Airflite40

Hey all, I just got my headlights that I am gonna use, they are Hella H4 E-code headlights.

http://www.amazon.com/Hella-165mm-Re...8&s=automotive

I got a headlight harness kit from Rennbay and I would like to use 80/100 H4 bulbs.

Whenever I search for ones to buy, I see a bunch of xenon, halogen, HID look bla bla bla....

I don't know what any of that means, I just want regular H4 bulbs, 80/100 that are plain old white light.

What bulb should I get? I don't want the lights to look yellow or purple or blue.

Just white....

DDP

I don't remember exaclty what bulbs I ordered but I got mine from rennbay, why not check there?

Rally Guy

All you'll ever need to (and should!) know...

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/

But especially (please!) read this part, if nothing else...

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/t...lbs/bulbs.html

This is a total pet peeve of mine and a matter of public safety (plus putting lame *** poor performance lighting on a high performace car is just wrong...) so the gist of it is...

Informal tests by the US Department of Transportation's Office of Crash Avoidance Standards found that a standard-wattage 9004-type blue headlamp bulb reduced the road lighting ability of a standard headlamp by 67%, and increased glare for oncoming and preceeding traffic by 33%. This apparent contradiction arises because of the way the human eye handles light of different colors. The short-wavelength colors (blue, indigo and violet) are very difficult for our eyes to process and focus on.

But much more info and GOOD bulb recommendations are on that site.


RK

Techno Duck

The 100w Narva bulbs were what i was using and you can get them through DanielSternLighting. They were super bright with IceShark's headlight cables, however they blew out often, every 6-8 months atleast one of them needed to get changed with the 2nd one going out a month or so afterwards. I do a fair amount of night driving though.

I switched to regular Sylvania X-Tra vision 55w bulbs. Honestly i cant see much of a difference in light output! They are still super bright, i guess thats what happens when you have almost no voltage drop! Im on 8 months with these bulbs and i have a feeling they will last a lot longer than the 100w Narva bulbs.

Tom R.

hey, that reminds me, where are the e codes i ordered from travis when he had that blowout sale.

for normal mountain driving i had e codes with 55/60 watt bulbs in a number of RX7s and one of my S2, and was never disappointed.

Travis - sflraver

Hey Tom,

I was wandering about that myself. I have your order sitting in the waiting for payment stack. You picked as payment method "check or money order."

I need to just pull that payment method from the site. I have only had one person ever use it and the only other times it gets picked by mistake. If you intended to pay with a CC and the Check/MO was selected by mistake let me know and I can get you setup.

--------------------------------------------

Back on topic.

The heavy blue tinted bulbs are not the best choice, you are correct. They reduce visible light and tend to blind oncoming traffic at higher wattages. If you look at our Xenon Bulbs, they do have a slight tint to them but they shine perfectly white. They are the lightest tint Xenon that Hella makes. So much so that the 60/55w versions are DOT legal in all 50 states.
My personal favorite bulbs are the 130/90w yellow stars when combined with the E codes. The slight yellow (barely noticeable) tint to them actually increases visibility in rainy and fogy conditions. They offer a 90w low beam which lights up the road but doesn't blind anyone coming at you when housed in the E codes. The 130w high beam on the other hand will show you over a mile of road and will make anything looking at them sorry they opened their eyes. Best of both worlds.
If you are looking for a standard wattage Halogen bulb that offers a little more kick you can get the 60/55w in +10%, +15% and +30% configurations. This offers more light with the same wattage but drastically decreases bulb life. We do not carry those but they are offered on the site listed a few posts up.

Tom R.

Travis
the additional info you may need is xxx.

Thought I checked CC. if you need more info PM me and I will call you if you want.

Thanks, ooops.

Sythik

Im very satisfied with the 80/100w Xenon bulbs Travis sells. They are bright crisp white lights.

yellowline

I installed SilverStars in my E-codes. Very happy, and they're brighter than the lights on a couple of modern cars, even though the car sits that much lower and can't project as well. I've lined up a couple of cars side by side at night on my road. The light is fine in moderate rain and fog- haven't had any truly bad weather yet.

I also run the Rennbay relay harness, but don't see a need for higher wattage. Very happy with the SilverStars.

Wipeout

Along these lines (excuse the potential threadjack)...I don't have an upgraded harness/relay. Recommendations? I might switch from my HELLA DOT lenses at some point, but figure I should do upgraded cabling since I know that's where you have power dropoff and therefore dimmer light. I'd like it if my fogs were brighter than they currently are, and this would probably do a little to fix that, too, right?

76 911s

I upraded my wiring in the end of August after getting Hella lenses, then switching to Cibies. At the time, I was running GE Nighthawk 55/60w bulbs(before and after wiring upgrade). The difference was unbelievable. I eventually switched to Hella 80/100w bulbs. They were more yellow than the GE's, but light output was definitely increased. When I passed cars on the highway, it looked like they were driving without lights, compared to the huge patch of light in front of my car. I wanted to try Osram Hyper 80/85w's, but never got around to it. Based on availability and cost, the Hella 80/100w's are probably your best bet.

Another thing to think about is how different bulbs in the same lenses give different patterns. The GE's in the Cibies produced a narrower lowbeam compared to the Hella bulbs in the Cibies. On high beam, the GE's produced a more concentrated/centralized beam whereas the Hella bulbs produced a much wider beam. I preferred this; I live on Highway 99 between Vancouver and Whistler and the wider beam gave me the ability to see animals on the side of the road.

Wipeout, go for ecode lenses before upgrading the wiring. You'll notice a huge improvement over DOT sealed beams. I wouldn't bother with the Hella DOT version. Also, if you like doing things yourself, you can make the wiring harness like I did. It was way cheaper for me than ordering the Rennbay kit, and I made it more sturdy by using heavier(10ga) wire. Just make sure you get Hella relays for reliability.

I just took the wiring out of my car as it has just gone to Porsche heaven, so if anyone wants pictures or an explanation of how to make the harness, let me know. Its a little ugly now as it took alot of pulling to get it out of the twisted sheetmetal, but its still good. Its more or less the same as the rennbay kit, just beefier.

Wipeout

76 911s, I already have the Hella VisionPlus (DOTs). So I would think that the best step in that case would be to go to a relay, then someday go eCodes (which is what I should have done, if I'd read here and other places first). I know that I can give the VisionPlus ones to my brother for his 85.5 (which still has sealed beams). the Hella DOT lenses were night and day over the sealed beams but the more I look and the more I read, the more I wish I'd gone eCode originally. Oops!