Yep I was one of those guys driving around with aftermarket HIDs in the factory housings.

The cop let me off without a ticket, but said that the fog lights were brighter than the surface of the sun and melted the eyeballs out of his sockets, tears of aqueous humour (yep, I remember high school bio) streaming down!

Ok, fine, he told me they looked like high beams and knew they definitely weren't stock and probably not DOT approved either. He's right on the latter two counts, the first one is a matter of opinion. He did make it clear that if he saw me driving around town with the fogs on again, he wouldn't be so kind. Though he said the regular headlights weren't bad.

So four years after installing my plug n' play HidGuy.net kit, I finally got in trouble. I guess if they glare the camera with this much light out (hour before sunset in August), then they might be a little too extreme:



They're just 35W, 5K bulbs though.

Maybe its time to seriously look into quality projector headlights so I don't need the fogs to see more than 50' at night. I don't particularly want to go down to incandescent bulbs again, but I wonder what my options are. Factory headlights or HID bulbs in factory housings just don't cut it. I get too much glare from oncoming cars, especially with my pitted windshield.

And no, I'm not paying $1k+ for factory HIDs

 

you ever give LED's a look? I have them in my fogs right now. Granit they don't put out much light but they're very bright.

 

Any pics? Where did you get them from? Is there any glare?

 

That's because they're not fog lights! They're driving lights. I can't believe how many Mustangers think they're fog lights. Get it right guys. Fog lights are low - to cut UNDER the fog. Driving lights - like H-beams, are useless in fog because they are aimed too high.
A Mustang's DRIVING LIGHTS should be brighter than H-beams and aimed further out for high speed night driving when there is no traffic. Think LeMans.
The officer was correct in asking you not to have them on towards oncoming traffic. Do you leave your H-beams on also with traffic flashing you?

 

Don't mean to sound like an a-hole but the cop was doing his job. Though they look cool and light up the road they simply are a danger to those that drive by you at night. I live in a rural area with few street lights and when I see aftermarket HIDs at night I almost have to guess where the road is because I'm blinded by the light

 

Pretty easy mistake to make when that's what Ford calls them.

 

For the fogs, Hoen makes an excellent (and simple) bulb replacement, for size H10, here's their website: http://www.hoen-usa.com/fog.htm

Just my two cents...good luck!

Ps: I use the term 'fogs' because that is EXACTLY what Ford calls them in their sales brochures.

 

Technicality. I know they're driving lights but its shorter to type "fog lights".

Well look I'm not looking for people to flame me

I'm saying I RECOGNIZE THEY'RE TOO **** BRIGHT AND I NEED TO TONE THEM DOWN.

 

Sounds like you need a windshield if it's that pitted, dude.

Have you tried the Silverstar Ultras? I had the Silverstars in my Mark VIII (Gen 1, and if you think your lights are horrid, get some of those. Yeesh) and they really do let you see farther than with stock bulbs. A lil' pricy, but you won't get in trouble with those, they're DOT certified for direct replacement.

This exact thing is why I didn't get HID capsules for the Mark, btw. I wrote a whole paper on this problem.. nutshell: the HID capsule has a short, fat arc in it that is very very misalinged with the reflectors, which expect a longer, slimmer line that the filament in a standard bulb gives off.

The result is that the parts that are reflecting ARE in fact reflecting a sun, it is that concentrated, and is why they're highly illegal.. if you think you're getting too much glare, how about you switch cars and watch yours come down the road... Ouch.

HID setups that expect the arc correctly are set up to deal with this, and lessen the hotspots that are causing the problem with the police officer.

Good luck whatever you do, man.

 

Fog lights for the uninformed:

 

I'm getting close, if I get pure sun on the windshield its hard to see whats in the shadows
Had regular Silverstars for 3 years, they were an improvement but I was still having issues seeing past everyone elses headlights. It might be worth a shot trying Ultras. It would be nice to get my highbeams back (the "bixenons" just point the light up into the trees when I hit the high beams). I know all about what you're referring to with the beam pattern.

 

Pet peeve?

 

Hey - I added the grin for your post but then the dweebs came out.

 

I'll post pictures tomorrow.

 

Get Halo and Projector headlights, they are great!

 

I haven't the foggiest idea what anyone is talking about in this thread, still I hope a light goes off some time in the near future.

 

I too had the same problem with the driving light being way to bright.I ended up baking my lights, just enough for the glue to get soft so I could pop the lenses off.





THen I sprayed the buckets black using engine enamel and used high temp rtv to glue the lenses back in, because of the heat the 8000k hid's put out.





Here is a pic at night

You can see that the driving lights have allmost the same color and brightness of the headlights since the chrome was blacked out.

Here is a closer pic



You would really have to see this in person or I need a new camera, but doing this driving light mod made the 8000k's work perfect.

 

Looks good. I'm thinking of doing same to my '11 stang.

 

Here's a picture of my LED's. They put out very little light but are in fact very bright to look out. So you get the cool factor. Actually they're too much bright and don't match my stock HID's like I wanted them too. Trying to decide if smoking them out will help even it out and make the LED fogs and stock HID's more closely related in color and brightness.

 

You are incorrect.. while the gt's FOG LIGHTS are poorly placed (should be lower like you posted gt500 example), they are still a fog pattern. A wide beam that is shorter in length forward than the headlights. They are not driving lights which would be a narrow, longer beam than headlights. There used to be conversions for them (piaa or hella ?) but must not have sold well as I am no longer finding them

Edit: Found example
http://www.sdmustangaccessories.com/...Kit_p_261.html