HID and Smoked Headlights

Alright people could use some opinions here! Im thinking of installing HIDs but also thinking bout smoking the headlights. Any preference on whether they need to be smoked or not? Brand? Anything?

 

why not just do the BHLM on them, i have HID's in mine with the BHLM and it looks great. just gotta get over the fact of putting your headlights in the oven is all

 

^^
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Smoking them just lowers your light output

 

just get a good set of HID's to make the finsh product look clean.

 

Depends if he's doing a retrofit HID setup or drop in kit. You can have zebra striped stock reflectors and not effect your light output (as long as the projector lens goes untouched.)

 

He was talking about smoking the lens...

 

Where did he say lens?

 

No, I think Kona was talking about the lens. Smoking the lens would lower your light output.

 

I don't know what I want. I had to look up what BHLM was. Still unsure exactly. Is it just removing the lens and painting the inside black? I saw someone took the lens off cu out a circle and inserted a protection lens. Looks and sounds difficult but has potential to be rare and sick. I'm not sure which path to follow yet.

 

This has pics of the insides painted black - from certain angles it appears the whole headlight unit may be darker (like the lens itself was tinted):
**PLEASE NOTE as stated above in this thread that the should main reflector should not be painted**
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/lighting/2327-blacking-out-headlights-how.html#post17907

This is a set of lights for sale that the entire inside of the light (reflector too) was painted black and he retrofitted projectors inside the main reflector bowl to have a real HID cutoff beam. Ant also posts his build thread link in here as well so you can read through that to see what a retrofit entails. Also note, the lens cover of his light was not touched:
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-tacoma-marketplace/180305-fs-fx-r-retro.html

One more thing, I apologize if I came off like an ass earlier in this thread - I just want to make sure people understand information about modifying lights and what can/can't effect light output. I have friends that just buy $80 HID drop-in kits and blind the crap out of everyone else on the road without understanding it.