LED Headlights
#16
Burning Brakes
+1 (again) on converting to H4 headlights, preferably the proper 8" ones. I think that was THE first thing I did when I purchased my '83 way back in '87 lol! I ran the 55/60W halogen bulbs forever and recently upgraded to LED's with Ed Scherer's caps. FINALLY, this is really what the H4's were MEANT TO BE!!!
Here's all the info you need: https://rennlist.com/forums/928-foru...id-or-led.html
Now, all we need is the proper 5000 Kelvin LED bulbs for the driving aka fog lights... sigh... AFAIK no proper bulbs available yet the bulbs on the market are apparently too long... I'm still running the halogen bulbs there and they do provide good light but they look so yellow compared to the headlights!
Good luck!
Rick
Here's all the info you need: https://rennlist.com/forums/928-foru...id-or-led.html
Now, all we need is the proper 5000 Kelvin LED bulbs for the driving aka fog lights... sigh... AFAIK no proper bulbs available yet the bulbs on the market are apparently too long... I'm still running the halogen bulbs there and they do provide good light but they look so yellow compared to the headlights!
Good luck!
Rick
#17
Rennlist Member
#18
Cottage Industry Sponsor
Lifetime Rennlist
Member
Lifetime Rennlist
Member
There was a bulb upgrade test done by a very reputable German magazine not too long ago. They tested a variety of H-4 bulbs, and and H-4 LED that is illegal in Germany.
First: The LED was by far the best. It was the , which you can buy for about $180/pair.
On the opposite end of the price spectrum, the did really well, with a low price and good longevity.
There were other good ones, but most of them didn't last very long.
First: The LED was by far the best. It was the , which you can buy for about $180/pair.
On the opposite end of the price spectrum, the did really well, with a low price and good longevity.
There were other good ones, but most of them didn't last very long.
#19
Electron Wrangler
Lifetime Rennlist
Member
Lifetime Rennlist
Member
I'm now realizing that my HID post above has taken this thread off topic a bit. Sorry about that. The OP was LED Headlghts. Is the consensus that an LED 9004 bulb upgrade for the H5 that retains the high & low beam operation still results in a flood of unfocused light that blinds oncoming drivers - even when properly adjusted and on low beam?
A 928 was never expected to have such crappy lights - as designed it used the 8" H4's in virtually the whole of the rest of the world bar the USA. The compromises to legally sell it in the USA required a huge downgrade to the lighting to meet stupid DOT regulations that made absolutely no sense. The H4 lamps are better functionally in every single way than those DOT mandated "equivalents" - better for a driver driving fast (or slow), AND better for every other road user too (they look better too!).
These days European (eCode) pattern lamps are accepted on new cars - But the DOT hasn't learned that much - they allowed automatic front only lighting so people can drive around at night oblivious to having no rear lights at all! (these are really very stupid regulators...).
Alan
#20
Rennlist Member
#21
Administrator - "Tyson"
Lifetime Rennlist
Member
Lifetime Rennlist
Member
These days European (eCode) pattern lamps are accepted on new cars - But the DOT hasn't learned that much - they allowed automatic front only lighting so people can drive around at night oblivious to having no rear lights at all! (these are really very stupid regulators...).
https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cul...eadlight-tech/
DOT in the Dark: American headlight regs are dimwitted
While the agency delays life-saving technology, it allows automakers to sell cars that drive around in the dark. And that doesn't seem bright at all.
Have you noticed the startling number of cars driving without their lights on recently? I have, and it's pretty scary. About half of all road fatalities occur in the dark, even though we log only a quarter of our miles after sunset. Imagine how much worse those numbers would be if more cars drove without their lights on.
It's easy to blame the drivers, as I did. But, while behind the wheel of a 2014 Lexus ES350 one night, I became someone to blame. I commented that the headlights were weak, with a harsh white color temperature and a beam pattern that more closely resembled a fog light. My passengers agreed. It wasn't until we saw our refection in a store window that we realized the headlights were off. The harsh light was coming from the LED daytime running lights. The rest of the car was dark—no taillights, no license-plate lights, no side markers. Yet the gauge cluster and center stack were illuminated, so we know the car was smart enough to recognize it was dark out, yet not bright enough to turn its headlights on. The only indication the ES350 was a Lexus Invisibilius was a missing green indicator light on the cluster.
In the past, dash lights didn't come on until you turned on the headlights. Those days, even drunk people remembered to turn on their headlights—so they could find the cigarette lighter. Now, even sober drivers routinely forget. Since my Lexus incident, I've been paying attention to lightless cars on the road, and almost every time, the driver is drenched in the glow of an instrument cluster.
Cars with backlit or LCD-screen gauges that are always illuminated should be required to have automatic headlights. As we meander toward the autonomous car, we're sometimes in control of our cars and sometimes not—which is why now, more than ever, we need idiotproof solutions. This is where the government should step in: To prevent drivers from inadvertently risking injury or death in near-lightless Lexuses, and everything else. Yet there is no law on this matter. The last time something big happened in automotive lighting, it took our government decades to react.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, is the part of the Department of Transportation that writes and enforces rules on vehicle safety, including lighting. When the U.S. government mandated the sealed-beam headlamp in 1940, it seemingly decreed the headlight done, perfect, and never to be improved upon. The rest of the world, meanwhile, was soon using vastly superior lighting technology. (Remember when you swapped out your pathetic sealed-beams for bright "Euro" H4s?) The U.S. government essentially ignored new lighting technology until 1983, when Ford submitted an ingenious petition for a lighting upgrade on the basis of fuel economy. The argument was that free-form "aero" headights would help achieve better fuel mileage than fat, sealed-beam units. NHTSA listened, but probably only because it's responsible for fuel-economy standards, too. The 1984 Lincoln Mark VII was the first to receive aero lights. It managed a whopping 20 mpg on the highway, but at least its drivers could see at night.
That was 32 years ago, and the government is again hindering progress on lighting. The rest of the world is being offered adaptive driving beams, or ADBs. These are headlights constructed from a matrix of individually dimmable LEDs, each aimed in a different direction. Using a forward-facing camera, the system can recognize oncoming cars or reflective signs and selectively dim or turn off the LEDs to limit glare. Driving with ADBs is like having your high beams on at all times, except without blinding other drivers. Audi is one of the leaders in ADBs. Its most advanced matrix uses 25 LEDs per headlight and can track up to eight objects simultaneously. It'll only get better as the number of LED segments increases; the next-generation system will use more than 150 of them. Next up? Laser headlights that use digital light processing micromirrors to create 400,000 independently controllable dots of light.
Too bad ADBs are illegal here: DOT rules permit a low beam, a high beam, and nothing in between. Two years ago, Toyota petitioned to allow ADBs. Audi joined in, along with archrivals BMW and Mercedes. "This isn't about competition," says Wolfgang Huhn, Audi's director of lighting development. "It benefits everyone."
THE LAST TIME SOMETHING BIG HAPPENED IN LIGHTING, IT TOOK OUR GOVERNMENT DECADES TO REACT.
NHTSA agrees, calling the ability to see properly at night "a key element of highway safety for all drivers." The agency is currently researching how glare affects motorists who encounter ADB-equipped vehicles. Couldn't it just look to European standards—as it should have back in the sealed-beam days? Apparently not. "The European standard utilizes a series of subjective tests that rely on the opinion of a test driver," NHTSA said in a statement. "This approach does not meet the requirements for NHTSA to adopt practicable performance requirements in an objective way that manufacturers can utilize in self-certifcation of their vehicles."
In other words, NHTSA wants to boil down this technology to easily reproducible, standardized tests that carmakers can conduct in a laboratory. What the agency should do instead is perform exhaustive, detailed, real-world tests of individual ADB systems.
Either way, NHTSA should get moving. Not only is the agency delaying potentially life-saving safety technology, it's also allowing automakers to sell cars that drive around in the dark. And that doesn't seem bright at all.
While the agency delays life-saving technology, it allows automakers to sell cars that drive around in the dark. And that doesn't seem bright at all.
Have you noticed the startling number of cars driving without their lights on recently? I have, and it's pretty scary. About half of all road fatalities occur in the dark, even though we log only a quarter of our miles after sunset. Imagine how much worse those numbers would be if more cars drove without their lights on.
It's easy to blame the drivers, as I did. But, while behind the wheel of a 2014 Lexus ES350 one night, I became someone to blame. I commented that the headlights were weak, with a harsh white color temperature and a beam pattern that more closely resembled a fog light. My passengers agreed. It wasn't until we saw our refection in a store window that we realized the headlights were off. The harsh light was coming from the LED daytime running lights. The rest of the car was dark—no taillights, no license-plate lights, no side markers. Yet the gauge cluster and center stack were illuminated, so we know the car was smart enough to recognize it was dark out, yet not bright enough to turn its headlights on. The only indication the ES350 was a Lexus Invisibilius was a missing green indicator light on the cluster.
In the past, dash lights didn't come on until you turned on the headlights. Those days, even drunk people remembered to turn on their headlights—so they could find the cigarette lighter. Now, even sober drivers routinely forget. Since my Lexus incident, I've been paying attention to lightless cars on the road, and almost every time, the driver is drenched in the glow of an instrument cluster.
Cars with backlit or LCD-screen gauges that are always illuminated should be required to have automatic headlights. As we meander toward the autonomous car, we're sometimes in control of our cars and sometimes not—which is why now, more than ever, we need idiotproof solutions. This is where the government should step in: To prevent drivers from inadvertently risking injury or death in near-lightless Lexuses, and everything else. Yet there is no law on this matter. The last time something big happened in automotive lighting, it took our government decades to react.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, is the part of the Department of Transportation that writes and enforces rules on vehicle safety, including lighting. When the U.S. government mandated the sealed-beam headlamp in 1940, it seemingly decreed the headlight done, perfect, and never to be improved upon. The rest of the world, meanwhile, was soon using vastly superior lighting technology. (Remember when you swapped out your pathetic sealed-beams for bright "Euro" H4s?) The U.S. government essentially ignored new lighting technology until 1983, when Ford submitted an ingenious petition for a lighting upgrade on the basis of fuel economy. The argument was that free-form "aero" headights would help achieve better fuel mileage than fat, sealed-beam units. NHTSA listened, but probably only because it's responsible for fuel-economy standards, too. The 1984 Lincoln Mark VII was the first to receive aero lights. It managed a whopping 20 mpg on the highway, but at least its drivers could see at night.
That was 32 years ago, and the government is again hindering progress on lighting. The rest of the world is being offered adaptive driving beams, or ADBs. These are headlights constructed from a matrix of individually dimmable LEDs, each aimed in a different direction. Using a forward-facing camera, the system can recognize oncoming cars or reflective signs and selectively dim or turn off the LEDs to limit glare. Driving with ADBs is like having your high beams on at all times, except without blinding other drivers. Audi is one of the leaders in ADBs. Its most advanced matrix uses 25 LEDs per headlight and can track up to eight objects simultaneously. It'll only get better as the number of LED segments increases; the next-generation system will use more than 150 of them. Next up? Laser headlights that use digital light processing micromirrors to create 400,000 independently controllable dots of light.
Too bad ADBs are illegal here: DOT rules permit a low beam, a high beam, and nothing in between. Two years ago, Toyota petitioned to allow ADBs. Audi joined in, along with archrivals BMW and Mercedes. "This isn't about competition," says Wolfgang Huhn, Audi's director of lighting development. "It benefits everyone."
THE LAST TIME SOMETHING BIG HAPPENED IN LIGHTING, IT TOOK OUR GOVERNMENT DECADES TO REACT.
NHTSA agrees, calling the ability to see properly at night "a key element of highway safety for all drivers." The agency is currently researching how glare affects motorists who encounter ADB-equipped vehicles. Couldn't it just look to European standards—as it should have back in the sealed-beam days? Apparently not. "The European standard utilizes a series of subjective tests that rely on the opinion of a test driver," NHTSA said in a statement. "This approach does not meet the requirements for NHTSA to adopt practicable performance requirements in an objective way that manufacturers can utilize in self-certifcation of their vehicles."
In other words, NHTSA wants to boil down this technology to easily reproducible, standardized tests that carmakers can conduct in a laboratory. What the agency should do instead is perform exhaustive, detailed, real-world tests of individual ADB systems.
Either way, NHTSA should get moving. Not only is the agency delaying potentially life-saving safety technology, it's also allowing automakers to sell cars that drive around in the dark. And that doesn't seem bright at all.
#22
Rennlist Member
#23
Rennlist Member
What I meant when I said "lens" conversion (to differentiate between "bulb" conversion) is the headlight fixture.
I believe that the old BMW R series bikes from the late 70s to mid 80s had 8" H4 headlights, if that's even the case, being a solo headlight, there was no left and right lens.
I believe that the old BMW R series bikes from the late 70s to mid 80s had 8" H4 headlights, if that's even the case, being a solo headlight, there was no left and right lens.
#24
Drifting
I'm guessing Roger probably has them, if not... try Porsche Dealer:
https://www.sunsetporscheparts.com/o...mp-92863110103
Google 92863110103
or
928-631-101-03 bosch
https://www.sunsetporscheparts.com/o...mp-92863110103
Google 92863110103
or
928-631-101-03 bosch
#26
Rennlist Member
Wow. $800 for a pair of headlights. I'm all over it!
I'm starting to think that the solution to this is limiting my driving to the daytime.
I'm starting to think that the solution to this is limiting my driving to the daytime.
#27
Electron Wrangler
Lifetime Rennlist
Member
Lifetime Rennlist
Member
What I meant when I said "lens" conversion (to differentiate between "bulb" conversion) is the headlight fixture.
I believe that the old BMW R series bikes from the late 70s to mid 80s had 8" H4 headlights, if that's even the case, being a solo headlight, there was no left and right lens.
I believe that the old BMW R series bikes from the late 70s to mid 80s had 8" H4 headlights, if that's even the case, being a solo headlight, there was no left and right lens.
Alan
#29
Rennlist Member
The LED's will most likely work OK, they look similar to the ones superbrightleds sells and I have used.
The H4 LED's by Broview are brighter and priced the same approx 70 buck a pair.
However the Headlight housings you selected and not H4 lenses and the light pattern won't be correct or very good.
Don't confuse the term "H4" with lamp/bulb mounting and connection type and the "H4 actual lens" of the headlight.
True H4 lenses have a half of bow-tie to one side., like these.
Note: all the pic's in these adds are not accurate of what you get and have been mixed with standard DOT versions, you want the ones that state "Off Road Use", I have purchased through Summit and over Amazon and received what I wanted "Real Hella H4 lenses".
The H4 LED's by Broview are brighter and priced the same approx 70 buck a pair.
However the Headlight housings you selected and not H4 lenses and the light pattern won't be correct or very good.
Don't confuse the term "H4" with lamp/bulb mounting and connection type and the "H4 actual lens" of the headlight.
True H4 lenses have a half of bow-tie to one side., like these.
Note: all the pic's in these adds are not accurate of what you get and have been mixed with standard DOT versions, you want the ones that state "Off Road Use", I have purchased through Summit and over Amazon and received what I wanted "Real Hella H4 lenses".
https://www.amazon.com/HELLA-002395991-Type-Single-Headlamp/dp/B0002M9QJM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1521652998&sr=8-2&keywords=hella+h4+headlights
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/h...5301/overview/
Last edited by davek9; 03-21-2018 at 06:59 PM.
#30
Instructor
Beamtech H4 Leds for under $40
My 1986 Porsche 928 has the 8" inch H4 headlights so I installed the Beamtech H4 LEDs which you can find them from $30-$39 on eBay and Amazon. Amazon's best seller with great reviews. I don't drive in dark areas so it's bright enough and about 1.5 brighter and whiter than the halogen with a 3 year warranty. I had some leftover under hood heat shied. from Home depot which I modified and used for the dust cap. You just cut a round piece and punch a hole in the center. Plug-n play.
Spoiler
Last edited by NIACAL4NIA; 03-10-2020 at 06:50 PM. Reason: Adding more info