1970's E Code Patterns

[wings&wheels]

I highly doubt anyone looking for E codes is chasing down NOS Lucas units, but I did many years ago. For fun, here are the patterns for original Lucas mid 70's European P45t bulb headlamps. European was Lucas' line for LHD vehicles and these just predated the common H4 P43t bulbs. I am running halogen P45t units in these.

Decent pattern, nice cutoff and kickup but the beam patterns, especially low, are narrow as compared to say Hella or Koito. Still miles better than sealed beams though, and my goal was period correctness.

Main beam

Low, dip beam

 

[TacoFergie]

To get a decent idea of a beam pattern you need to be about 20-25ft away from the wall.

Are you looking for an improvement over those? It kind of depends on the size of the lamp and/bulb type as to what options are available.

 

[wings&wheels]

To get a decent idea of a beam pattern you need to be about 20-25ft away from the wall.

Are you looking for an improvement over those? It kind of depends on the size of the lamp and/bulb type as to what options are available.

Hi, yes I just happened to be sitting in my Tr warming up when I took this pic. The Lucas beams are somewhat narrower than other eCodes though. I am not looking for anything else as I chose these to remain period correct while improving from sealed beams.

 

[TacoFergie]

I haven't tried the Holley RetroBright's myself, but I have seen really good reviews and they maintain a period correct look with the fluted lens. Better yet, they have the option for 3000k (pretty close to Halogen), modern LED white 5700k or even a euro yellow lens. These aren't like PNP LED's in a Halogen housing. They were built from the ground up by Morimoto in partnership with Holley with a proprietary LED bulb specific to the housing. If you're not familiar with Morimoto, they are the leading brand when it comes to custom headlight retrofitting components for close to 20 years. They are very reputable and reliable. I've used their parts on many headlight builds over the years and have no component failures.

https://www.theretrofitsource.com/search?keywords=retrobright

 

[wings&wheels]

I haven't tried the Holley RetroBright's myself, but I have seen really good reviews and they maintain a period correct look with the fluted lens. Better yet, they have the option for 3000k (pretty close to Halogen), modern LED white 5700k or even a euro yellow lens. These aren't like PNP LED's in a Halogen housing. They were built from the ground up by Morimoto in partnership with Holley with a proprietary LED bulb specific to the housing. If you're not familiar with Morimoto, they are the leading brand when it comes to custom headlight retrofitting components for close to 20 years. They are very reputable and reliable. I've used their parts on many headlight builds over the years and have no component failures.

https://www.theretrofitsource.com/search?keywords=retrobright

Except for our '21 Wrangler which got 7" Koito's w/ standard, quality H4 bulbs, mounted in Morimoto adapters (which are nice, but lacking in substantiveness for the price), I selected our eCodes based on other factors; originality, etc.

We have or had Cibie, various Lucas, Hella, Bosch, Marchal (never should have sold them) and my favorite, Koito. They are all good, all much better than sealed beams, but the Koito's are the best. The Retrobrights are nice, decent pattern but IMHO aren't close enough to period correct and the pattern isn't really any better than a quality H4. For a split second I thought about them for the new to us 930, but that got some circa 80's NOS Lucas H4's I had lying around.