight housings. These will come with halogen projectors that you can fit HID kit lighting into. You will still blind people but not nearly as badly. The halogen squirrel finder will be too large, but directional instead of omnidirectional-ish as the halogen reflectors are.

Option #1B, the cheap route with a modification: Same as #1 except you bake the lights to get to the projector. Open the bowl and tape over using metal tape (the stuff you use on duct work and the one thing duct tape is not good for) the squirrel finder until it is a narrower slot. Thus reducing its output and making it an acceptable solution for a limited budget.

Both Option #1 and #1B will get you something adequate that the highschoolers will like. The output beam will be crap, there will be hotspots galore, and you will bubble the cheap ebay projector bowl chrome in a year or two making it even worse.

Option #2, the only real option: Do a retrofit. Buy projectors meant for HIDs from a salvaged vehicle and affix them to your halogen reflector headlights.

Option #2 gives you infinite possibilities. If you do a crappy job or pick a crappy projector like the E55 then you might as well have gone with #1B. But if you pick something like the FX projectors (or FX-R, replicas) with Acura TSX lenses it will be fantastic.

Personally, I am a Denso/Koito fan. I have a pair of Lexus RX350 AFS projectors with Acura TSX-R (replicas) lenses in them with a 2mm lens spacing offset. This gives me the awesome hot-spot free projection capabilities of the Lexus RX 3xx AFS series and an almost impossible even white tone on the ground that immediately fuzzes into a 1-2 inch thick band of deep blue/purple from a distance, then a sharp cutoff above that. HID heaven essentially.

 

2K1Toaster covered everything except that you have a halogen projecto not a reflector. The retrofit of a high quality projector would be best but it is not required unless you want the best you can get.

 

Forgot I was in GenIII land here.

 

I do it all the time. It gets worse as more models come out!

 

I'm running a DDM tuning HID kit in my gen 3 prius. I think I've been flashed one time, but I blame it more on being on a hill than from the HID bulbs. I seriously think people don't realize that when you're lower on the hill, the lights above seem brighter when you look up at them. They've worked just fine for the 1+ year that it's been in my car. Considering that it's in a halogen projector, the light output is pretty good.

 

Thanks for the breakdown, that was very helpful! One question though. You mention reducing the size of the gap for the squirrel finders to reduce light to oncoming drivers. Would it be better to restrict light coming through the squirrel finders using tinted/half silvered glass or to reduce the size of the gap?

I would think you would want to retain the size of the gap if at all possible to preserve the optics.

-dlee

 

I've been running 55 watt HID in my halogen projectors for about six months and have had no problems with overheating, yellowing etc. I do a lot of long distance night driving. I think the Aussie standards are similar to Europe's. The Gen III expects 55 watt bulbs.

 

Thanks, Feri.

Some projectors have overheating issues with 55w HID systems especially using cheap non- oem bulbs which run hotter. It causes the metallic coating in the reflector bowl to crack and flake.

 

To be quite honest, I sort of just cable tied everything together behind the headlight. I didn't actually mount the ballast anywhere.

It's all plug-and-play, and took me less than 30 minutes. Very simple to install, and I didn't use the relay option either.

 

Beam shots of the DDM please.

 

"Beam shots" are meaningless because the ballast does little to effect the output.

 

Thanks F8L, I'll look out for that. I'm using real Phillips systems.

 

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