Slant Six Forum
https://slantsix.org/forum/

Education on 4 headlight system - upgrades?
https://slantsix.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=63814
Page 1 of 1

Author:  Dart270 [ Fri Jul 12, 2019 7:09 am ]
Post subject:  Education on 4 headlight system - upgrades?

Slant Sages,

I have recently come into my first car with a 4 headlight system ('62 Valiant with sealed beam units). Does anyone have recommendations for upgrades for these? Are the lamps the same for hi beam and lo beam? I am poking around online, but cannot find the useful/concise information or what appear to be reasonable/reliable upgrades.

I think I want to keep all 4 lamps working (not convert to 2), and especially need to upgrade the hi beam lamps. Probably the lo beams too.

All thoughts and feedback will be most welcome, thanks!

Lou

Author:  Dart270 [ Fri Jul 12, 2019 7:25 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Education on 4 headlight system - upgrades?

OK, now I am seeing that 5001 is apparently the hi beam lamp and 5006 is the lo beam lamp.

My plan was to get GE Nighthawks, since those are great for 7" round headlamps. They do not seem to be available.

Lou

Author:  Charrlie_S [ Fri Jul 12, 2019 8:05 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Education on 4 headlight system - upgrades?

If Dan doesn't chime in, I would send him a PM. He is the lighting expert. Knowing you, and what you want from your cars, one suggestion I would make, is to put relays, in the headlight circuits as a bare minimum.

Author:  Reed [ Fri Jul 12, 2019 9:19 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Education on 4 headlight system - upgrades?

Yeah, relays and I know Dan sells Cibiés in the five inch headlight size.

Author:  Joshie225 [ Fri Jul 12, 2019 9:39 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Education on 4 headlight system - upgrades?

You have on the outside a pair of low/high beam lights and towards the middle a pair of high-only lights.

As Charlie mentioned relays are a must and Dan is the semi-resident expert.

What I bought from Dan most recently was a pair of 7" Koito headlamps that are OE to Toyota in other markets. Dan wrote that these Toyota/Koito lamps are superior to Cibie. The Koito lamps may not be the best 5.75", but it seems to be a good choice.

Here's a pertinent discussion that includes 5.75" lamps: http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/sho ... for-Koitos

And a discussion on 7" lamps for your other vehicles with Koito part numbers: https://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/sh ... nk-of-them

Author:  Dart270 [ Fri Jul 12, 2019 11:29 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Education on 4 headlight system - upgrades?

Thanks, Josh, Reed, and Charlie. I am hoping Dan will chime in here with some options and thoughts so that everyone can benefit from the information.

Best,
Lou

Author:  Reed [ Fri Jul 12, 2019 1:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Education on 4 headlight system - upgrades?

www.danielsternlighting.com

Shameless plug for Dan.

Author:  SlantSixDan [ Fri Jul 12, 2019 3:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Education on 4 headlight system - upgrades?

I thought I heard my name!

The 5-3/4" quad-round system is different in some key ways from the 7" system. All sealed beams in this size are useless, no matter what brand or when made, plain or halogen. There is no Night Hawk (or functional equivalent) in this size. Be picky and shop carefully because much (or most) of what's on the market is junk, though of course all of it is hyped as an "upgrade", so it's very easy to waste money on unsafe, illegal headlite-shaped trinkets. On the other hand, if you have a mountain of cash burning a hole in your pocket for top-of-the-world headlamps, then it's two or four of these amaze-o American-made full LED headlamp/turn signal/DRL units...got $800 to $1,600 for headlamps, and time and inclination to mod the headlight bucket cups to accept 'em? :lol:

Stepping back onto planet Earth: the good replaceable-bulb halogen headlamps in this size are made by Koito. They are the most efficient (greatest amount of light on the road), best focused (most useful distribution of light), best-built (sturdiest glass and metal materials, most careful build quality) lamps of their type in this size. Cibies are a fairly large step down in performance and build quality, and they cost more. Considerably below the Cibies in this size are Hella units. I can supply all three of these brands, but I will not sell the Hella 5-3/4" H4 high/low beam, which is dangerously weak. Just plain not adequate no matter what might be done with it in terms of different bulbs, etc.

You will definitely need to install relays and stout wiring; the factory circuitry was marginally adequate for low-wattage sealed beams when everything was new and perfect, and it does not improve with age. You can do this with a build-it-yourself parts kit or a built-up/ready-to-install harness assembly for your particular car; I supply both options. This will also take a lot of the current off the bulkhead connectors and ammeter, which is a nice side benefit.

Bulb selection matters a lot to how well you can (or can't) see at night. Please see bulb test results posted by my colleague Virgil here. The current best pick in 60/55w bulbs is made by Tungsram (GE of Europe); it is a +120 item that is a few developmental iterations improved over the +80/+90 bulbs in the linked comparison. I keep them in stock in both the H4 (high/low beam) and H1 (high-beam) variety.

Send me an email ( dastern@torque.net ) to ask about or buy any of this stuff.

The correct operation of this system is outboard lamps lit in low beam mode when you select low beam, outboard lamps in high beam mode + inboard lamps when you select high beam.

There are good upgrades (and bad downgrades) for the brake lights on a '62 Valiant, too; put in these bulbs and this turn signal flasher (2-prong like original; connect its ground wire conveniently). Reversing lamps, if your '62 has them, use these. Don't substitute; there's a lot of unsafe rinky-dink junk in this segment, too. There's no legitimate LED bulb that will work safely in the front turn signals, so keep those incandescent for now. You might also want to add one of these.

As is the case with all headlamp installs, there are some important things to keep in mind:

• Lamp aim is by far the main thing that determines how well you can (or can't) see at night with any given set of lamps, so this is crucial: you will need to see to it that the lamps are aimed carefully and correctly with an optical aiming machine. Low beams per "VOL" and high beams per the "VO" instructions here. It can be difficult to find a shop that has (and uses) an optical aiming machine; keep calling around until you get the right answer. "We shine them on a wall/on a screen" is the wrong answer. To get an idea of what a proper lamp aim job looks like, see this VW document. Note that every headlamp producing both a high and a low beam is aimed on its low beam setting.

• Halogen lamps need to use halogen bulbs or they don't (can't, won't) work effectively, safely, or legally. This is not like trying out different bulbs in the kitchen or living room or garage, where all it has to do is light up in a way you find adequate and pleasing. Headlamps aren't just flood or spot lights; they are precision optical instruments (yes, even a cheap and minimal headlamp counts as a precision optical instrument) that have a complex, difficult job to do in terms of simultaneously putting light where it's needed, keeping it away from where it's harmful, and controlling the amounts of light at numerous locations within the beam to appropriate levels (too much light in certain areas is just as dangerous as not enough). Headlamps cannot just spray out a random blob of light, and that's what they do with anything other than the correct kind of light source.

The "LED bulbs" now flooding the market 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 even a fraction of the amount of light produced by the filament bulb they supposedly replace, let alone producing it in the right pattern for the lamp's optics to work.

Same goes for "HID kits" in halogen-bulb headlamps or fog/auxiliary lamps (any kit, any lamp, any vehicle no matter whether it's a car, truck, motorcycle, etc.). They do not work safely or effectively, which is why they are illegal. See here -- the particulars are different for LED vs. HID, but the principles and problems are the same overall. Again, halogen lamps can only work right if they're equipped with halogen bulbs.

• And even if you stick to halogen bulbs, it's still easy to fall for marketeering BS. Any of the bulbs claiming to produce "extra white" light (or super white, hyper white, platinum white, metal white, xenon white, etc) as its main promotional "benefit" is best avoided. It doesn't matter whose name is on the bulb -- Sylvania SilverStar/Ultra or ZxE, Philips BlueVision or CrystalVision, Wagner TruView, anything from PIAA or Hoen,, Nokya, Polarg, etc. -- all the same scam. They have a blue-tinted glass, which changes the light color a little, but blocks light that would reach the road if the glass weren't tinted, so they give you _less_ light than ordinary bulbs (not more). To get legal-minimum levels of light through the blue glass, the filament has to be driven very hard so these bulbs have a very short lifespan, and there's nothing about the tinted light that improves your ability to see -- the opposite is true (less light = less seeing, no matter about the tint). Sylvania got spanked to the tune of thirty million(!) dollars for false and misleading "upgrade" claims for Silver Star bulbs (see here ) -- and those are among the least-bad of an overall bad product category, so the math kind of does itself.

So yeah — send me an email. Have your people call my people. I'll pencil you in. We'll do lunch.
Image

Author:  Dart270 [ Sat Jul 13, 2019 4:20 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Education on 4 headlight system - upgrades?

Thanks for your thorough rundown, Dan. I could feel the seismic disturbance coming before your post hit the site...

I have already done exactly that LED taillight/flasher mod, so step 1 complete.

I am leaning towards the Koito upgrade and will PM you about that sometime soon. The car is a blast to drive, and I got burned last summer by an antelope in WY and crappy lights I hadn't gotten around to replacing (ugh) in my 64 Dart. Still fixing metal. So, I am motivated to get this in order, given the burgeoning deer population around here...

Thanks again and all the best,

Lou

Author:  neilskiw [ Sat Jul 13, 2019 9:40 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Education on 4 headlight system - upgrades?

I purchased a set of Cibie's from Dan for my 64 Valiant. Damn good improvement.

My mistake was having a cheap offshore voltage regulator that allowed the voltage to climb and fry the low beam section of the headlamps. My fault/ignorance.

This has been remedied by a U.S. made regulator sourced from Dan. Thanks again.

Author:  mpgFanatic [ Thu Aug 01, 2019 6:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Education on 4 headlight system - upgrades?

SlantSixDan wrote:
if you have a mountain of cash burning a hole in your pocket for top-of-the-world headlamps, then it's two or four of these amaze-o American-made full LED headlamp/turn signal/DRL units...got $800 to $1,600 for headlamps, and time and inclination to mod the headlight bucket cups to accept 'em? :lol:

From that same manufacturer, you all might be curious to see one person's experience with a quad square arrangement... it's an extra $1k sitting on the front of his Volvo, but the pictures speak for themselves. :shock:

I especially liked the "outdoor" night shots that look remarkably close to broad daylight.

http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=349967

- Erik

Author:  Dart270 [ Thu Aug 01, 2019 7:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Education on 4 headlight system - upgrades?

Cool! Thanks, Erik. I aimed everything on the 62 and put halogens into the hi beam slots and it is MUCH better. I am trying to decide between Koito units from Dan or the JW Speaker units (need bucket mods). Neither are cheap, so I'll wait a little and just not drive so fast at night...

Lou

Page 1 of 1 All times are UTC-07:00
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Limited
https://www.phpbb.com/