I have the standard 7inch sealed headlights in my 80 928 right now. I have been doing some searching here on rennlist to see what would be the better way to go between HID or 80/100w halogens. I wasn't able to find anything recent on HID for these cars. Is it worth it to goto HID? What is the best way to go to upgrade my car? I do alot of highway driving so I need something that is really bright so I can see deer and other animals at night from a distance away.

 

The H-4 8 inch Euro light is the way to go. It has the best pattern projects the beam farther. It is as though the Germans thought that you might actually drive 140 MPH on the autobahn at night

 

It's not the ones far away that scare me...

 

I'd like to see someone combine an H-4 lens with an HID kit. That beam would likely burn the deer out of you path .

 

Next to the 8” H4, the 7” H4 kits are the best bang for the buck. They are almost as good as the 8” units but at a fraction of the price. However it will retain the original chrome rings but the reflectors are almost totally flat (unlike the parabolic shape of the sealed beam units).

 

You can also do a bit of rewiring to power the headlights from the jump start post via a couple fuses and relays for a more direct shorter connection for less voltage drop to the lights. Converting the in the bumper lights to actual Eurpean Driving lights also increasers the illumination but requires all 4 lights and the black frames be changes. As mentioned the 7 inch H-4s are a big impovement over the 7 inch sealed beams.

 

Ed Scherer did combine H4's and Bi-Xenon HID's - however though he was very happy with the low beam - he reported that the high beam was not much better than low beam.

I do believe that due to the optics you will end up optimizing for low beam at the expense of high beam - Ed also did report that the low beam horizontal cutoff was not quite as well defined with the HID's...

Bottom line is that if high beam is really important you can't really get better than 8" H4's with uprated bulbs - if well adjusted these will be bright & well focussed on both high & low beam but will not be distracting to other motorists due to the excellent cutoff.

This is what I have with 80/100W bulbs, remote adjusters and HID's in the front fogs. The lighting is quite superb. The fog HID's add good close-up fill lighting and nice wide beam coverage to the sides. I have it configured so the fog stay on in high beam mode - so add dual aux driving lights on high beam (don't forget these and getting them well focussed - some run 100W H3 bulbs there). However HID's in the aux high beams suffer from turn on delay issues - so I wouldn't do that.

Alan

 

I have 8" H4s on my car and, as Jim indicated, they are excellent. They will fit the early housing sans the chrome trim ring and update the look of the headlamps as well as the functionality. Bought new, they are expensive at about $275 each - but that is the same or less than the much less effective 8" DOT-approved H5 usually found on US cars. I run 80/100, which I find significantly better than 55/80 stock wattage and to put no strain on the stock wiring.

There are some very inexpensive 7" H4 halogen kits made by Hella and others that should be a direct drop-in for your sealed beams, retaining the trim ring. Here's one link from a Google of Hella 7" H4:

http://store.classicgarage.com/he-70476b.html

People who have the 7" H4 should comment. I don't know how effective they are, but I suspect they would be a nice improvement over the sealed beams, and you could go 80/100, which I have been running for 6 years.

You can't go directly from sealed beams to HID. You would need new reflectors to house the HID bulb - basically a different 928 bulb/lamp system to start with. And there are no 928 HID-specific reflectors. However, there are MANY aftermarket HID kits that are intended to replace the H4 bulb with a HID bulb remounted in an H4-base, but since the H4 reflector was not designed with HID in mind, they are only partially successful, and because there is no real standard for doing this, the results are unpredictable depending on how the bulb is mounted. Also, most of these kits just provide a low beam HID bulb. If you want hi/lo, it gets very messy. There are a number of ways this is attempted, and I don't believe any of them actually work well. There are even kits that are based on H5 bulb bases, which to me is a completely ridiculous idea. The very diffuse H5 light projection pattern when paired with a bright HID bulb will just annoy/blind oncoming drivers.

 

Get in touch with Daniel Stern at http://www.danielsternlighting.com/ - he has an incredible amount of information on lighting options and provided me with a ton of information. I have the same 7" US bulbs in my car and they are awful. After a great deal of correspondence, I have ordered the 7" E-code Cibies from him, along with the relay kits. I'll post once I get them installed, but it should be a huge improvement and quite frankly a lot less money than the 8" lenses. And the chrome rings are growing on me.

 

Like Jim says, this sounds like the way to go. I'm not an expert on lighting, but if HID are the blueish lighting you see sometimes on the freeway at night. I am a huge opponent to these. These are just blinding if you are in front of them.

 

OEM HID should not blind you. It's all the poorly-aimed aftermarket HID adaptations, especially when done on H5 bases, that are blinding you (and me).

 

I had the 7" H4 on my US 82 before I sold it. Had them installed for a few years. They are the way to go. I am not sure how much better the 8" are over the 7", but the 8" certainly look better without a US trim ring!

Cheap seats...go 7" H4, they will work great.

 

If you really want the best, Daniel Stern still has stock on the Marchal Ampliluxes in the 7" lens. They are the same money as the 8" H4 lenses and another level above as far as lighting. I nearly pulled the trigger on them, but decided to go with the Cibies for lower cost - more money for other projects.

 

I have Hella H-4 Ecodes on my 951 and love them. My wife doesn't like the cut off. I put a set of Hella H-4 Vision Plus on her 928 Saturday. The cutoff is softer and she seems to like these. they are a hell of an improvement on the halogen sealed beams.

 

I do have the Hella H-4's on my Miata and they are a substantial upgrade that simply replaces the sealed beam. If you are inclined to stay with the 7" headlight you can't go wrong with these.