Hella H4 conversion kit

[Justins76]

Kit came today. 7" ECE spec lens with 100/55w bulbs. I'll post a review when I install them. Looking at them they look high quality. Made in Germany.

[spinem]

ooooooohhhhhhh :slobber: more pics!!

[DBLSPRT68]

I have Hella lenses on my BMW. They are the best you can get; good choice. If you put a HID kit in them, they'll shoot light everywhere tho...... Best to keep the H4 bulbs. NICE!!!!!

[Jim85IROC]

HID bulbs in anything not designed for HID will blind the crap out of oncoming people, so yeah, stick to the H4 bulbs.

[andrewmp6]

Did they came with a relay kit?If not get one it helps a lot too.Yeah hid in a light not made for it isn't a good idea.A h4 with the relays is more then enough for most people.

[Stitch]

Originally Posted by Jim85IROC

HID bulbs in anything not designed for HID will blind the crap out of oncoming people, so yeah, stick to the H4 bulbs.

Originally Posted by andrewmp6

Did they came with a relay kit?If not get one it helps a lot too.Yeah hid in a light not made for it isn't a good idea.A h4 with the relays is more then enough for most people.

x2...I tried to make this point before, but some people have hard heads...

and I'm not talking about Justins76...

[baggedcten]

i thought the hella lights came with a cut off shield tho?
or is it only the square ones?

[andrewmp6]

I'm just sick of getting blinded by people with hids kits used wrong.Most of them live in the city and don't really even need headlights.I live in the middle of no where my car has hids and my truck has some off road lights.But i need them i have almost hit a few deer at night.

[Justins76]

No HID here. Thats why I got the bulbs. Stock low beams with brighter hi. And I will be using the Painless wiring relay harness.

[andrewmp6]

Your set then if you ain't changed your cluster lights to leds that should be next it for night driving.

[Evil Trailblazer SS]

Originally Posted by andrewmp6

Your set then if you ain't changed your cluster lights to leds that should be next it for night driving.

^^^^ Truth!

Out with the old and in with the new!



I'll be doing the Hellas in my '87 with quad headlights soon, just have to finish the interior first!
Posted via Mobile Device

[lightningtruck]

Originally Posted by Evil Trailblazer SS

^^^^ Truth!

Out with the old and in with the new!

Where do I get these led dash lights? Able to use dimmer?

[Stitch]

I can't wait to see this...do they make a kit like this for the 4 square headlights?

[Anadrol]

I have the HID kit thrown into the stock bulb housing like you're talking about, and let me disspell some myths-

First, you CAN aim the bulbs down so that they don't blind people. I live in a place where I can easily do tests on the road without bothering anybody, and I aimed my headlights, put the truck in the road, and then took my wife's car and drove up to face it head-on. With the proper adjustment, the HID lights do not shine any brighter in an on-coming driver's eyes than normal halogens.

HID's have a very specific, magnified light pattern. IF you are looking down the barrel of the gun, so to speak, and your eyes are lined up right with the beam pattern, then HID's are blindingly bright- so bright that it hurts to look at the light REFLECTING off even a non-mirrored surface. However, if you are looking at the lights from a side angle, or from above or below the beam pattern, the intensity fades away almost completely.

Here are some examples:
In this picture, I am positioned down low, way below the eye level of an oncoming driver. I am down by the road, where these yellow HID's are focused on. In this position, the lights show their full power, and they are painfully bright to the human eye. However, the headlights (also HID's) are not blindingly bright because they are angled differently.


Here, from the side, neither lights appear very bright. We are looking at the truck from a side angle, and the light is not focused in our eyes what so ever. This is pretty much what a passing car would see=


In this picture, you can see the headlights at their brightest angle, but again, the camera is positioned low- way lower than the eye level of an oncoming car. On the Y-axis, the camera is down, lower than the level of the Cat license plate in this picture, and tilted up at a slight angle to view the truck. That camera is less than 4 feet off the ground, and I'm only 5 feet away from the truck. My point is, in order to view the headlights at their brightest point (which is the only angle that would hurt a person's eyes) you would need to be right in front of the truck, with your eyes just about 30 inches off the ground (no higher) and you've gotta be 5 feet from my truck or less. That's the only way to get yourself so that your eyes are inside the beam pattern at a point where the lights would blind you. When would that ever happen? I guess if someone is in a Corvette, going the wrong way down the street so that they're right in front of me, and they get THAT close to me, then their eyes will be blinded???


I think the best way to "harness" HID/Xenon light is to have the bulbs inside Projectors, and then aim the projector. That way, you've got a very focused, sharp beam of light that you can aim perfectly, and adjust that beam so that it is cut off at the perfect height. But let me tell you, those projectors magnify the light to a ridiculous level, and if you look down the barrel of THAT gun, you will seriously be blinded for 5 minutes or so. I'm not sure what is the lesser of the two evils. I have both on one truck- HID's inside a projector, and HID's inside a normal head light housing. My headlights don't have projectors, so the light is scattered more, but the light that is outside of the main, focused part of the beam isn't nearly as bright as the main beam. In fact, it's not half as bright. Furthermore, the brightest part of my headlight beam pattern isn't nearly as bright as the beam inside the projector. In my opinion, the "right" way to do HID's (with projectors) is potentially way more dangerous. If you were driving down the road, and you caught the focuses beam of an HID projector, you are blind for 60 seconds, minimum, PERIOD. It's way too bright to look at head on.

Here's the beam pattern of JUST my headlights, which again, are 6000K HID's inside a normal, 7 inch diameter lamp with no projectors. You can see, the focused, brightest part of the beam is in a straight line, and the top cut off of the beam is less than 2 feet high off the ground. The rest of that dimmer, scattered light that's not part of the main beam is duller than a kid's flashlight:


And here is the pattern of my Fog Lights, which are 3000k HID's inside projectors. This light is much, much brighter, and the cut off is way more distinct.


So there you have it.
Chuck, I'm not sure what you'd have me do different. Would you want me to retrofit the headlights so that the HID's are inside projectors, which are inside the 7" Lamps? Trust me, I'd love to have that- it would be much, MUCH brighter, more focused light, and it wouldn't be expensive (I already own the expensive part of the setup- the HID bulbs & ballasts) or hard to do, but it would be BRIGHTER, more blindingly focused light, which would be MORE dangerous to other motorists.

[Pyrotechnic]

I suppose what people want to see is the sharp cut off in the light pattern.

I did an H4 conversion using the LMC H4 lights and when you drive up to a wall, you will see a very sharp cut off. This is what you always hear about H4's, and how European lighting laws are the safest, etc.

Rather than use a wall to aim mine, I simply put the truck out in the road. I started with the lights aimed to low with the sharp cut off visible on the ground, then kept raising the lights until the cut off as it appears on the ground wasn't so sharp, so that there was a transition from dark to light, rather than completely dark then completely bright.

What the sharp cut off does is let you aim your light out further, without blinding anyone.

Of course if you've done tests to confirm that you have them aim decently and aren't blinding people, that's probably more than what 99% of people that have this kind of HID conversion do. The fact that people get blinded with incorrect and poorly aimed HID conversions is why many people don't like HID's in a standard housing.

The sharp cut off is the safest and most effective way (politically correct?) if properly aimed, but if you've confirmed the safety of your setup in a real world setting then I say keep on truckin'.

[fixit-p]

Thats Hella cool just wondering though why go with the ECE approval and not the SAE (assuming your in the USA)? The SAE housing would accept either the H4 or the HB2/9003 bulbs. Also are yours glass I just bought a pair of truck-lites and they are polycarbonate.

[Justins76]

Originally Posted by fixit-p

Thats Hella cool just wondering though why go with the ECE approval and not the SAE (assuming your in the USA)? The SAE housing would accept either the H4 or the HB2/9003 bulbs. Also are yours glass I just bought a pair of truck-lites and they are polycarbonate.

I wanted the light pattern of the ECE housings. The Hella webpage doesn't show how thier ECE lamps compare with their DOT lamps so I went ahead on the ECE lamps because I feel that they offer a better light pattern without glare to oncoming drivers even thought they say the DOT are bases on the euro design. I believe they are glass. Funny thing is they list the ECE as a 2 light kit and the DOT as just singles.

[Anadrol]

Originally Posted by Pyrotechnic

I suppose what people want to see is the sharp cut off in the light pattern.

I did an H4 conversion using the LMC H4 lights and when you drive up to a wall, you will see a very sharp cut off. This is what you always hear about H4's, and how European lighting laws are the safest, etc.

Rather than use a wall to aim mine, I simply put the truck out in the road. I started with the lights aimed to low with the sharp cut off visible on the ground, then kept raising the lights until the cut off as it appears on the ground wasn't so sharp, so that there was a transition from dark to light, rather than completely dark then completely bright.

What the sharp cut off does is let you aim your light out further, without blinding anyone.

Of course if you've done tests to confirm that you have them aim decently and aren't blinding people, that's probably more than what 99% of people that have this kind of HID conversion do. The fact that people get blinded with incorrect and poorly aimed HID conversions is why many people don't like HID's in a standard housing.

The sharp cut off is the safest and most effective way (politically correct?) if properly aimed, but if you've confirmed the safety of your setup in a real world setting then I say keep on truckin'.

OK,
It's easy for me to see now what the misunderstanding is here. When people refer to "the sharp cut off," you are thinking about how the headlight pattern appears on modern luxury sedans like Mercedes, Audi's, Acuras, Lexus's, Cadillacs, and BMW's. Those have projectors in them. That is the big difference- not the bulb or the gas or the color temperature, but the housing- a projector.

I think this deserves its own thread, so I'm going to work on making that happen.

[Pyrotechnic]

Originally Posted by Anadrol

OK,
It's easy for me to see now what the misunderstanding is here. When people refer to "the sharp cut off," you are thinking about how the headlight pattern appears on modern luxury sedans like Mercedes, Audi's, Acuras, Lexus's, Cadillacs, and BMW's. Those have projectors in them. That is the big difference- not the bulb or the gas or the color temperature, but the housing- a projector.

Maybe I worded that a little weird, I wasn't refering to the light pattern on the road.

What I mean is the light pattern just as it exits the housing, the way the housing sends the light out. With the vehicle parked a few feet away from a wall, can you see where the light pattern cuts off on the top ? That's what I mean.

[Justins76]

Originally Posted by Fat Hoe

I can't wait to see this...do they make a kit like this for the 4 square headlights?

They make them for single squares that replaces standard sealed beam 6052, 6053, H6052, H6054. I dont see any in the brochure for 4 headlights.

[Stitch]

Originally Posted by Justins76

They make them for single squares that replaces standard sealed beam 6052, 6053, H6052, H6054. I dont see any in the brochure for 4 headlights.

that's what my crewcab has, but I wanted to change the front end...don't like that front end

[JEM]

Originally Posted by Fat Hoe

I can't wait to see this...do they make a kit like this for the 4 square headlights?

Which 'four square headlight' setup?

The stacked-headlight setup uses 4x6 (165mm) rectangulars, H4 low/high and H1 high-beam setups are readily available e.g.:

http://www.rallylights.com/SearchRes...CategoryID=364

As for the '89-91 setup with the little 150mm rectangulars, see my post about what I've got in my '91 Sub. GM had Bosch run off a batch of H4 lights in that size, though they're long out of production there's still a few floating around out there:

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...7&postcount=26

Very happy with the results.

[Justins76]

Originally Posted by Fat Hoe

I can't wait to see this...do they make a kit like this for the 4 square headlights?

Would these work in a 4 light setup?
http://www.rallylights.com/SearchRes...CategoryID=364

says
Replaces 4652, H4656, H4666 H4668, H6545, H6545BL, and HP6545 Sealed Beams hi/lo
Replaces 4651, H4651, H4651LL, HP4651, H4740 and 5051 Sealed beams hi

[bumslie75]

looks like a Christmas tree lol JK i like it

[Dieselwrencher]

I haven't really researched these yet. Are these pricey?