Here is the two video blogs showing the installation of our H4 headlight kit that will be released after SEMA. No requirements to cut the core support or any other holes as required by other kits. http://v8tvshow.com/content/view/423/43/ Video blog 50
http://v8tvshow.com/content/view/424/43/ Video blog 51

Pictures? any pictures?

Everyone does video now, and personally, I hate having to squint at the tiny window or enlarge it and make it all blocky.

Maybe I'm just being snarky today. I really like the H4 headlight look, and plan to do the inners on the 64 at some point.

K

Yes please...PICTURES...PRICES!!

How about DOT approval so they are legal to put on our vehicles?

How about...are the lamps actually 5-3/4" round? I have found so many of the 5-3/4" lamps offered today are actually a little smaller and the retaining ring does not retain the lamp properly.

Finally...why does everyone feel the need to provide a relay kit to get full alternator voltage to the lamps? The output of the bulb is designed and rated at 12.8 Volts and has an average lifetime of about 500 hrs at that voltage. If you get a full 14.5 Volts to the bulb you are overdriving them which does make them brighter, but the lifetime is reduced by about 80% to about 100 hr (which is about 1/3rd the lifetime of the sealed beams). Yes...they do draw slightly more power (35 W sealed beams vs. 55 W 9007 (HB4)) but the current draw on one bulb changes from 2.73 A to 4.3 A for low-beam and from 2.73 A to 5.1 A for a high-beam at 65 W). Hardly a barn-burner for the stock wiring.

I will post a pic of the kit shortly.

These are DOT approved housings and slyvania bulbs. The relay kit is not meant to be installed to make the lights brighter for our reasons, that is just a by product. We include the relay kit #1 for vehicle wiring protection. If you have a newly installed wiring or wiring in good condition, you may not have a problem right away. However we have seen issues with melted light switches on vehicles from major amperage draw through the light switch. The relay kit eliminates this from ever being an issue. Secondly, for those running lower output alternators, at idle the alternator output may not be able to keep up with the draw of the electrical system which can cause your lights to dim. By using the relays, power is drawn direct from the battery giving better visibility at all rpm ranges for those vehicles that have that problem. Third, being that power is drawn directly from the battery use always have 12V to the lights. Also the crystal lenses give a different pattern of light than standard halogens, which also increases visiblilty at night.

We could provide a more stock type appearing lense, but they are not DOT approved. We will always attemp to offer DOT approved parts when available. We also try and offer an alternative for those that have to have something else.

Cool...thanks Mike. Was just wondering. You can't ever read the SAE type approval on the lens on internet pictures. The old wiring issue make sense too.

How about DOT approval so they are legal to put on our vehicles?
To what point? Who has been pulled over for non-DOT headlights? Many of the non-DOT light products have a FAR superior light distribution to the DOT products leading to less glare for oncoming traffic. Most of the rest of the world runs non-DOT lights. I see no motivation whatsoever to run lesser quality DOT products.
...Finally...why does everyone feel the need to provide a relay kit to get full alternator voltage to the lamps? The output of the bulb is designed and rated at 12.8 Volts and has an average lifetime of about 500 hrs at that voltage. If you get a full 14.5 Volts to the bulb you are overdriving them which does make them brighter, but the lifetime is reduced by about 80% to about 100 hr (which is about 1/3rd the lifetime of the sealed beams). Yes...they do draw slightly more power (35 W sealed beams vs. 55 W 9007 (HB4)) but the current draw on one bulb changes from 2.73 A to 4.3 A for low-beam and from 2.73 A to 5.1 A for a high-beam at 65 W). Hardly a barn-burner for the stock wiring.
Probably because the light bulbs are not designed/rated at a lowly 12.8 V. It is accepted that automotive systems operate at closer to 14 V so all automotive electrical parts are designed with a limit above that.

Probably because the stock 4 light system runs 150 Watts of power, or somewhere about 11 A. This is a fair amount of current. But bump that to 240 Watts of a typical H4/H1 or H4/H4 system and current jumps to 17 A. None of the headlight circuit components were designed for this kind of power/current. Switch contacts start to burn/heat up, terminals heat up along with the wires connected to them. Since the power to feed the headlights comes off of the dash harness, voltage drops not just to the headlights but to virtually every electrical device in the car.

And finally if you are going to spend the kind of money it takes to do these conversions, then the couple of relays and wiring are really a very small additional investment to achieve what is a much superior headlight and overall electrical system.

And more on topic... that is pretty cool that somebody came out with a glass lens H4 conversion bulb that does not require cutting out the headlight buckets and core support. Too late for me though as I already have done the core support mods and really did not think they were that big a deal.

Well Steve;

Being someone that actually engineers automotive forward lighting systems I have to take issue with some of your points.
1) I highly doubt that non-DOT lights have far superior lighting than DOT legal lamps and I definitely know that they don't have less glare! The aftermarket lamps that replace sealed-beams will definitely put out more light than a sealed-beam, but unless it is actually tested to FMVSS 108 I would be highly suspect that it produces a light pattern that meets the requirements of SAE J1383. Now...for a manufacturer to produce a lamp for this market it may be cost prohibitive and the manufacturer may not have all of the equipment or resources to make all the required tests for SAE certification. Finally...on the note of the rest of the world running non-DOT lamps...that is absolutely correct. DOT does not apply outside of North America. In those cases it is the ECE regulation for most countries in Europe and then there is also the Japanese regulation. Both of those are strictly prohibitive of non-compliant lamps and they check these things every year when you go in for inspection to renew your 'tabs'.
2) Per FMVSS 108 every North American automotive lamp is designed for 12.8 V period! Yes it is true that manufacturers know that the voltage may be higher depending on the application and hence design bulbs to survive at 14 V, but FMVSS 108 checks the light-output at 12.8 V. If you are running a lamp at say 14 V you are then putting out about 60% more light than the rated lumens, but at the same time you are reducing the lifetime of the bulb by about 80-85%. To the point of the voltage drops...yes there is voltage drop...that is how you get closer to 12.8 V at the lamp from the alternator. Yes, you want everything to be designed for the current that it is going to see but at the same time a well maintained electrical system is more than capable of handling the slight current increase of these replaceable bulbs (4 lamp sealed beams are actually more like 170 W). And I guess that is the point...not all cars have well maintained electrical systems.
3) I would wager a guess that the 5-3/4" lamp is glass because these bulbs are putting some heat and a 5-3/4" round plastic lens just isn't going to survive that kind of heat without distorting and eventually having some melt issues! Plus the hard-coat that is required for PC lenses can be fairly expensive to apply for an acceptable UV resitance.

Don't get me wrong...it is cool to have these alternative for our vehicles. I just asked these questions because I know that there are changes in the works to FMVSS 108 and to more global harmonization of automotive specifications. You might find in the not-so-distant future that non-compliant headlamps will become more of an issue.

Well Steve;

Being someone that actually engineers automotive forward lighting systems I have to take issue with some of your points.
Ok... we will try and keep this educational and maybe I can learn something ;)
1) I highly doubt that non-DOT lights have far superior lighting than DOT legal lamps and I definitely know that they don't have less glare!
Without scientific study I would deduce that glare is a product of the amount of light and height of light. I would also deduce that of these two the height is the most critical factor. I will show two different light patterns:
http://home.surewest.net/jahr/ElCamino/Electrical/OldLow.jpg

http://home.surewest.net/jahr/ElCamino/Electrical/NewLow.jpg

The former is standard sealed beams on a quad lamp system and the latter is ECE spec Hella bulbs. The Hella ECE bulbs have a much sharper cut-off line and noticeably less light above the cut-off line. This would seem to make for less glare unless I have missed something? This result is consistent with most quality conversion bulbs I have experienced over the last 20 years.

Note that I would not run these ECE bulb in England or Australia where that side kickup would be completely incompatible with driving on the left. But here in the states those are away from prevailing traffic.

2) Per FMVSS 108 every North American automotive lamp is designed for 12.8 V period! Yes it is true that manufacturers know that the voltage may be higher depending on the application and hence design bulbs to survive at 14 V, but FMVSS 108 checks the light-output at 12.8 V. If you are running a lamp at say 14 V you are then putting out about 60% more light than the rated lumens, but at the same time you are reducing the lifetime of the bulb by about 80-85%. To the point of the voltage drops...yes there is voltage drop...that is how you get closer to 12.8 V at the lamp from the alternator. Yes, you want everything to be designed for the current that it is going to see but at the same time a well maintained electrical system is more than capable of handling the slight current increase of these replaceable bulbs (4 lamp sealed beams are actually more like 170 W). And I guess that is the point...not all cars have well maintained electrical systems.
Not sure where you come up with 170 W, last time I checked the specs from GM were for 37.5 Watts per bulb on high which works out to 150 W. The factory wiring devices likely would function fine at 170 W but probably not at the 230 W level of a H4/H1 upgrade system.

With respect to voltage drop, I have to ask about current designs where the relay setup is very common. Part of the relay is no doubt a factor of the creative switch locations/setups favored by todays designs. But the relays are still located geographically local to the head lights. Thus these designs would have similiar low voltage drops as I am advocating for our old iron. So how do they get away with this design on new cars? If they are doing it this way I have to believe it cannot be as evil as you describe unless I am missing something again?
3) I would wager a guess that the 5-3/4" lamp is glass because these bulbs are putting some heat and a 5-3/4" round plastic lens just isn't going to survive that kind of heat without distorting and eventually having some melt issues! Plus the hard-coat that is required for PC lenses can be fairly expensive to apply for an acceptable UV resitance.
I agree that heat can be a significant issue as can be UV resistance. My comments were more motivated by my experience that glass is superior to plastic in headlight applications in every application I have ever seen. Glass maintains it's transparency and seems to have superior light direction control. I am really not a fan of the integrated aero headlights used today. If done well they can be ok but if the OEM get's it wrong you are just completely screwed. Not to mention the much higher replacement costs. At least there was a broad enough market to attract alternative development with the generic bulb designs.

Hello again Steve;

For the issue of glare: Yes...basically the glare is the luminous intensity or Candela (which is a measure of power similar to the Watt, but it is separated because the human eye has varying sensitivity over the entire spectrum of visible light). The SAE beam pattern basically has 21 zones that have varying requirements. Of them; 7 have maximum luminous intensity ratings. The most critical being 10-60° Up and across a sweep of 45° Left to 45° Right. The difficulty comes in that it isn't just light that shines from the bulb and out the lens. Stray light can come from imperfections in the reflector, light bounced off the lens and back to the reflector again (yes the lens is not a perfect transmitter of light), light refracted through the lens, horizontal styling lines on the lens that bend light up and down, dirt on the lens, a scratched lens, reflection off of vehicle body components, etc.

The sealed-beam lamps are a mechanically aimed system (the suction-cup Hoppy style of mechanical aimer you are probably familiar with). With this system the relation of the bulb filament to the reflector is set and guaranteed by the manufacturer. The Hella lamps that you have shown are VOL lamps (Visually / Optically Aimed - Left-hand rule of the road). VOR have the sloped ramp on the Left side instead of the Right like SAE. VO are flat and do not have the sloped cutoff. These lamps must be aimed optically, either with a beam-setter optical device or the 10 M wall method. The sealed-beams vs. the VO lamp beam patterns are fundamentally different. It is a different technology. The sealed-beams are basically aimed by the bright-spot in the lamp, the VO obviously by the cut-off line. I say the VO are superior, but that it is more about the quality of the light and placement. All VO lamps are not created equal. The VO lamps do have a more homogeneous light distribution.

What is interesting in the picture of the VOL lamps that you have shown is the stray light that is on the far left of the picture. This should not be there. The LH lamp cutoff should look crisp and sharp like the RH lamp. Perhaps it is reflected light from the trim bezel or something.

As to the issue of 170W: a 5001 High-beam is rated at 50 W. A 5006 low/high beam is rated at 35 W for both high and low. Hence...170 W.

Lenses: While the glass may be superior in UV resistance it cannot hold a candle to a PC lens for impact resistance. It is nearly 20 times more impact resistant than glass. It is much lighter, and it can be more easily formed into complex shapes (that however goes to you comment of not liking modern headlamps...it cannot be done in glass). UV resistance is handled through a UV resistant hard-coat that protects the lens from scratches and yellowing. GM has done a horrible job in the recent past with UV protection and nearly all early 90s and late 80s GM pickups have yellow headlamp lenses. This doesn't have to be, and I think they are finally figuring it out. As long as you don't get in a big crash the replacement cost of a bulb for a modern headlamp is much less than the replacement cost for a sealed-beam. Sealed-beams these days are going for like $15 a lamp (that is of course if you buy the Halogen ones and not simply incandescent).

Relays: Well...I am not saying it is "evil," but that it isn't entirely necessary and that the big thing is that you are putting much more voltage to the lamp and it is killing the life of the lamp by about 80%. In modern cars the relay is necessary because they are using much lower rated switches to control the circuit, thus keeping the high current out of the switch which improves contact life and also shortening the main power path. These are good things, but in our classic cars the system was designed to carry the full power into the dash, through the headlamp switch and then back to the headlamps (now technically current flows from negative to positive; so...through the headlamps, through the switch, back to the battery; but by convention it is positive to negative). Now...170 W to 240 W...I don't really know the current limitations of our switches, but...on a well maintained system it isn't going to be a problem...I guess because of varying conditions it is probably safer to use relays...especially from a legal standpoint of the vendor. My big beef with the relays that people don't understand is that YES...you will get more light...because you are putting a higher voltage to the lamps, but that the life is exponentially decreased in the bulb.

Finally...a sealed-beam, 4-lamp system is actually quite good under high-beam conditions. It is the low-beam side that doesn't put out much light. I also might say that I would not worry a bit about your Hella lamps as I work with them a lot and know that their lamps are really good quality and well engineered. I can't say that about all the other manufacturers.

How long have you had your 5-3/4" Hella lamps? I don't think they have had those in production very long. The 7" rounds they have had much longer.

Best regards,

I have probably had my small Hellas for a couple of years now. When I bought them they seemed like they had been on the shelf for a long time.

With respect to the 150 watt/170 watt issue... it is true that today you would probably put 170 watts up front with the H5006/H5001 combo. But when designed/built that was not an option, so the electrical system design was built around the 150 watt specification. There is probably enough extra capacity there in a "well maintained" system to handle 170 watts, but certainly not enough to handle 230 watts :-)

Another aspect of this whole discussion that has bothered me is the difference between the design center of 12.8 v and the standard 14 v automotive operation. I went back and looked up the info on Sylvanias web site and they actually note that all lifespans are specified at 14 v. So I conclude that running full voltage to the headlights via relays will not reduce the lifespan below what has been specified. This would also explain how modern systems function correctly with relays: the bulbs are for all intents designed to run at 14 v even if the official federal standard is 12.8 v.

And finally here is some additional information on why upgrading to relays for headlights is really a very good idea. I will provide ranges with 150 watt standard lights being the low and 170 watt halogen lights being the high. I estimate there is roughly 16' (or more) of wire of various sizes between supply and headlights. This wiring accounts for around 0.04 ohms, 0.5 V drop, and 5-7 watts of heating all by itself. This does not include the 8 terminal connections nor 2 switches in the headlight circuit. Published data has shown a typical system can have 0.22 ohms in the circuit total (I measured mine at 0.6 ohms). At this level the voltage drop jumps to 2.5-2.9 volts and heating 30-39 watts (6.6-7.4 V and 77-99 watts for my 0.6 ohm system). This shows that any degradation in connections and/or switches can quickly become a serious problem. Even with relatively plain generic headlights (if I ran my 230 watt setup without relays... 10.8 v drop and 194 watts of heating).

Now what happens with relays? We have two circuits now. The headlight feed circuit is reduced to perhaps 3' of wire and 4 connections. Most of that wire is alternator power feed cable and thus quite large and very low resistance. Total resistance will depend on wire size chosen but is still very small for negligeable losses. The headlight control circuit still contains all the trouble spots (wire length, connectors, and switches) we had before but now the circuit loading is greatly reduced. A typical relay control circuit may see 0.2 A, and at this level the voltage drop in my poor 0.6 ohm system is only 0.12 v and heating 0.02 watts. A degraded system like mine providing about 50% in stock configuration still puts out 100% with improved relay configuration.

I have probably over simplified the analysis since I am not an electrical engineer. But I think I have still shown that relays help reliability a bunch.