ok, here's the scenario
I ordered new headlights and bulbs from dan (iceshark) and installed them last weekend. I did not order the entire wiring kit so all of my wiring is still stock. the following description will include numbers that will prove to any of you doubters that dan was right in saying that relays should be installed with high wattage bulbs. I will put relays in when i get my PIAA combo driving/fog lights to replace the combo fog/nothing lights that are stock for the 951.

first off, the installation:
this was way easier than i thought it would be. there is one screw that holds on the trim peice that hides all the headlight mounting screws. There are 3 screws that hold a metal ring which clamps the factory sealed beam sylvania headlights in place. so that is a total of 4 screws to remove, then unplug old light, drop in new and replace. my comments: that ring only goes back on one way so if the holes dont line up, start turning it. be careful with the plug that connects to the back of the headlights. mine were quite brittle and suffered a bit of damage.

aiming:
dan gave me the url for an <a href="http://home.att.net/~borrani/articles/tech/aimhigh2.htm" target="_blank">ecode headlight aiming procedure</a> which was pretty straight forward. I found a parking space at work with a line painted right up to a blank wall. Centered the car on the line, drove up to the wall, put a masking tape + right in front of each light, backed up being careful to stay centered on the painted line until the headlights were 25 feet back and then put the ___/ aiming point right on the cross (and yes, my gas tank was almost empty). I know this is a little high, but i think it's ok... see below.

Voltages:
I measured the voltage to my old sealed beam sylvanias before taking them out. Voltage was measured by firmly pressing pointed probes into the solder on the back of the headlight itself, so all possible connection and ground impedances were included--these are the voltages across headlight filaments.

With the engine running, no accessories on and one headlight removed (best possible conditions) the following measurements were made:
voltage across battery terminals: 13.01
hi beam: 12.18 (0.83 drop)
lo beam: 12.49 (0.52 drop)

radio, air con, defroster on, both headlights powered, engine running (maximum electrical load driving conditions)
lo beam and fog light on: 11.19
hi beam: 11.16

moral so far: even with stock wattage bulbs drawing low current, a lot of potential light output is lost due to voltage drops. a direct conection through a relay and perhaps a better ground would increase performance of the stock lights!

and yes, my alternator was putting out full voltage at idle... revving the engine up did not change any of these voltages.

after installing Cibie lights, i made the following measurments across the terminals on the bulbs:
engine running, 2 cibie's with 90/100W bulbs, no electrical accessories:
Battery: 12.66
lo beam: 11.29 (1.38V drop)
lo beam & fog light: 11.1V
hi beam: 11.01 (1.65V drop)

so yes, the increased current draw of the high-wattage bulbs did dramatically increase the losses to supply line resistance... most of that volt and a half would come back with a direct connection i beleive.

It would be cool to see this same comparison done when one of you install dan's relay harness kit. Measure the supply voltage (at alternator or battery) and the bulb voltage and see if the drop is less.

and now for the pictures:


original crappy sealed beam lights that sure sucked a lot


left: a shiny new cibie headligh
right: a filthy old bulb (i wonder how much less these would have sucked if i'd cleaned them?)
rear: the narva 90/100 watt bulb in a box



an empty headlight mount. note the small wiring harness in front. plug the white end onto the headlight, install, then plug the black end into the wiring harness.



aiming the new headlights. note the small masking tape targets on the wall. I aimed the low beams because they had a definate point of reference to aim, but i kept flipping back to the high beams to see where the "bright spot" was and then adjusting the low beams again.


Comparison With Old Headlights
first off i will say that these are like nothing else i have ever seen. my old lights had an unevenly distributed beam pattern, insufficient light output, and a non-optimal intensity distribution. the new low beams are incredible. they are more uniform in distribution than anything else i've ever seen, and the cut off is razor sharp. the high beams are also quite bright and aimed only a little too high relative to the low beams. however there are noticable bright and dim spots in their pattern.

I took some pictures but they aren't that illustrative because my digital camera doesn't do to well in low light and i'm sure it tries to compensate for the light level present, thus hindering it's use as a measurement tool. here are a few of them anyway:

sylvania low beam + fog light:


cibie low beam + fog light:


note the whiter light, wider beam pattern, and less light wasted on the road directly in front of the vehicle.

the similar comparison shot for the high beams didn't really come out as the light was reflected from too far down the road for the camera to capture--both photos are mostly black. however, pictures taken straight on at the high beams show the difference in intensity at least:

sylvania sealed beam:


cibie:


these high beams illuminate signifigantly farther down the road than my old ones did.

a similar set of pictures taken of the low beams illustrate that their superior illumination does not result in any more light incedent on a viewer in the oncoming lane facing my car at a normal height. thus i think that even with my slightly high aiming my low beams are far less obnoxious than any ricy blue HID bulbs in the normal reflectors (like turby's ridiculously expensive setup) or even stock lights on any suv.

in conclusion to this long *** post i would like to give my personal endorsement of this upgrade that cost me $137 (and i haven't even installed the regulator yet!) and took me less time to complete than it did to write this post. if you want quality headlights that are good for driving, (vs blue headlights that make you look cool to other rich fools like yourself) this is the way to go!!!! Thanks Dan!!!

 

it wouldn't let me put any more pix in that post, so here is the completed install, sans the plastic trim peices that i was too lazy to put on last night after aiming:

 

Ben, I also bought the Cibie lights from Dan and installed them. I am embarassed to say I haven't adjusted them yet - got to find a level parking lot. Mine are 55/60watts but even they are noticeably brighter and "cleaner" light.

What relays are you talking sbout installing?

 

i am going to run a power line straight from battery or alternator to a relay which will be controlled by the line that now supplies power to the headlights.

i guess i should also mention that i replaced the headlight fuses (21 through 24 i think) which are normally 7.5 amp, with 15 amp. 100W/12V=8.3A which is a little much for a 7.5 amp fuse.

 

Run the main power-line straight from the alternator. It'll be a shorter run and you won't have the voltage-drop across the battery. The way I'm doing mine is to have that line go from the alternator to the space under the driver-side headlight. I've got three relays mounted there that splits the power. The relays are activated by the stock foglight, headlight low, headlight high-beam power-lines. Then the relay outputs go to the fog-lights, low beams, and high-beams+driving-lights. I took the header panel off to hide the wiring to the passenger-side lights, but you could easily have threaded it above the radiator.

 

Glad you like them Ben. I'll make a couple short comments but got to run so can't really answer everything now.

You are aiming too high, that is what makes you think the high beam is a little too high.

Danno was thinking about going to the battery and apparently I talked him out of that for the reasons he described. You really want to go to alt, too.

Here is a table I just calculated for the low dipped beam lumen (light) output you would expect for each *bulb* at your measured voltages and 13.9, the minimum voltage I would expect with my wiring kit.

Voltage 55watt 90watt

12.49 ... 911
11.29 ............ 999
13.9 .... 1311 ... 2026

On my car I can burn 510 watts of forward lighting and other normal operating draws like radio, etc., and get over 13.9 volts to the bulbs. The bulbs get more than the battery does.

So you can see that with your 90/100 watt bulbs and the voltage drop you are only doing about 10% better than if you had bought good 55/60 bulbs, which would have drawn the same as your sealed beams. A wiring kit makes a big deal! And you have another 100% improvement sitting there.

 

yup. i'm gonna redo the wiring for sure. i am owed a $300 set of piaa combo fog/driving lights which should fit quite nicely in place of my factory fog lights. when i put that in i'll do the relays... or whenever i get around to taking off my intake manifold to get to the alternator and put in that new regulator.

yeah, i left all my targets up on the wall at work so i think i'll be adjusting the beams downward a bit. I found that for a lot of the twisty *** roads around where i live, i actually preferred my low beams for spirited driving--a sure sign the aim is off.

 

How about some photos of the high-beams in action?

 

What's the price of this kit?

 

Leonel, I was selling all sorts of versions, but I'm not sure I'm going to keep doing this.

The Cibie lenses are now $90 a pair without bulbs. I've got a few lenses left but if I get many new orders the later ones might find themselves waiting a month, or so. And I require a $100 deposit, upfront, before you are on the list. This is not a sales gimmick or snob deal; ask some of the guys that waited about 2 months on the last (and first) go around what sort of guy I am.

If you want some sub-standard H4 (what others call standard) bulbs you can have them for $1.50 each. 90/100 watt H4 Phillips/Narva bulbs are for now staying at $10 a copy as are the 30% plus output 55/60 watt Narva Range Power bulbs. I also have some Phillips H3 in both 55w and 100w. Those 100 watt in a driving light would put you up at 3600 lumens at 13.9 volts. That is above or at HID arc lamps. These are all German manufacture.

Then there is the adjustable voltage regulator with brushes. That is $16.50. Set at 14.4v, which you can change, but I would leave it there and be happy with the results.

Finally, there is/was the wiring kit. You can see pictures posted by Strayer when he got it two days ago. Though, I think it is way back in the pages. It is a neat, clean fiberglass, black seized harness that will take 1100F for short bursts. Ribs is going to take pictures, also, but he is also still in class and a computer held up by flood insurance. Both these young college guys are bright and say what they think. We shall see what they have to say with the camera and fingers. A few others are out there also, but ain't so vocal.

I'm not sure what I will do with this, probably stop it. The problem is I did it too first class and it was expensive at $125 to begin with. This is something you would take off for transfer when you got rid of the car. Even if it caught on fire. I doubt it would have totally survived Ian's fire. But one reason I added additional wiring length to accept many vehicles. Hans clued me onto this, as he has done it.

But few are interested at $125. And that is too cheap for me to make any more.I need to push that price up and make thousands at a shot and get some third world labor. Maybe I will just sell the parts for it that you can't get reasonably as an individual and let you spend many hours at 25 cents an hour designing everything, measuring lenghts, eating the screw-us, and basically putting a system in from 1/2 way from scratch.

One doesn't need to take off header skin and route, but there is enought extra slack if you want to. I suggest you just fish pull it throught the bumper along the course the OE harness takes.

Few seem to care though. So, I think I will just sell the key parts and let everyone design and figure it all out for themselves. That is what most seem to want to do.

Regards


P.S. John D., I'm just trying to clear out the board on quality lighting. As you can see, it is not a money deal and I would just like to clear out at this point. LOL! It is a PITA!

 

I'm off the email, again. I suspect MSN.

 

i'm bumping this because danno wanted the pix for his guru web site.

i didn't post the high beam illumination pattern pix before because i thought they were too dark... but i have since realized that my monitor sucks and everything looks all black on it. i can't see much of anything in either of these, but maybe those of you with better monitors can.... let me know.

sealed beam sylvania (oem) high beam pattern:


iceshark's super ill cibie lights that our federal govornment wants to protect us from:


oh yeah, and those voltages in my original post may be accurate in the relative, or comparison, sense, but i would not put too much stock in them in the absolute sense. i realize now that i was probably losing almost a volt between the alternator's ground on the block and the headlight's ground on the chassis. (see my <a href="http://forums.rennlist.com/cgi-bin/rennforums/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=15&t=013694" target="_blank">"bad ground" story</a> if you don't know what i'm talking about).

 

Ben, while the lighting improvement of just the lenses and bulbs in your case is pretty dramatic, you should make it clear that those pictures were without any work on the wiring and alternator. That was just lenses and bulbs.

Now that you have worked on wiring a bit, your lighting has shot up even more. I know that people are getting at least a 450% improvement in lumen output with the light wiring harness and uprated bulbs. Imagine that on top of your initial improvement.

That is why the Full Boat people really WOW out when they see what happened. And call them Iceshark Light Cannons.

 

[quote]Originally posted by bs:
<strong>I did not order the entire wiring kit so all of my wiring is still stock.

i would like to give my personal endorsement of this upgrade that cost me $137 (and i haven't even installed the regulator yet!)

this is the way to go!!!! Thanks Dan!!!</strong><hr></blockquote>

 

Thanks Ben.

Those are pretty good pics! And from someone that has no ax to grind or sell ad space to. :lol:

I would have loved to see how far those lights went out with 14, or so, voltage.