NARVA 225 HID driving lights

WORDS AND PHOTOS BY MARK ALLEN



INTO THE FUTURE


With NARVA HID lights, the future is very bright.

It was a hard ask to dish out the extra bucks at the time of fitting a set of NARVA 225 HID lights compared to the halogen equivalents. That was five years ago, but boy am I glad I did! Doing a lot of long distance (both dirt and bitumen) driving is much easier and safer with decent lighting and has saved my bacon more than once.

The light kit included a wiring loom with switchable negative-to-positive wiring box – a great help for us DIYer’s. Also included are bulbs, lens protectors, switch, relay and all connectors to complete the job. Not being a fine connoisseur of electrical do-dads, it’s always with a little trepidation that these tasks are started. Shouldn’t have worried though! By following the instructions, the DIY wiring loom really is DIY – no red-faced phone calls to the local sparkies to finish the job off.

The lights themselves utilise the rotary cup mounting-method which proved easy to fit and align, especially with the in-built spacers that allow for different fitting heights – nice touch!

Yep, there is a bit of full intensity light delay when the lights are first flicked on, but subsequent usage is almost instant.

Yep, they do blind the driver (that’s me) when they reflect off those huge green roadside signs and yep, they do need to be dipped a little earlier than lessor lights so as not to blind oncoming traffic. 

Yep, they are a bloody brilliant light in real use. The light emitted from these HID 225’s is incredible when compared to any halogen light. Some say it’s more like daylight, some say it’s kinder to the eyes, while others just say “holy sh#t – those things are unreal”.

I say the latter!

With such a bright and concentrated spot beam, slight vertical adjustment is sometimes needed depending on how much weight we are carting in the back of the big Cruiser – camping gear goes in, bum goes down, light points up too high. The reverse applies when we get back from a trip – the lights end up pointing slightly too low. Perhaps we should just leave all that camping gear in full time huh?

The spot (or pencil) beam throws its light well beyond realistic usable limits, while the free form reflector of the broad (or spread) beam splashes reasonable amounts of light onto both sides of the road – a good combination, but not totally perfect for me. Now, this is where I’m always on the hunt for more light out the sides, so stay tuned for what we’ve bolted onto the front bar to help with the already brilliant NARVA 225’s – it’ll blow ya mind with light output!

Now, with regards pricing, my old kit is a 35 watter, but most kits sold these days are hitting the 50 watt mark. The latest NARVA 50 watt HID kit has a RRP$995.00.