I replaced my old H4 headlight bulbs with some of these;


FluxBeam X LED Headlights - OPT7




Assembled

Although pricey, I hope they perform for many years.
Judge the performance for yourselves.

Old H4 Halogen bulbs;


H4 Halogen Low


H4 Halogen Hi

New OPT7



OPT7 Fluxbeam X Low

I used some Nokya Cosmic white bulbs after the H4 Halogens. They were a slight improvement in color but not in beam projection or brightness like the OPT7's.

 

That looks like quite an improvement. I was the other day mentioning how crappy the FC headlights were. How difficult is installation? They fit in the OEM casing?

 

Any road pictures? Thinking of getting some LEDS after my E-Code headlights come in.

 

No. The OE headlamps are sealed beam 200mm or 'H6054'. Sealed beam means, basically, that the bulb is built in to the housing itself and is not replaceable. You must replace the whole unit.

The performance of sealed beams is awful. Does not matter if you go for the expensive Silverstars or not, the beam optics are relatively unchanged.

If you do not want to custom build a set of projector retrofitted replacement headlamps, or spend silly money on pre-retro'd lamps, then the smartest option are genuine, name-brand E-codes. All E-codes really are, are a European standard lamp..vs the American DOT standard. This just means that the way the light is collected from the bulb and projected out on the road in front of you is done in a different way. DOT has very loose standards, especially when it comes to antiquated sealed beam technology.

I recommend Hella or Cibie 200mm E-code lamps. They are semi-sealed beam.. that means you can replace just the bulb because it is separate from the lamp unit itself. The light that comes out of a good E-code is very similar to a projector type lamp. The low beams are very wide with just the right amount of foreground and excellent light down the road in front of you with a very sharp cutoff producing virtually no glare for oncoming traffic. The high beams have incredible distance lighting but lack the width of the low beam pattern. All in all, I have no legitimate complaints about the Hella E-code performance. They are the best upgrade I've done to any of these cars short of turbo swaps from N/A.
I run mine with Osram Hyper bulbs that are quite a lot higher in wattage than most off the shelf H4 bulbs. This helps in the rain and, in my opinion, helps spot furry woodland creatures sooner due to the increased brightness.

I havent yet tried an LED drop-in H4. I've been considering it, but the more research I do confirms my suspicions that the design of these drop in bulbs just isnt there yet... what I mean by that is that even if you get the focal point (the precise spot on the 'bulb' that emits the light) just right, these drop-in LED bulbs still are not designed in such a way that you end up with complete coverage.. ultimately this leaves you with a beam dispersal that is uneven... has dark and hot spots in it.. and that's annoying. Barring that, most of the drop in LED bulbs do not have the focal point right in the first place and that just pushes the beam optics out of focus altogether, hindering performance and usually causing dangerous glare to other motorists.

So, my alternative is that I will likely go a wee bit hotter with the wattage of my next set of bulbs compared to what I have now to further increase wet weather performance and simply upgrade the headlamp harness to handle the extra load.

Does it do anything to lighten the load on an already strained electrical system (weak stock alternator)? No, but if that is truly your concern, then you need to upgrade the alternator to something with significantly more grunt for output rather than bandaid the core issue by utilizing LEDs.

Edit: Jesus, it doesn't take much to get me going on about vehicle lighting lol something of a hobby of mine... in fairness, I will mention that I went LED on every exterior and interior bulb short of the headlamps and the gauge cluster. Mostly because I like the rich color they provide, but also to take some of the load off my alternator until I make up my damn mind about which alternator I want to shoehorn into my car.. probably the contour alternator.. pretty much made up my mind on that. Now to do something about my laziness!

 

You must have an H4 housing that allows the bulb to be changed. I have H4 Hella housings.
The Nokya bulbs were rated at 55/90w with a 5000k color. Not even close to the OPT7 light output.
i agree that the LED technology is not there yet, but this is a giant leap in light quality over non LED bulbs.
HID kits are $485 +/-, with hot ballast, more watts per bulb and installation complexity. This is a great value, less watts and run a little cooler.
These bulbs have a cooling fan that runs when the bulbs are on.
The light beam needs to be adjusted on my FC. You can see two distinct beams while you tube videos show a broad interconnected beam.
I have some adjusting to do, but happy with results so far.