stay6

I want to upgrade my 84 Carrera headlights to the H4. Pelican parts doesn't offer any instruction for this particular year. I'm sure someone out there has done this before. Any help would be appreciated.

911S3.6

Got my H4 upgrade from Steve Weiner@Rennsport Systems. Email: porsche@rennsportsystems.com
He has the Bosch H4s, the relay kit to upgrade to the higher 100w bulbs, and the instructional.

///Nick

Jay H

You can also do an H4 upgrade to the 1986 and prior cars without having to replace the stock trim rings. Hella makes a drop in replacement for the stock sealed beam units. They are about $40 per headlight and require zero modifications to the car. Just pull the trim ring, loosen the chrome ring that holds the sealed beam bulb, remove the wiring harness from the bulb, then drop in the new H4 unit and reassemble. It retains the stock look, but really helps with light output.

Here's a shot of my '84 with the Hella upgrade. Sorry for the poor pic...



Hope this helps,

Jay
90 964, 84 3.2

Edgy01

The move to H4s is one of the smartest upgrades that yo ucan make for that era car. The normal sealed beams are so inadequate,--I only wish I knew about this years earlier.

(1) The H4 headlights have a single H4 bulb which gives you the high beam and low beam light. The electrical connection is straightforward. No adaption needed.

(2) Mounting the H4s can be a little tricky. Just a little. First, you need to make sure that you have a complete H4 set up. That includes the H4 with the normal chrome rings along with the trim rings (one per light). The basic H4 unit hinges sort of at the top and is secured with a very special screw in the same place as that used to secure the crappy USA headlights. The special screw is put in with a medium blade screwdriver, but it has a cavity in the center of it that is threaded to accept the corresponding Phillips screw that then secures the corresponding trim ring. (The trim rings are supposed to be sold with primer on them and then be sent out for paint to match your car).

A Phillips screwdriver is used to secure the now painted trim ring and you're essentially done.

BUT, if you want to do some things while in there...


(1) Ensure that the drain tube in the center bottom of the headlight bucket is even there, and that it is not gummed up with sand, etc. What happens is a bunch of sand can get lodged in there and in no time no water can ever escape. What I did to solve that problem is get a short length of soda straw and cut it to about 1/2 inch in length and shove it in there from above to keep the drain area clear and open. Make sure the top of the straw is down low enough and doesn't impede the drainage of water.

(2) H4s also have another little sort of parking light within the H4 assembly which can be activated on the car by building yourself a small wiring harness that gives you power from your side front parking light (the yellow ones) and a ground and plug that into the small bulb in the H4 assy. Now when you leave your parking lights on one side or the other the corresponding H4 inner bulb lights up! It's very cool,--and just like in Europe!

The nice thing about H4s is that you don't allow water into the headlight buckets anymore. They are sealed up.

Good luck. PM with questions.

Steve Weiner-Rennsport Systems

Nice writeup, Dan.

I would simply add that one needs to make the distinction between installing H-4 headlight replacements such as what Jay did and the Bosch H-4 assemblies made specifically for the 911.

The latter items are the only ones that actually seal the headlight bucket to prevent rust and IMHO, are worth the extra outlay.

Loaded

Jay where do you get those?

Jay H

Got 'em at Performance Products. I bought them with a 10% off coupon so they were about $36 a piece.

I just like 'em because they keep the factory look (admittedly that not everyone likes on the pre '87 cars).

Loaded

found it thanks

stay6

Many thanks to all of you for your assistance and advice. Scott

GothingNC

I have the drop in Hella H-4's and they work pretty well.

The problem I have now is that I want to pull the retaining ring to check for rust and the bottom screw stripped

Any solutions?

Thanks !

John

Jay H

Just to reinforce Steve's post on rust (like he really needs any help from dumb ol' me anyway!!):

When replacing my sealed beam bulbs with the drop in Hellas, the headlight buckets were perfect on my car. My car had been sitting outside for up to 5 years before I bought it.

However, the mounting bracket that holds in the sealed beam bulb (and the new H4 Hella drop ins) was completely rusted away in parts on one side of the car. It was unuseable. Most importantly, the part is no longer available as a new part from Porsche. It's been discontinued. I was lucky to find a NOS unit on eBay for $95. So, be prepared for the unexpected if you disassemble your headlights when doing the H4 drop in.