LED Head & Fog Light Conversion
 

I've been looking to upgrade my lighting system on my FC. I have a Hella Housings that allow for me to change out the bulbs with ease. From my research in the FC threads I found a lot of debate about HID Conversions. Most of the threads date back to 2006-2011. It's now 2018 and I see a lot of automobile manufacturers switching to LED lighting systems. Does anyone have any experience converting the FC headlights(H4) and fog lights (H3C) with an LED conversion plug and play kit. If I go on amazon I find a lot of vendors offering plug and play kits. I am aware that it's rare to see H3C bulbs anymore so I would have to modify an H3 bulb. My biggest concern is that I don't want a short circuit any wiring especially since RX7s are known for electrical problems. I'd love the communities input.

There are recent threads on this topic in which I went into pretty good detail regarding why you should not use drop-in LED bulbs in even Hella E-code housings.

GE makes an LED 200mm headlamp that they engineered to utilize LEDs.. so has JW Speaker.

Neither are terribly affordable. But they do perform well.

Don't be one of those jackwagons blinding other people with drop-in LED or HID lights.

Upgrade the wiring and the bulb in your current housings if you feel you're somehow lacking light. Or, buy some cheap plastic lensed semi-sealed beam 200mm units and do a Bi-LED projector retrofit. Morimoto sells the LED projectors.

Any way you shake it, do it right. Right isn't cheap.

I didn't know about the GE LED option. I currently have E-codes. Is the part number in your previous novel?

GE Lighting 69822 Nighthawk LED 5-Inch x 7-Inch Rectangular Replacement Headlamp

https://www.jwspeaker.com/products/l...0-evolution-2/



Just know there are lots of knockoffs out there that visually look the same.. don't fall for the Chinese copy bullcrap... buy directly from GE or JW Speaker.

I appreciate the insight. Those GE look good (minus the logo stripe across the middle)

Unless you ride around with your headlamps in the up position and not illuminated, you'll never see them anyway....

With the options you had recommended are there any possible issues that could arise with a short in the wiring since the car is going from a H4 bulb to an LED bulb?

This is the back of the GE LED. Just make sure the connection stays dry. Rubber boot, electrical tape, ect.. These are nice! but also $$

-M

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...4e2c0f816e.jpg

LEDs draw less juice, bascially... so no.

If you somehow managed to short out your wiring, it won't matter if the intended load is an H4 bulb, an LED bulb, a toaster or the motor in a Tesla - a "short" means you have an unplanned & unrestricted electrical path to complete the circuit, bypassing the intended load. Meaning it will draw current until something melts and the magic smoke appears - hopefully a fuse or circuit breaker will do its job, but if it doesn't, or if the circuit doesn't have anything to protect it, it will cook till the wiring melts.

I'd certainly hope that the wiring in the car isn't that bad.. if you already have a short, changing the kind of bulb will not fix that as has been indicated.

You could always meter the resistance in the wires to sort of gauge what kind of condition it's in, but that is not a guarantee. Really needs to be done in tandem with visual inspection.. but I bet you dont want to be cutting looms apart.

Literally plug and play... not sure how you missed that.

I believe the FD has rather specific headlamps, so no. You would need to buy clear lensed replacement units and then do a projector retrofit of either the xenon or LED variety.

i know guys who have put LED in their halogen headlight housings, yes the light looks whiter but for actual performance they are not any better. it also throws light everywhere.
so yes looks bright, not really effective, and blinds people.

so, junk.

the GE led I would imagine are better, plus they are DOT approved which means they wont blind people

from one of the reviews: Also the shipped product doesn't have the grey band across the lens, it's just clear and shows off the black separation bracket.

That's good to know, thank you. That band in the middle was a show stopper.

+1 that was a deal breaker for me as well.

It makes me happy that at least some people are making the right choices. My soul dies a little every time I see someone rolling around with dangerous headlights while under the delusion that its somehow better or safer.

I went with the GE a few months back and they've been amazing. The grey band across the front looks clean. Only the top half of the light is on low beam, and both bottom and top are on during High beam operation. Pricey yet DOT approved and a good product.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...a5c235140d.jpg

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...9b618fbf10.jpg

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...12e256d689.jpg

The GE LED headlights are not available, but I found some headlights on Amazon but I couldn't attach. Not sure why. They are DOT 110W 5X7 LED Headlights for $79 They got really good reviews. If I order them, I will let everyone know how good or bad they are.

I did a comparison of several styles of non-fan/non-heatsink H3 bulb last year under controlled conditions, in the same manner that Icemark did years ago with different FC headlight options.

Here they are in a small Reflector Housing here:

And in a DOT compliant Halogen Projector Headlight housing:

And comparing them to a 35w HID setup in the same Projector Housing:

Both housings used in this test has the bulb mounted in the common Axial front-to-back manner. Some other housings have them vertical, so your results may vary based on this factor.

Descriptions of each have a simple, easy way to find each of the featured bulbs on Ebay/Amazon/etc. What I learned from this experiment is that the brand name didn't matter, it was all about how each bulb had its LEDs arranged. Generally speaking, that the more LEDs were on the bulb, the more the light was put everywhere except where it was useful and needed.

Overall, the 42SMD "IronWalls" and 30SMD were the best of the lot and do the job pretty well for Auxiliary items like Trailer Hitch lights. However, I would not use them for headlights. There's just not enough output from these fanless LED bulbs for primary forward lighting duties. This is why I ended up retrofitting HIDs in my Expedition, the test vehicle used in all 3 videos.

Consequently, LSXMatt on Youtube retrofitted heatsink'ed LED bulbs from BeamTech in his Tahoe's reflector housings with pretty good results here:

He also mentions that LED bulbs did poorly his his Subaru with Projector housings, hence going to HIDs in the same manner I did. So it stands to reason that as a general guideline, LEDs are better in Reflector housings, while HIDs do better in Projector housings.

I got the lights. They are in a sealed casing and I installed them like any headlight. They work perfectly. Line up correctly and are bright.
All I need now are front turn signal bulbs that don't hyperflash