9zwei8

https://vintagecarleds.com/shop/7-in...0-classic-kit/


Curious. Has anyone tried this LED option before? I apologize in advance if this was posted prior.

Keith Coe

I just wish someone would come out with an option for the newer cars. Without trim rings nothing works to upgrade my 88.

davek9

OP I would not use them, the lenses are not H4, and with LED the light spread will be all over the place blinding other drivers!

Also that is a lot of shekels for DOT lenses and LED's, you can get a nice pair of LED's for 70 bucks, and two 7" H4 "off-road" lenses for ~ 50 bucks (they come with standard lamps too)..
All plug and play

Dave K

Mrspencer

I have Cree Leds in my 85 awesome upgrade brighter more light down the road safer.

davek9

Yes the newer CREE's LED are great, but only when used with H4 lenses, either 7" H4 or the stock Euro 8" H4, the old DOT type lenses are not H4.

Adam928sInNYC

Adam928sInNYC

Alan

There is a very good option but it's not cheap. Buy 8" H4 lamps, H4 LED bulbs and Ed Scherer's H4 sealing caps.

Ed may be doing another run of the caps soon.

There are no good options if you stick with H5 lamps (a totally compromised lighting choice made to satisfy the quite stupid USA DOT regulations - the 928 wasn't supposed to have lighting that bad).

Alan

The Forgotten On

H5 lights are still better than the sealed beam lights all 86 and back US 928s came with by far.

Alan

Both DOT options installed on USA cars were poor - but the 8" are indeed better. Either ROW option e.g. 7" or 8" H4's are functionally much better - with 8" H4s the best option. Having a well defined horizontal cutoff allows brighter bulbs to be actually useful without compromising visibility for others

Alan

ALKada

Alan

No - that's not really how it works. I understand that the lenses Roger sells are designed to replace broken H4 lenses. If you mount one on an H5 lamp you have a funny hybrid thing. Since the reflector & bulb (shield and filament location & orientation) are still from an H5 set up you will not get the correct focus of an H4 lamp assembly. I don't think anyone should assume this will work well except as a way to resurrect H4 lamps with broken lenses.

Alan

jcorenman

This, +928 ... Any traditional (e.g. 928-era) DOT-approved light fixture has a poorly-defined upper cutoff for the low beams. Urban legend says that this was deliberate, to spray light onto otherwise-unlit overhead signs. Personally I think that is probably nonsense, they were most likely crappy by design. But whatever, the fact that they don't cause any more glare to oncoming traffic is a fortunate result of equally-crappy lamps. With pathetically-weak numbers of lumens, it didn't matter how where you sprayed them, the glare was minimal.

Now take the same DOT-approved crappy fixture and put in a brighter lamp and you will certainly see better, but the glare you are creating for oncoming drivers also goes up exponentially. Which is better: Hitting the deer at 50 mph or hitting the oncoming car at a closing speed of 100 mph, drifting into your lane towards the bright lights? (Hint: Deer are stupid, they freeze for bright shiny things. People are smart, they steer towards bright shiny things).

A choice: Stick with DOT lights (and bulbs) and be happy. Or, upgrade.

If you chose the upgrade path then step one is to get decent light fixtures. The good news is that H4's are still available for 928s from Porsche, cost is not an issue. Marvel at the sharp upper cutoff for low-beams, and their ability to throw light down the road with high beams. Then get brighter lamps, up to 80w is OK with stock wiring. Then add relays and serious (off-road) lamps, or proper LEDs, adjusters if you want to get serious, and light up the night.

A tip for those in deer country, from my uncle who lived in Idaho and did a lot of night driving: Deer freeze in the headlight glare, so if you see a deer then turn off your headlights.

JPTL

Although I can't comment on the LED 9004 bulbs available from our 928-specific vendors, I can certainly vouch for the results from "upgrading" the stock halogens to brighter HID's in 8" H5 lenses (the factory fixtures in '87 - '95 US cars). It's a bad choice. Don't do it...unless you're in a area where you never meet oncoming cars at night.
Putting the brighter, more powerful HIDs in the crappy H5 lenses without re-aiming, results in really bright light. At first you say "Wow I can see everything!". And you can. It's a flood of light that illuminates everything in front of you, on the ground, up in the trees and down the road. It's light that bounces off of reflective signs to the point where it's hard to see around them or past them. That should tell you that it's also light that blinds oncoming drivers, young and old.
So you think that a re-aiming of your new HID conversion will solve the issue of blinding oncoming drivers.
It will.
You re-aim the lights to the point where they're pointing so far downward that oncoming drivers are no longer blinded. But now you can only see about 50 feet in front of you. And you now have a pair of the brightest driving lights in the state. And you no longer have headlights.
Anyone have a pair of 8" H4s sitting around collecting dust?

JPTL

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?