Many of you are familiar with my company, Audette Collection. We specialize in lighting for air cooled Porsches. But while we have owned a number of 993's (the most beautiful 911 in my opinion) we have not been involved in 993 lighting, until now.

I haven't been active here but I've lurked for a long time. I know this to be a sophisticated group, unsurprising given the car that the forum is dedicated to. I suspect that many of you are also familiar with automotive lighting consultant and expert Daniel Stern. Daniel is a good friend and also a consultant to Audette Collection, much to our benefit as he is one of the most knowledgeable experts on automotive lighting in the world. I run everything by him and he has great influence over what is included in our catalog, including veto power. I decided a while back that since AC's specialty is air cooled Porsches that we really need to include 993's and decided to start with headlights. We've built a lot of LED headlights for 911's starting six years ago and I've been researching what is required to add 993 headlamps.

After time spent researching and fiddling with stock 993 headlights on my bench, I've come up with a design that makes sense. A major goal was not to change the outside of the assembly in any way so it could be installed quickly and easily using the outstanding 993 setup. I decided on using LED projector lamps for high beams and our high performance Tungsram +120H1 halogen bulbs (Daniel recommends these as the best H1 bubs currently available) for the low beams. Now comes the part you may find controversial.

Daniel simply does not allow LED bulbs to be installed in reflector headlights designed for H4 bubs. If you're interested in why he feels so strongly about this the link will provide you with in-depth information. If that's not enough information here's another informative article. I realize that there are hundreds of LED bulbs designed to replace halogen bulbs out there with tsunamis of glitzy marketing but in Daniel's opinion they cannot be engineered properly to work. So I have no alternative other than using real LED assemblies for the high beams.

Fortunately that is working out well. As you know, Porsche uses a 2.5" reflector with an H4 bub for high beams. It wasn't too difficult to remove the H4 bits and install 2.5" LED projectors in their place. Following Daniel's recommendations again (there are a lot of junky LED projectors out there) I have settled on high quality reflectors (proprietary for now) that with a bit of jiggling fit very well. The lights appear to be totally original in all ways, yet with vastly improved lighting.

A product listed for our new 993 LED Headlight Upgrade was just published last night if you have any interest. Supplies will be somewhat limited as we ramp up. We have a core exchange program in order to eliminate downtime. When you purchase the upgraded lamps we ship them immediately. When you receive them you simply remove your old lamps, pop the new ones in, and ship the old ones back to us in the same box. You pay $1,185.00 initially which includes a $400.00 core deposit which is returned to you immediately upon receipt of your cores, making your net cost $775.00.

Cheers,
John

 

Interesting. I'm not familiar with your business but like your ideas and "doing things the proper way" approach. I've been a Daniel Stern fan for at least 15 years. That was when I first saw his method of doing an easy, affordable and extremely effective light output boost for E24 BMWs. I switched to an inexpensive HID light on the 993 at least 10 years ago. Perhaps it's time to upgrade again.

 

Thanks for the kind remarks Jim. The main foundation of Audette Collection is the Best-in-Class concept. We try hard to thoroughly vet products before adding them to the catalog. And Daniel, who is brutally honest and candid, really holds our feet to the fire. Here's a small sample from a recent exchange when I ran a product for the 993 upgrade (that won't be named) by him that I thought looked promising:

Me: Do you have an opinion of this [product]?
Daniel: C'mon John, don't go swimming in the sewer like this.
Me: Their products are highly regarded.
Daniel: Not by those _qualified_ to have an opinion on the matter.

You have to have a bit of humility when dealing with Daniel. But he truly is an automotive lighting genius. He knows *everything* and a bit more. You might think about upgrading the HID's. Here's his stance on those:

First principles: halogen lamps need to use halogen bulbs, full stop. Just as with the "LED bulbs" now flooding the market, "HID kits" are not a legitimate, safe, effective, or legal product. No matter whose name is on them or what the vendor claims, these are a fraudulent scam. They are not capable of producing the right amounts of light, nor producing it in the right pattern for the lamp's optics to work. The particulars are different for LED vs. HID, but the principles and problems are the same overall. Full details at http://www.danielsternlighting.com/t...nversions.html .

Please don't take it personally, this is what I deal with constantly. I've taken a lot of heat about this over at Pelican. But lighting is vitally important and I don't think that most of use realize the level of engineering that goes into the design of automotive lighting.

Cheers,
John

 

Hi John,
I am not sure I understand your product's value proposition. Many have switched their low beams to High-Intensity Discharge as an upgrade for low beams and retained the original Halogen bulb for high beams with good results. Also, the lenses on the 993 headlight pods don't suffer from hazing as later poly lensed units do. At $775 net price how is your system superior?
Your house expert's opinion " "HID kits" are not legitimate, safe, effective" seems like an opinion overreach as literally thousands of 993 owners have installed HID lamps in the stock headlight pods with what many would call outstanding results.
Less spiel and more facts generally fly better in this group as some of the active members here probably have more experience with headlights than you do.
Can you supply pictures of your solution, the pattern they throw and the Lumen value, this would go a long way to furthering your product offering to this group.
Andy

 

Hi Andy...
I replace the high beam halogen bulbs with LED projectors (not LED bulbs) which are up to 3x-4x brighter than halogen bulbs (4000-5000 lumens with color temperature of 5500K). For the low beams Daniel Stern counsels me that HID bulbs do not work in reflectors designed for halogen bulbs so I use high performance H1 bulbs for those. So the very big change is in the high beams and that is where the expense is. I also automatically include new lenses but I'm going to change that to an option to greatly lower the price.
Thanks,
John

 

I'm designing these for fellow enthusiasts and my goal, as always, is to provide maximum value (which I measure as quality + performance + price). I expect to make a few bucks in return for my efforts which is necessary to operate the business but the real fun for me is designing a better mouse trap and I think that there is a lot of room for that here. Which means your input is invaluable (thanks Andy!). I've gone ahead and made new lenses (I hate having to replace the whole lens assembly rather than simply replacing the actual lenses themselves) optional which reduces the price to $485.00.

Next, I've put together a lot of DIY Kits at Audette Collection that have proved to be very popular. What do you think of the idea of doing something similar with these? At this point things are centered around replacing the high beam assembly with the LED projector. It requires the fabrication of a few adapters but it's a straight-forward process. That will eliminate me having to do the work and the expense of back and forth shipping which will sharply reduce the cost. Let me know what you think.

Thanks,
John

 

BTW, here's a picture of my goal in terms of looks:

 

If aesthetically no change I’m all ears on a solution.

 

No change whatsoever. You're obviously big on aesthetics. j

Daniel Stern is putting together a list of 2.5" LED projectors that he approves of. His very favorite is a 3" projector and I've ordered a pair of those to experiment with. They're most likely too big but worth a shot. LED projectors are proliferating like boo birds at a Yankees game and I expect that I will be using different ones from time to time depending on technology and availability.

Cheers,
John

 

Some of the LED projectors come with a single high beam but many of them come with Bi-LED's for use as both high and low beams. It probably makes sense just to do away with disable stock H1 low beam altogether and use the LED's for both beams. It reduces complexity and cost and increases performance significantly. The Bi-LED projectors contain a simple small electric motor which switches the configuration back and forth. Picture below of how one projects. Absolutely perfect low beam cut-off which is so important to avoid blinding on-coming drivers. More later.

Thanks for the input provided via PM's!

Cheers,
John

 

Can you provide a close picture of the modified head light? Head on shot would be best.

I'm having a bit of trouble with your descriptions. Our headlights ( non-HIDs) have a H1 bulb projector ( top part of headlight) and a H1 reflector hi beam ( lower part of headlight). You repeatedly talk about putting H4 bulbs in the low beam projector lenses and changing the "H4" hi beam reflector to a projector. But you also stated " as you know Porsche uses a 2.5" projector with a H4 bulb for the hi beams", which they do not.

 

You're right of course, they're H1 bulbs. It's odd of me to miss that as I got started in air cooled Porsche lighting 15 years ago restoring H1's. I've done piles of them. You would think that I would note the difference between H1's and H4's. But senior moments can happen at any time. Thanks for pointing that out. And yes, at this point my #1 plan is to replace both H1 bulbs with a Bi-LED projector with both low and high beams. There will be absolutely no change to the look of the front of the headlights. I'll put up a picture soon of a finished upgraded assembly.

 

John,

I have this set up and have been quite happy: https://rennlist.com/forums/993-foru...for-993-a.html You’re probably well aware this is your competition in the 993 lighting space. I’ve purchased other products from one of the vendors and they are top notch.

Correct me if I’m wrong but from what I can tell as a layman, your product is engineered similar to the above in terms of performance. Your difference is the core exchange program. I think that’s smart as a competitive advantage for those who don’t DIY or do, but would rather not hassle with electrical.

Wes

 

Wes...
Yes, I'm aware of their products. Which is why I'm developing mine. As I mentioned earlier, I work with an automotive lighting expert, Daniel Stern, and he is adamantly opposed to using LED or HID bulbs in reflectors designed for halogen bulbs for a long variety of technical reasons that he has published HERE. I've heard only good things about the companies discussed in the thread you referenced it's just that according to Daniel their engineering is off the mark. My goal is simply to provide something simple and inexpensive that adheres to his strongly held opinions and recommendations.
Cheers,
John

 

The kit is organized. It's priced at $249.00 and you will find full information HERE. Thanks to everyone for your help.