I'm glad y'all think my lights are good. They definitely don't have the best range, but I didn't think it was because of the HID's. I figured it was the housing itself. That's not why I'm getting the projector lamps though, I just like the look of them.

 

How's the beam pattern? You worried that you'll have alot of scatter?

 

He knows more than I do about "beam patter" and what not, but if you have an opinion I'd love to hear it! This whole thread was about whether or not I could use projector lamps in my '02 Mini.

 

The beam pattern is not great and you can see from the pictures it's bleeding off to the left and the right a lot. He gets a decent amount of light just in front of the car which is okay but makes driving at night a little dangerous. He can't just raise the lights up to see better because that would do 2 things 1) blind everyone up to 500 feet away. 2) really allow the light to scatter even more..

If he were to put in a stock bulb side by side comparison you wouldn't be able to see the stock bulb...but it would allow more usable light.

If you wanted a fair comparison you would need 2 identical minis parked in the exact same spot and put markers in front of the car at varying distances.

What you can tell from the pic though is the beam is throwing good light when things are very close...farther away stuff is not so good. Outside the car it seems like wow those lights are bright and you get a nice blue hue which people love -- but you are actually losing out on sheer ability to see...HIDs work best with projectors.

In the rain at night i remember my GTI being downright not drivable.

The OP would have to comment on his experiences with the light -- I am just commenting on what I went through that led me to ultimately take out the HID kit on my GTI

 

So are you saying it will work better with the projectors?

 

Projectors made for HiD yes.. Halogen projectors on theory should be better than reflectors...one way to find out

 

Well alright then! Thanks!

 

Hey Flipguy -- I have another question for you -- where did you tuck the Ballasts for your Aftermarket HIDs -- do you have a picture of where those are installed? Thanks.

 

I just tucked them on the upper inside of the headlight and tied it down with a zip tie.

 

Cool mate -- thanks for the super fast response... let us know how the projector work comes along.

 

No problem! I definitely will! Thanks for all of your help!

 

Hey all, just thought I'd update you on my new headlights. Very easy installation. The HIDs I had with my previous headlights were an H7 bulb and the new lights were H1s. Haven't had a chance to get the new bulbs put in but I will within the next week. After that I'll take a picture at night to show the beam patterns. I personally feel I have a better field of vision with these new projector lamps. Here is what the headlights look like on my car!

 

Looks good man!! Out of curiosity..what kind of bumper and grille is that?

 

Thanks! I'm not exactly sure. I can definitely find out though!

 

Well I bought the car with all of the upgrades on it so I'm not 100% sure about everything. I'm pretty sure the body kit came from mini madness, but I couldn't find it on their website. I did some searching though and it seems that it is an Orciari body kit.

 

Ah cool..yeah it's a bit wild for my tastes...but it seems to be a pretty popular kit according to how many references there are to it on google. I would shave the little wings off the bottom if it were mine and make it a bit less round somehow but then you are talking lots of time fabricating.

Seems to look a lot better in some colors vs others

 

Yeah I agree. Like I said, it was on there before I bought it, but it was a deal I couldn't pass up. If it were up to me I would have gone a different way with the body kit. Something less flashy.

 

Here is what the lights look like!

 

And up against the garage.