FiveElements

Wow, this should surpass HID.

yardpro

I have been consideringvthesecfor a while.

In theory these should be able to overcome the biggestvissue with HID. ... Poor cutoff.
Led has very focused beams and should be easier to control.

85euro928

These may be a little too bright. They appear to produce 4 to 5 times as many lumens as a standard 9004 lamp. That being said if someone is using these and they work well let us know.

jcorenman

Oh great, more stunningly-bright LEDs to fit the crappy DOT H5 headlight assemblies. The cutoff problem is the H5 reflectors, not the lamps. Euro lights have a sharp low-beam cutoff, DOT lights are purposely "blurry" and send a lot of light forward and upwards. The glare problem for oncoming drivers is only managed by also fitting wussy bulbs. So:

Step 1: Convert to Euro H4 headlights. Not cheap, but have a wonderful light pattern with a sharp upper cutoff so as to not blind the oncoming driver. It is not good to blind the driver coming at you at a closing speed of (fill in the blank).

Step 2: If you need more brightness then consider LED replacements. More lumens are better, but make sure the geometry matches the H4 lamps and is not a one-size-fits-nothing solution.

Now of course the aesthetics police are going to require that the color temperature of your headlights, fog lights, and aux driving lights all match. And therein lies the problem: finding LED H3s of any decent brightness that will fit into the foglight assemblies. Woodypeck has some nice H3 LED lamps, but only a few hundred lumen-- which doesn't cut it for throwing light down the road.

bureau13

Do the stock fogs really "throw light down the road?" I can barely tell when mine are on (US-model S3 so maybe they got stronger after that?)

davek9

Those LED's have an electric fan to cool them, I'd look for the 5th Generation ones w/ the Copper heat sync's (no moving parts).

I'm really happy w/ the H4's and recently drove to Maryland and back, 8 hrs in the rain at night, no issues.

Dave K

Edit: this pic was before I zip tied the ballast and wires down.

davek9

I found these today, but have not ordered them as yet, they look to be bright at 2500 LM each and the color should match the the ones I'm running in the H4's
So for the H3's they may be the ones I've been waiting for.

edit: I completely agree w/ Jim, the DOT lens (H4 or H5) does scatter the light, so you need to have the real euro H4 lenses, in 7 or 8 inch.

Davis Parker

I've found that generally if you just replace the bulbs and not the entire assembly you generally blind oncoming traffic, even with your low beams. To do it properly it seems you need something like: . Pretty expensive, but it seems it's the only effective way to get LED headlights. Not an expert by any means, just my experience and research results.

-Davis

dr bob

So US S3's have aux lights in the bumper that are, um, a compromise between performance/usefulness and the fact that DOT is focused (sorry) on us having lights that are barely north of candles. The reflectors tarnish and the plastic lenses quickly cloud/fog and scratch, making them the functional equivalent of white parking/marker lamps after only a few years. That was DOT's biggest excuse for requiring sealed-beam headlights for half a century.

The S4+ cars have better lenses, with better but still not ideal reflectors.

Meanwhile, the biggest problem with brightness in the H5's (9004 bulb) has been around trying to get a glowing HID gas cloud in the bulb to exist in the exact same location as the original glowing filament lived. The filament sits horizontal, and is lateral to the car's centerline. The HID glowing gas blob is also horizontal, but is parallel to the car's centerline. In the sort-of-parabolic reflector that the 8" H5 lights have, that gives the scatter and glare that folks complain about.

Fast-forward to the LED arrays. Consider that the light can easily be controlled with separate emitters top and bottom, and the upper (low-beam) emitter can be rotated back at an angle that maintains consistent distance from the reflector surface. The down-facing emitter(s) can be a combination of direct and reflecting mountings, plus high-angle upper elements that provide better low fill when the main (high) beams are selected.

I'm up for better lighting like this, along with the obvious caveat that no retinal cells be sacrificed when I use them. I'm striving to keep the car in perfectly-maintained original condition, so this solution could not involve breaking the existing bulb shields either.

My last drive in the 928 was a late evening cruise west towards Sisters and on a bit towards Eugene and Salem on the other side of the mountains. It was dark, no city-lights glow. The factory-fit H5's are a sorry compromise. Even low-end econoboxes have better lighting. My sketch-pad options include retrofitting HID projectors, but that would also require casting new acrylic lenses and housings to hold everything and still work with the factory buckets and brackets. Obviously the appearance of the forward-facing bits would need work to stay true to the original styling, so no gattling-gun surrounds or halos or other ornaments would be installed.

Of course, the logical extension of all that is the idea of using LED's in the projector instead of the HID bulb. The HID offers some flexibility in that the driver unit doesn't have to sit right on the back of the bulb assembly.

Jhoffmann

I bought these a couple of months ago. Install is extremely easy and 100% reversible. They are extremely bright, but as others have mentioned, the H5 lens pattern is horrible and results in a lot of light not being focused. I have been playing with the bulb placement and adjusting the lamps, but it is nowhere as good as it should be. If I were to do it over again, I'd wait and buy a set of the Euro H4 lights.

Rob Edwards

I'm in. How do we make the 928 equivalent of this happen? Start with an H4 housing, bake at 400 to release the glass lens, then make a mold from the H4 lens. But then who makes the clear acrylic lens?

soontobered84

I thought a local to us(here in DFW) guy was going to make those. He is already making the foglight replacement lens that Roger is selling. Check with Roger to see if the headlight lens are in the future mix.

FiveElements

Dang Dave, your car is clean. Yes the copper cooling ones are the way to go. The fan is going to fail at some point.

davek9

Thank you for the kind complement, and it no wasn't the one I took to do the 530 mile drive all night in the rain two weeks ago

In fact the less it see water the better.

Dave

dr bob

There are some interesting DIY options for making the acrylic lenses, kind of labor-intensive though. The resin needs to be vacuum degassed to completely eliminate clouding and bubbles in the finished product. Then the mold needs to be under slight vacuum to draw the resin into all the cavities. Vacuum in the mold risks possible draw-in of the mold itself when silicone is used for the mold.

The temptation would be to make a mult-cavity mold if more than a few sets would be made.

The surround support for the projector could be made from the same acrylic material, but getting the reflective surface as seen in the Singer photo would be out of reach for DIY I suspect.

The Morimoto projectors come in up to 3.5" diameter. Using one of those and one of the smaller ones in the same housing would give the option for an additional main-beam source, assuming that the larger projector would fit in the top half of the teardrop fairing piece/cover.

Still on the sketchpad...