Anyone upgrade to hid headlights?

[cartierEdition]

My friend asked me to swap in a set of Sylvania headlight bulbs in his mark iii. I know those bulbs make hardly any difference. So trying to find something better. Have read about hid conversions and think that would work well but not sure what kit to use. Found this one on eBay. Any good? https://m.ebay.com/itm/69-70-71-LINCOLN ... 4335.l8656

[Solid]

First of all, those are not HID bulbs even though they say so. An HID bulb would have a transformer. I'll explain why I think you should go LED rather than HID below but I wanted to just say it up front.

I have had the exact bulbs in your link. In fact, I still have them, in my BMW E30 track car. They are acceptable as regular headlights (and I threw them into the car to replace broken glass sealed beams from impacts on the track) but that is all. Don't buy these unless you have reason to believe that the conversion housings for the H4 bulbs are excellent so that they can be repurposed. Many sealed beam to H4 conversion housings are plastic lensed and use a cheap chromed plastic reflector at the back. To get good results, you want to find a high quality housing to convert from sealed beam to H4.

I had actual HID conversion H4 bulbs in my 62 for a while. They were kind of crap with a lot of fiddly wiring and transformers to route/mount respectively. They did not reach full brightness very fast, high beams were kludgy using a mechanical shutter, they were really too long to fit in the sealed beam conversion housings without modification, etc. I have had much better luck with H4 LED conversion bulbs in the same housings. If you poke around on Amazon you can find two designs for H4 LED replacements. The most common kind has a fixed heat sink at the back sometimes with an embedded fan to dissipate heat. I can't say for sure, but I don't think these will fit through the headlight bucket or in the space between the bucket and the splash shields. The other design uses loops of flexible metal mesh as the heat sink at the back, which can easily be compressed and folded into the space behind the headlight buckets without having to alter the splash shields. The brand I bought no longer seems to exist, but the ones I link below are identical (so they probably just changed to a more western sounding name). In terms of usable light, I find the LED H4 bulbs are vastly superior to the stock sealed beams and to the HIDs. They have far less wiring and ancillary crap than the HID conversions, they light instantly, more brightly, with less waste heat and lower power consumption, and have an instant functional high beam, etc.

https://www.amazon.com/SEALIGHT-LED-Hea ... rds=LED+H4

[TonyC]

Why would LEDs need heat sinks? One of the big selling points about LEDs is that they don't emit that much heat. HIDs, I can see a need for heat sinks...but LEDs?

All those conversions seem too complicated for me. I'll stick with good-ol'-fashioned halogen sealed beams: No crazy conversions or mods (or any, for that matter--crazy or otherwise) necessary; cost far less than any other light, save for the obsolete non-halogen sealed beams; they're bright enough without blinding oncoming traffic; and they last a really long time. Case in point for the last bit: I have one light that has been seriously cracked since last April--I'm not talking a mere bull's-eye, I mean a crack from one end to the other, and splitting off to another end at the middle--and it still lights normally in both settings! But of course, I do carry a spare just in case the night comes that one of the filaments blows out.

---Tony

(P.S. BTW, when I read the title of the thread, I was under the impression that the O.P. meant hidden headlights--which would require extensive mods to the front of a Suicide. )

[Solid]

Why would LEDs need heat sinks? One of the big selling points about LEDs is that they don't emit that much heat. HIDs, I can see a need for heat sinks...but LEDs?

All those conversions seem too complicated for me. I'll stick with good-ol'-fashioned halogen sealed beams: No crazy conversions or mods (or any, for that matter) necessary; cost far less than any other light, save for the obsolete non-halogen sealed beams; they're bright enough without blinding oncoming traffic; and they last a really long time. Case in point for the last bit: I have one light that has been seriously cracked since last April--I'm not talking a mere bull's-eye, I mean a crack from one end to the other, and splitting off to another end at the middle--and it still lights normally in both settings! But of course, I do carry a spare just in case the night comes that one of the filaments blows out.

---Tony

I'm going to strongly disagree on all points.

First, with an electric screwdriver you can convert to H4 bulbs and housings in 5-10 minutes. There is no crazy conversion since the H4 bulb is plug and play with the original wiring harness. The only real change here is that you can use a modern high pressure halogen bulb in a fixed housing instead of replacing the entire housing. It will look nearly stock unless you deliberately get something unusual (I have housings with LED halos on my Lincoln that I use as the front parking lights).

Second, H4 halogen bulbs do not cost meaningfully more than a sealed beam, and are easier to get than sealed beams because they are not hopelessly obsolete. Decent conversion housings are not expensive by any reasonable measure. My LED halo ones were more of course but I wanted that look and was willing to pay for it.

Third, "bright enough" from a sealed beam is the same as saying that second place is anything other than the fastest loser. They are terrible by modern standards. Headlights that cause problems for oncoming traffic either are aimed wrong (which is almost always the problem) or have a crappy beam pattern (I have seen extremely cheap H4 housings with the mounting tabs inverted so that when installed the low beam filament is lighting the high beam part of the reflector). There is no such thing as too much light as long as it is well controlled. I watched the Audi LMP1 cars at night at LeMans in 2014, and those used a laser to excite the illuminators, with self-adjusting reflective panels around them. When these cars were cornering it was just amazing to see the headlights steer to illuminate way down the track with very little wasted light. They were insanely bright and extremely well controlled.

Finally, the performance of your headlights are a real safety issue and that is more so in a classic car. Any older Lincoln will have extremely bad performance in a collision, so seeing farther down the road to have more time try to avoid collisions is a meaningful issue for overall safety. If you look at the most recent IIHS ratings you'll see that a bunch of cars fell out of the top category, and the reason was that IIHS decided it was time to put headlight performance into the requirements for the best rating. If you read their report, you will see that they were surprised by how many new cars with otherwise excellent safety features still have lousy headlights. But I want to be clear here that what we accept as normal on most modern cars is really kind of crap compared to what is possible. "Normal" in the sealed beam era is so atrocious that if you brought an average modern headlight into the past you'd be accused of witchcraft (almost literally, since it was impossible to make an LED headlight at any price in 1961!).

Sealed beams are at best 4 generation obsolete technology. They were replaced with high pressure halogen (like H4), then custom housings (so that left and right sides of the car had different light patterns out to the sides), then HIDs, and now LEDs with self leveling and steering. If you get behind the wheel of a higher end modern car at night on a dark road, like a Porsche Macan with the optional self-adjusting LED headlights, and it is another huge step change in usable light. You can see so much further down the road and they have razor sharp cutoff. When you're cornering part of the headlight lights around the corner so you can see through the turn as soon as there is line of sight rather than not until the car is fully oriented in the new direction. When you get back into a car with sealed beams after that it is as if you're wearing sunglasses at night.

Since you mentioned the heat sinks,as efficient as the LED conversion lights are, there is still heat to get rid of. I'd argue that since they consume a fraction of the power to produce more light and a lot less heat that is inarguably a good idea when you have 50+ year old wiring. Paying attention to the quality of the H4 conversion housings is very important. The really cheap ones have such poor reflectors and glass that you can throw away a lot of the improvement over the sealed beams. A high quality reflector and good glass are important whether you are using halogen H4, LED H4, or for some reason want the absurd complexity of HID H4.

[cartierEdition]

So with a led h4 I won't need a relay harness? Thought all headlight conversions required a relay harness to take the strain off the switch and give full battery voltage to the bulbs

[Solid]

You shouldn’t. I already had a relay harness on my car, so YMMV, but the power consumption of the LED H4 bulbs is much lower than the older bulbs.

[TonyC]

Much as I greatly respect Solid's takes on most topics, I feel I have to strongly counter-disagree on some of his points, and concede where concession is due:

"bright enough" from a sealed beam is the same as saying that second place is anything other than the fastest loser. They are terrible by modern standards. Headlights that cause problems for oncoming traffic either are aimed wrong (which is almost always the problem) or have a crappy beam pattern (I have seen extremely cheap H4 housings with the mounting tabs inverted so that when installed the low beam filament is lighting the high beam part of the reflector). There is no such thing as too much light as long as it is well controlled. I watched the Audi LMP1 cars at night at LeMans in 2014, and those used a laser to excite the illuminators, with self-adjusting reflective panels around them. When these cars were cornering it was just amazing to see the headlights steer to illuminate way down the track with very little wasted light. They were insanely bright and extremely well controlled.

That is the typical condescension I've heard from composite-light advocates about sealed beams, and I tend to ignore it in any case. If "modern standards" constitutes creating a whole new generation of cataracts for the government health-care system to cover, then that's a standard I have no desire to comply with. Sealed-beam halogen headlights are quite good--far better than anyone gives them credit for, and although not quite so easy to find in parts stores, there are still active listings for them and can still be had at lower cost than anything else save for non-halogen sealed beams (which I will concede are inadequate). If the assessment about my blinding comment is in fact the case, then that means that at least 68% of owners of cars so equipped don't know what the Hell they're doing. That means more government regulations and restrictions on self-service (as in Europe) to ensure that these cataract-causing ultraviolet floodlights do not create a new burden on the national health-care system within a generation.

Finally, the performance of your headlights are a real safety issue and that is more so in a classic car. Any older Lincoln will have extremely bad performance in a collision, so seeing farther down the road to have more time try to avoid collisions is a meaningful issue for overall safety.

Tell that to the Grand Am I struck in 2006, or Bambi in 2011. And I wasn't doin' no 10 mph in either case! True, body-on-frame cars will have extremely bad collision survival skills, but the '60s unit-body Lincolns are better than anyone gives them credit for. Oh, did I mention that in the first collision, I struck at 35 mph minimum speed, with no brakes, and didn't break a headlight? That bulb kept burning for another six years after that collision before needing replacement. Now, the other headlight didn't fare as well with Bambi, but I was doing twice that speed at the worst time of day for any car to be on the road, again with no brakes because there was no warning. But Frankenstein was not disabled and kept on driving, right to the nearest AutoZone (50 miles down the road) to get a new headlight. Try that with any other car built since then. So much for the collision argument.

If you look at the most recent IIHS ratings you'll see that a bunch of cars fell out of the top category, and the reason was that IIHS decided it was time to put headlight performance into the requirements for the best rating. If you read their report, you will see that they were surprised by how many new cars with otherwise excellent safety features still have lousy headlights. But I want to be clear here that what we accept as normal on most modern cars is really kind of crap compared to what is possible. "Normal" in the sealed beam era is so atrocious that if you brought an average modern headlight into the past you'd be accused of witchcraft (almost literally, since it was impossible to make an LED headlight at any price in 1961!).

Although I haven't seen the IIHS report, I don't doubt what it may have said, as I've seen numerous 21st-century vehicles with piss-poor headlighting--which tells me the engineers did not design the bulbs or the housings properly (cost-cutting to raise profit, naturally--then resort to government hand-outs when their complacency over quality control nearly cost them their existence). To me, that demonstrates that composite headlighting is only a different means of lighting, not necessarily better.

You can see so much further down the road and they have razor sharp cutoff.

Not true from my own observations. Where the cataract-causers are concerned, I've observed that they never demonstrate a greater range forward than Frankenstein's halogen sealed beams (I don't like the thought of using the non-halogen variants, because as you did say, it's atrocious and obsolete). They demonstrate a much wider lighting area within the same range, but never a longer range. And I say this having driven nose-to-nose with other cars equipped with the blinders.

When you get back into a car with sealed beams after that it is as if you're wearing sunglasses at night.

Funny you should mention that--I have to wear sunglasses at night to protect me from being blinded by these new headlights--well, not actually "sun" glasses, more like night glasses with yellow or rosy-pink lenses. At least I can keep myself from cataracts that way.

I'm sure that folks may think I'm ranting since they ain't been me or been there, and thus ain't about that life. But I speak from experience, not from my ass; trust me, folks--I'm always dead-honest here. I won't say anything about the conversion process, because it seems that Solid also speaks from experience and therefore has demonstrated that it isn't so bad as it seems. So I grant that position, although I still have no desire to undergo it myself. In the end, I hold the position that these conversions are just that: Conversions. Not upgrades. BUT, that said, I do not say this to force others to conform to my opinion, only to give my opinion. Two sides to the story exist, and I've just given the other side. Choose the destiny you wish based on what you've read.

---Tony