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For those who want a nice lighting upgrade while not going HID or LED route, I would recommend the Racing Beat H4 headlight conversation. Pretty straight forward upgrade. Excellent lens, and uses standard H4 bulbs (included). Direct fit into factory harness and housing. Added much confidence in driving at night.
They look nice and the price is good, but how are they an upgrade from stock? Aren't they pretty much the same thing? For waht its worth i find the old 7" glass semi sealed h4 set up we get is superior to many much more modern cars that run the same h4 bulb.
Well compared to the lights that came installed on my FB these were a big improvement. Glad that you presented an alternative solution. That is why this forum is so good IMO; you get opinions on solutions for issues.
Its all about the lens optics. Just like cameras. Better lens, but focus of light. Thats why the Cibie and Hella glass is more $$.
BTW you might want to consider upgrading the wire harness of the lights, since that H4 bulb is pulling thru those skimpy 30 yr old wires thru the column switch. Plug-and-play prewired harnesses with the necessary relays are avai thru Amazon, etc for about $50
They look nice and the price is good, but how are they an upgrade from stock? Aren't they pretty much the same thing? For waht its worth i find the old 7" glass semi sealed h4 set up we get is superior to many much more modern cars that run the same h4 bulb.
Agreed, what brands available where you are? Is IPF one of them?
Its all about the lens optics. Just like cameras. Better lens, but focus of light. Thats why the Cibie and Hella glass is more $$.
BTW you might want to consider upgrading the wire harness of the lights, since that H4 bulb is pulling thru those skimpy 30 yr old wires thru the column switch. Plug-and-play prewired harnesses with the necessary relays are avai thru Amazon, etc for about $50
Stu Aull
80GS
Alaska
Very much so. Have upgraded headlights in all my vehicles,besides my Rx. Have both Cibie(SE) and Hella E code in my other vehicles. The Cibie lamps have the best light quality lo,and hi beam. I run 100/80 watt bulbs thru a handmade relayed wire harness. The performance rivals/exceeds many modern cars with oe HID/LED lighting. Acknowledge that both lamp/bulb combination are not "legal",but aimed properly(mandatory with any conversion),used with disgression they're very effective for night driving and given my SE performance abilities,difficult to outdrive these lights at speed. As an aside,still have oe lamps removed from my SE when i bought it in early 90s. They both worked,believe to be either Koyo or Stanley,but recall wattage is 50/30,light output was feeble. For this reason ANY H4 install is a big bump in visibility/color quality of light,but also the 60/55 watt standard bulb supplied with most conversion lamps WILL draw 30%+ more current thru wiring,headlight & dimmer switches from a system barely adequate to run the oe 50/30 watt lamps. A relayed harness is a must to preserve integrity of above components. Stu,did you eventually acquire/install the Putco harness in your 7?
Yeah this is nice upgrade. I did the headlight and harness upgrade using the BlackDragon parts
back in the day and its really a significant increase, even from the sealed beam h4 I was running
before and way better than the OEM sealed beams previous to that.
If you're referring to oe on American bound FBs, our lighting laws dictated sealed beam lamps and what we got from Mazda was 50/30 watt,considerable step down from what European FBs came with. One of reasons people make such a big deal about an H4 conversion here, between lamp quality and 60/55 watt H4 bulb there is a very noticeable difference in light output.
