Headlight upgrades for older vehicles
- Thread starter The motor guy
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Here is why the Beamtech LED's work so well. Perfect LED placement, and perfect cutoff. There may in fact be less light scattered above the cutoff. The hotspot is wider, leading to a very nice experience, without annoying others.
H11? Is that in a projector headlight?
They do have limits for certain points in the beam pattern at set distances. Most headlights are not aimed well (even from the factory), couple in hills and whatnot and yeah it’s pretty easy to get blinded.
As for upgrades…. If you have halogen headlights a bulb upgrade might be possible. For example 9006 upgrades to 9012, 9005 to 9011, h11 to h9. If you already have LED/HID you’re kind of stuck unless you upgrade the whole thing which requires baking and pulling the lens off to replace the projector or go full custom install.
Honestly last bad headlamp vehicle I had it was a truck as well. I ended up putting hella 500 lights on the bumper just a set of 2 and had them wired via relay to headlamps. The output was amazing compared to before and was aimed properly with no issues. Just something different to think about
Philips LED conversion kits.
I have used 2 of them so far.
Huge improvement over halogen.
They also have a 12 year replacement warranty.
getting these Hellas for the XJ
www.summitracing.com
Hella 003427811 Hella ECE Conversion Headlights | Summit Racing
Free Shipping - Hella ECE Conversion Headlights with qualifying orders of $109. Shop Sealed Beam Headlight Conversions at Summit Racing.
Not much you can do with either of them unless you do a retrofit with for them. The reflectors and lens just were not great. You will just get brighter glared blobs of uncontrolled light.
Search Hella 90mm headlight. You can get halogen or LED now. They also come in hi and low in one. Mounted well in bumper or by headlights. Projector, sealed, many use in custom and retro fits. You can aim them perfectly and have a great cutoff.
I had a pair mounted in place of where the factory fogs were on my Sequoia with HID's in them. Aimed correct but slighty low. Rarely got flashed and had less glare than factory lights. If I did get flashed, a quick tap showed they had shutter for high beam that normally stopped any others from leaving their high beams on. I didn't do that often. I want safe lighting with respect for others.
I had in my old Explorer, snow plow light housings mounted under bumper with 4"x6" Hella H4 headlights (Hi/low) with halogen bulbs. Again aimed correct. I think the Explorer had the worst headlights I ever experienced. Made the Rams look like new led projectors. The Hella's in the plow lights worked great.
Morimoto also now has LED ones like the Hella 90mm. SEALED 3 90mm LED
Search Hella 90mm headlight. You can get halogen or LED now. They also come in hi and low in one. Mounted well in bumper or by headlights. Projector, sealed, many use in custom and retro fits. You can aim them perfectly and have a great cutoff.
I had a pair mounted in place of where the factory fogs were on my Sequoia with HID's in them. Aimed correct but slighty low. Rarely got flashed and had less glare than factory lights. If I did get flashed, a quick tap showed they had shutter for high beam that normally stopped any others from leaving their high beams on. I didn't do that often. I want safe lighting with respect for others.
I had in my old Explorer, snow plow light housings mounted under bumper with 4"x6" Hella H4 headlights (Hi/low) with halogen bulbs. Again aimed correct. I think the Explorer had the worst headlights I ever experienced. Made the Rams look like new led projectors. The Hella's in the plow lights worked great.
Morimoto also now has LED ones like the Hella 90mm. SEALED 3 90mm LED
getting these Hellas for the XJ
Hella 003427811 Hella ECE Conversion Headlights | Summit Racing
Free Shipping - Hella ECE Conversion Headlights with qualifying orders of $109. Shop Sealed Beam Headlight Conversions at Summit Racing.
Much better than the $50/pair Amazon special LED replacement for sealed beams that all of those XJs seem to have these days.
The clear plastic lens on the Amazon special LED lights turns yellow after a while, did you expect them to be made of quality materials for $25 each?
And HIGHLY recommend getting some pieces of Weathertech/Xpel/Lamin-X/Headlight armor and cover them. The glass lenses are great but need to be shown some love and protection.
The Hella headlights with an H4 HID set in them very nice. Decent H4 LED's possibly. I put some Nineo H4's in my daughters CRV. beam pattern is great,
left is Sylvania Sylverstar (cell phone makes it look a lot more yellow), right is Nineo H4 LED.
I've been saying the most bang for the buck is any of the plethora of LED light bars, but they're really only useful in remote rural areas with minimal oncoming traffic. I just treat them as high beams. Again, running one is not considerate or practical with lots of traffic.
Quality aftermarket halogens are perhaps a slightly less conspicuous choice and may be less likely to draw the ire of law enforcement and other motorists.
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You're not allowed to have those on going down the road. I don't even understand why the cops have them. Had a cop blind me from 1000ft down the road once when he had someone pulled over. I even stopped and said so once I saw what it was. Like you said, they're only useful for desolate areas
You’re not supposed to run your high beams within X feet of oncoming traffic either. I wouldn’t use a gigantic bar for that purpose though. Something like the Diode Dynamics 18” bar is perfect IMO.
I’m very aware that what I’m doing is not “legal” and shut it off as needed. I do drive primarily back roads and work 3rd shift, but wouldn’t call where I live as desolate, just not busy at the times I drive. Cops haven’t bothered me yet despite seeing me use it.
Deer picture is from before I moved the bar to the grille, it used to be mounted to the air dam under the chrome bumper.
I suspect many new vehicles have their headlights aimed a little to high from factory as well, or have poor auto leveling systems. (In particular car brands that begin with the letter "A" and later model Teslas.)
I drive highway 99 in BC between Vancouver and Squamish (aka Sea to Sky hwy) at least weekly, normally at night to avoid traffic. Sadly it it's not uncommon to see vehicles with their lights aimed too high; the sharp cut-off line of their headlight beam clearly visible in the tree canopy ahead of them while driving on level ground.
This seems to be true regardless of headlight type, but LEDs for me at least seem to exacerbate issue as my eyes seem to take longer to recover due to their generally brighter hot spots and 6000K-6500K colour temperature.
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It's like 500ft. I never looked into the rules on that, keep forgetting. If there is a median I let them ride in high bean mode. If there are 10 cars coming at me atleast 4 either have high beams or misadjusted lights. This is only on roads with no street lights I do this.
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