OEM headlight brightness is not that great. Going with fancy LED replacement headlights is way too much money (7 - 10% of car value ). So, I've decided to try some LED light bulbs and keeping the OEM headlights.
Got me these:


Super simple install, with no extra ballasts to tinker with. Just pull the old bulb out, and put these in. Significantly brighter than my old ones. And I mean significantly. Brighter than Xenons in my 993. For $50 can't go wrong.
No affiliation on my part, just sharing a great experience.

 

For those looking for brightness without LED HID etc I'm almost finished developing a no-cut, plug and play relay kit which integrates to the factory fusebox. I'll offer it for sale here soon. Anyone interested welcome to PM me so I pre-order the right stock. The idea is to allow use of 80/100w or for the brave 100/130w conventional H4s bulbs which are cheap and plentiful and whose light output the headlights were designed for.

Thanks for sharing the experience on these also!

 

PM on those kits, looking forward to details.

 

I've installed a pair of 3000k Led bulbs in order to keep the same color as the original H4 headlights. Very happy with these and aesthetically correct when it comes to color.

H4 Led's - classic car leds UK

I have no affiliation with the shop other than my own purchase. I think these are fairly standards bulbs that are available from various sources.


The fog lights have also been replaced with 300k Led bulbs.

 

If LED replacement headlights are 7-10% of what you value your car, I want to buy your car!

 

thanks man I just ordered one from Amazon can't wait to see the improvement on nigh cruising

 

Just a quick update, after a few night drives, I am wondering why I didn't do it sooner. So much more light!

 

Did you go with the 6500k? Got any pics? Curious why this isn’t a more common mod considering the price!

 

What fog light bulbs did you use, and did you have any trouble fitting them? I’d like to upgrade but the housing looks pretty tight.

 

I got the ones in the pic in my original post. 6500K - superbright, superwhite. Didn't do anything about fog lights. I'll take the pics later today and post it here. No warning lights what so ever. My car is '90 C2.

 

I'd love for this to be a viable solution, but I've always heard that non incandescent bulbs put out too much glare when used with reflectors designed for incandescents. Do these LED bulbs use tech that gets around this constraint?

 

Incandescent bulbs give light off from a single point and the reflector and lens are designed to focus that point source.
Also the light from the filament is of an equal intensity in every direction.

LED bulbs have multiple light sources spread over a large area, therfore the lens and reflector cannot focus the light and you get glare.
Also the light from each LED is directional, so you get dark spots.

The bulbs shown in the original post have relatively small LED arrays placed in the same position as the filament on an incandesent bulb, so they are better than a lot of LED bulb designs.
However you will get dark spots since there are only two arrays of LEDs shining in opposite directions. But since the relfector and lens can't properly focus the glare will fill in the gaps...

Look up 'headlight revolution' on youtube, they have some great videos that explain the science and they show the effects of putting LEDs in old reflector housings.

 

 

We can theorize about glare and focus points, but the net result the lights do improve visibility significantly. Very inexpensive way to improve right now, while we save money for the more expensive technically correct ones. The cost of entry with these so so low and they are returnable. Try it, return if you don't like. No harm...

 

Any chance you could post a comparison picture of a distance shot? e.g. down a straight road at night
If there is a difference between LED and Halogen, it's going to be a difference in throw, not close up light output.