Kaixen HID review

[preludacris]

I recently installed a set of Kaixen HID’s in my car purchased from LiquidSound a trader on this forum, and thought I’d do a quick review on the product.

After running my MTEC HID’s for around 3 years now, they had faded slightly. Have never had any problems with them, but I thought I may aswell chuck a fresher set in, and go for a slightly more blue look at the same time. Jason from LiquidSound highly recommended the Kaixen HID to me for its low defect rate and good quality /value. So I decided to give them a burl, and he hooked me up with a great deal.


At first glance, the boxing looks pretty nice, attractive design etc. but this is not too important, but it looked professional. Once opened, looking at the build quality of the ballasts and bulbs, looks quite good also, just as good as my previous MTEC HID. I have seen some of the Cheap China HID’s off eBay, and there is definitely a difference just by looking at the build quality. Then again, it is the performance / reliability of the kit I am mostly worried about, rather than the looks of the kit.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b212/TypeT/kbox.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b212/TypeT/kbox1.jpg


Knowing Jason personally, he owed me a favour, and was kind enough to let me try out each of the bulb types in the Kaixen range. 6000K, 6,500k, and 8,500k. I was pretty particular with the colour of the kit, so I wanted to try them all.


The install was fairly straight forward having male and female connectors ensuring I didn’t stuff anything up, and the cable lengths in the kit were adequate as to properly mount my ballasts.


After firstly installing the 6000k bulbs, I was quite impressed. The light output was fantastic. Brighter than my previous aging kit. It lit up the road very well, even from my reflector headlights.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b212/TypeT/6k4.jpg

The colour of this 6000k bulb after warmed up, seems to be the same colour as a usual 5,500k hid kit. Almost pure white, but having a coolness (temperature) to it, though I wouldn’t really say a blue tinge. More of a cool white.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b212/TypeT/6k1.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b212/TypeT/6k2.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b212/TypeT/6k3.jpg


The 6,500 bulbs, also had a good light output on the road. This rating bulb after turning on starts out a bluey colour, but as it warms up changes to a white a slight purple tinge to it. Some may like it, though I found it not particularly to my taste.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b212/TypeT/65k1.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b212/TypeT/65k2.jpg


**This pic seems a lil more purple in the pic. In real life there was an obvious purply tinge, but not as much as it seems in this pic.
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b212/TypeT/65k3.jpg


After trying out the 8,500 kit, it was pretty much exactly what I was after in terms of the colour. After warmed up it is a white with a notable blue tinge matching my parker LED’s perfectly.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b212/TypeT/85k3.jpg

Being 8,500 I assumed this bulb would have a very blue look, though the colour is similar to your regular 6,500 – 7000k HID’s. Light output for these bulbs is average. Noticeably less light output than the Kaixen 6000k kit, though I was already expecting this. Probably wouldn’t be that great in fog, or the wet, But seeing as I have a separate High beam in my headlights, and also fog lights, this was not as concerning for me.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b212/TypeT/85k2.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b212/TypeT/85k4.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b212/TypeT/85k5.jpg

But I would probably recommend those who use Hi / Low beam from the same bulb (civic, jazz etc) to think twice about this point, before purchasing the 8,500K 35watts kit. Though this would apply to any HID in general. the bluer it gets, the worse it is in the wet.

I ended up choosing the 8,500 J and so far they have been great. Very happy with the purchase, and I would recommend this product. I can't comment on the longevity of this product yet, but it comes with 2 year warranty, so i can rest easy :)

**note. Hard to capture the true colour on camera. seems to be sliiightly more bluey in pics.


Big thank you to Jason from Liquid Sound, and also Roni for the spare set of hands during install :)

[VTECACCORD]

Looks Ricerific


Here's how you should have made it look.

http://s59.photobucket.com/albums/g297/jvxdriver/hidplanet/DSC_1027h.jpg

Yours

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b212/TypeT/85k4.jpg

Look at the difference between an engineered HID set-up and your kit. :p

If you can, undo the screws on the ballast and show us the insides. We will then be able to compare it to some of the cheap Chinese ones to see if they are the same. :thumbsup:

[preludacris]

^^ like i said mate, the pics came out bluer than it looks in real life. was only using a point and shoot camera.

and i have no idea why you are comparing a projector set up with what looks to be 4300k bulbs, to a reflector light with 8500k bulbs. obviously the cut off will be shitter (hadn't aligned lights yet) and the output won't be as good.

at least to make it a little more fair comparison u coulda used the pic of the 6000k. Comparison? or trying to make a point...

I'm sure other users of this kit with projector set ups would be happy to post pics of cut off line onto a wall.

[VTECACCORD]

point i was trying to make is that you have no cut-off.

Can you still get us some pics of the guts of the ballast. I had seen a pic of the insides of a Hella Gen 3 ballast and wouldn't mind comparing it.

Cheers

[preludacris]

well reflectors always have a way less defined cut off, and that has nothing to do with the quality of the actualy HID kit itself anyway.

i'll try and get a better pic of my lights up against a wall with them aligned properly, but your always gonna get glare from reflectors.

if i got time, i'll take a pic of the insides.

[gxiang]

Here's how you should have made it look.

vtecaccord why you comparing a projector headlight to normal reflectors lol? its like comparing apples with oranges. i hope my projectors dont look like that because the cut off is on the wrong side.

on the sensible side of things, i think preludacris HID are of a higher rating that those displayed in the projector. he cleared stated he wanted a bluer tinge to his old crystal white 6000K. Don't think it looks rice at all.

[Mugen Civic]

Excellent review, I've been thinking of getting HID with my Reflecter headlight housing.

[absolutR]

vtecaccord

if you got the same results from reflector as you do projector, why the **** would anyone spend extra and get projector

gimp

[VTECACCORD]

lol, you guys missed my point, i was being sarcastic. Comparing the two beam patterns.

I would have thought the comment ricerific was a dead guveaway.

[j.meng87]

Great review preludacris. Just wondering if the bulbs have a shield on it to minimise glare? Try using tripod and adjust your camera setting to manual setting. This should give a more accurate comparison between the kelvin range and reduce the bluring.

Vtecaccord are you saying that just because a car have hid with reflectors are rice? If so you might want to know that luxury european and japanese car around the 1998-2001 that came with hid's still use reflector housing. They use D2R bulbs which are design for reflector housing and gives no cut-off also. Now you might want to consider calling people that have hids in reflector housing being rice inappropriate as some cars came with them from factory.

[LiquiDSound]

point i was trying to make is that you have no cut-off.

Can you still get us some pics of the guts of the ballast. I had seen a pic of the insides of a Hella Gen 3 ballast and wouldn't mind comparing it.

Cheers

The point is that you were trying to state the obvious that is not relevant?
Do you know that 4th gens come with reflectors? He did state that..
Also.. do you know that opening the ballast voids manufacturers warranty?
Of course if you purchase, your welcome to open it.. at your expense..

Here is a Picture of [KaiXen 6500k Xenon kit] using projectors, i'm posting with no apparent point aswell...
http://www.geocities.com/liquidsound11/kaixen/cars/6500k/DSC03254.jpg

anyway guys, lets get on with the main topic shall we...