Solution For Dim Yellow Headlights?
 

Hello.
I just acquired a low mileage '93, and the headlights are absolutely abysmal. They are yellow, and incredibly dim. When night driving, cars behind me cast a shadow onto my own headlights. It's pretty pathetic.

My car has very low mileage, and I'd like to keep it OEM if possible. Is there a solution to this from Mazda? Like headlights from a later year from Japan, or anything like that? Some people have suggested the headlight replacements from Sakebomb, but if I'm honest, I think the assembly is ugly AF.

Try installing some high quality bulbs and polishing the lens?

Headlight bulbs are wear items..

The stock FD headlights aren't great, but they should be at least decent and safe.

Get some good Sylvania Silverstar halogen bulbs and replace the stock bulbs. Read up on how to aim headlights, there are videos and writeups out there, it's not RX-7 specific so any solid video will apply. Many FD's I've driven have had the headlights pointed at the ground or up in the trees for no reason, having them actually aimed where they should be is a huge help.

If they are still dim it could also be a voltage or ground issue, may want to get a meter out and see how much voltage the headlights are getting.

The Sakebomb headlights are AMAZING with light output. I will say that I don't like how the look as much, but since I don't have to see it when I'm driving the car I'm fine with it. I do like the look of the road lit up like crazy.

Dale

I guess I'll try the brightest bulb i can get my hands on. Thanks for the suggestions @hadokenny and @DaleClark .
I've only had the car 3 weeks, so I'm still trying to figure out what I need and where to get it.
The quest for a full set of OEM bushings and replacing 26 year old brake rotors is next. lol

I would stick with plain halogen bulbs in the OEM housings. In theory you could get LED bulbs but I don't know if they even make H4 LED bulbs and trying to find the right one can be a real challenge - many of them will actually put out LESS light and give you worse visibility than the stock setup.

Dale

I agree with Dale. I'm personally considering going LED's, but I'd only do it as part of a Projector conversion. Just dropping in an LED bulb will probably result in really poorly controlled light splattering.

If you're keen to give it a try, morimoto makes some nice looking conversions that are fully self contained. Obviously they'll disassembly of your factory headlight housing though.. https://www.theretrofitsource.com/bi...rojectors.html

My FD is currently in a shop about 3k miles away, so I haven't been able to take measurements to see how well the one I linked would fit inside our housing :(

I dropped in some LED bulbs in mine and it was a game changer. I did have to cut out a bit of the plastic frame to clear the new bulbs' built in fan but it is unnoticeable. I did this to both of my FD's and it made the headlights usable. I had to use the cheesy aftermarket fog lights just to see at night before the upgrade and was glad I could get rid of them.

Not that it's perfectly optimal, but a lot of the LED retro bulbs face upward to work with a reflector housing. I'm running regular incandescent bulbs and it's passable. Though, it's clear all modern cars have superior lighting.

Last year I took on a DIY project to convert the abysmal halogen sealed beam headlights in my FC to HID projectors. The gist of it is I sourced the latest Morimoto Mini H1 retrofit projectors, ballasts, HID bulbs, etc, and spent LOTS of labor hours modifying a pair of aftermarket sealed beam conversion housings to take the projectors and get it all to fit and to work properly on my FC's popup headlights. The results were great - literally night & day, and headlight aim is spot on perfect.

All in, I spent maybe $450 on the FC lighting project. I'd eventually like to do the same on my FD, but the big difference there is your sources of replacement headlight housings to work with are limited, and they cost significantly more. So I would estimate a DIY project for the FD will increase my costs to about $600, to do it to the same standards as my FC. Given the ridiculous amount of labor time I spent on the FC, I'd probably just pay extra for the Sakebomb HID kit for my FD.

I retro mine too with d2s 5.0 and I spent $550. I love the greater light output. Just a little more work than the mini h1 though.

+1 for Sylvania Silverstars. Stock fitment but way better performance than OEM.

That's what is in mine - I put them in a long time (20 years?) ago. I agree - much better than the OE bulbs.