Help to upgrade headlights - Halogen or Xenon?

[par4tom]

I have a 61 Chevy C10 with the 4 headlight setup, and I'm looking to convert to the newer Halogen/Xenon Headlights from the originals.

In looking at the latest Classic Industries Catalog (P. 211) they have a halogen and a Xenon option from Delta Industries in the 5 3/4" size I need. Not cheap but not too expensive either. I plan to purchase the relay wiring kit upgrade as well.

Does anyone have some experience with the Delta Products and whether to go Halogen or Xenon?

My Mercedes has the Xenon headlights and I actually like them but I'm scared with some of these "cheap" imports and getting something that is really cheesey looking...

Tom

[theastronaut]

I had a pair of Delta's 7" round lights from Classic Industries and they were just remarketed chinese lamps. I could have got the same quality for $30 bucks a pair on ebay.

There's isn't really such a thing as "xenon" halogen bulbs. Xenon is a gas that is found in HID bulbs, although some higher quality H4 bulbs will have just a small percentage of xenon gas in the bulbs to extend the filament lift, not to make them brighter. Usually if they are halogen and labeled "xenon" it's purely marketing hype and nothing like real OEM HID bulbs found in HID projectors.

To really upgrade and not get stuck with poor quality housings or bulbs, you're kinda limited on what really works well since you're stuck with the smaller 5 3/4" reflectors because of the minimal reflector area compared to 7" headlights. The best 5 3/4" housings are going to be Marchal (hard/impossible to find) or Cibie (fairly expensive). Cibie housings will be your best bet, and you can find them easily. Hella also makes decent 5 3/4" housings but their light output isn't nearly as good as Cibie or Marchal housings.


For bulbs stick with plain/clear Hella bulbs. The blue tint that everybody advertises as "brighter" or "whiter" is illegal and takes away the amount of light output. Sylvania was just sued for making false claims about their Silverstar line of bulbs; they were coated/tinted. Blue tint=filter=less light coming out of the bulb. Anything above about 5K will have less light output.

[Blue666(2)]

How about LED? The prices are coming down. This one is USA Made & DOT approved. (http://northridge4x4.com/shop/truck-...wdqhoCTYrw_wcB) Might need to cut/paste into your browser.

[theastronaut]

The second version of Truck-Lite's 7" LED's are pretty good lights. LED's typically don't have as even light distribution as halogens, they're improving all the time though. Haven't seen any reviews of 5 3/4" LED's though.

Candlepowerforums.com has a great automotive lighting forum, those guys could recommend the best 5 3/4" lights.

[par4tom]

Great feedback...exactly the type of information I was looking for.

[markeb01]

You can see how I converted the low beams on my 1960 four light system on page 35, post 855 of my build thread:

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...444502&page=35

Pretty much a bolt in and the difference is unbelievable.

[argonaut]

Astronaut,
Are the Cibies really that much better than the Hellas? I'm using the 7" in my 62 grill and they seem to provide plenty of light. I was planning to put the smaller versions into the 60 grill I have on my 64, but I might look into the cibies if they really are significantly better.

Hella H4 Housings

[gmachinz]

I'd go ahead and put a high powered relay kit on your stock headlights first-youll be amazed by the difference and may not need anything else. Even if you decide to, you already a stout relay harness in place that way.

[GVDobler]

Just don't get the chessy blue cheap wannabe lights. Everyone who sees them knows they're imitation except the guy driving with them.

[theastronaut]

Originally Posted by argonaut

Astronaut,
Are the Cibies really that much better than the Hellas? I'm using the 7" in my 62 grill and they seem to provide plenty of light. I was planning to put the smaller versions into the 60 grill I have on my 64, but I might look into the cibies if they really are significantly better.

Hella H4 Housings

The 7" Hella's are pretty good. The problem is when you drop the reflector size down to 5 3/4, you lose a lot of the reflector area. The H4 high/low 5 3/4 lights are especially low on reflector area since only about half of the reflector is used by either the low or high beam filament.

Dad has a '97 S10 with the smaller 4x6" rectangle Hella's and they're good but there is a very noticeable difference compared to my 7" round and 5x7" Cibie's because of the size difference (using the exact same bulbs and relay harness). The high beam pattern is much better on the Cibie's; the Hellas aren't as focused on high beams and scatter/waste some of the light output. Hella's low beam pattern is good in the smaller 4x6" rectangle H4's, just less overall light from the smaller reflector. I would think that their 5 3/4" rounds would be comparable to their 4x6" rectangle housings.

Hella does make 5 3/4" H1 round low beam only lights that should work well since the whole reflector is used for the low beam pattern. They're about twice the price of H4's though. They also have H1 high beam only in 5 3/4" that are about the same price as their H4's.

Rallylights.com has all of the available Hella 5 3/4" lights for you to compare.

http://www.rallylights.com/all/light...eter_width=765


Daniel Stern Lighting has Cibie housings.

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/p.../products.html


Check ebay before buy, occasionally you can find good deals on NOS housings.

[theastronaut]

Originally Posted by gmachinz

I'd go ahead and put a high powered relay kit on your stock headlights first-youll be amazed by the difference and may not need anything else. Even if you decide to, you already a stout relay harness in place that way.

I did this on the last car I bought. I upgraded the harness before I changed the lights. The harness made a very noticeable difference in the brightness of the lights. The sealed beams still didn't have that good of beam patterns on high or low so I upgraded to Cibie H4's.

[par4tom]

Would you recommend h4's on the outside and h1's on the high beams? Or h1's on all four?

[theastronaut]

I think a dedicated H1 low beam would out-perform a hi/low H4, it's using the whole reflector instead of only half. You could email Daniel Stern to get his opinion, he knows way more than I do.

[joedoh]

good advice in here. I will add not to use an HID conversion in a halogen reflector. The reflector has to be designed for the extra light of the HID bulb or it will just cause glare, which looks like more light on the road but just blinds and annoys oncoming traffic.

I was lucky enough to score a set of sylvania 7" HID reflectors on ebay a few years ago, they use DS1 3000k bulbs so they dont look fake blue and the reflectors are designed for low beam HID and high beam halogen. they were listed as Hummer H2 headlights, lucky I knew exactly what they were, and got them for 99 cents!

Cibie 7" are amazing lights, I had some on a BMW 2002 years ago (no, not a model year 2002 BMW), they are better than Hella, but make sure you are getting real Cibie, the repops use a Cibie mold but the glass quality is much lower.

Use relays as suggested above to get direct current from the battery and not through all the switches and connectors. Turns your high/low switch into a low current device too, thats a nice add.

LED lights are DOT but its my opinion they dont fit the look of an old truck.

[Chevy Fleetside]

Originally Posted by GVDobler

Just don't get the chessy blue cheap wannabe lights. Everyone who sees them knows they're imitation except the guy driving with them.

Here are my cheesy blue lights... Acually they are sylvania blue Halogens. The lights themselves I can't remember because I bought them 12 years ago. trust me they are blue and bright.