Thread: H4 LED GLOBES

Originally Posted by laney

Hi all is any one using Led h4 globes if so what globes work best and have you noticed a significant difference in night driving.
Thanks Phil

The lights on my D2a were crap and i fitted a set of LED globes to the high beams and it made a marked improvement
A decent set of spotties fitted later were a much better solution

I have tried both H4 LED and HID in my 2002 D2.
I prefer the HID even though they are slow to light.
However I have changed back to 150/100 tungsten.
I find the LED and HID have dark spots in a D2 headlight and in addition I find the 6000K to make driving on a wet road very challenging as it seems to reflect off and not give a good idea of the surface. Also the 6000K reflects off street and highway signs excessively to the point of being dazzling.
I am currently fitting a 20 inch LED light bar to see if it improves the country driving.
One improvement I made was to clean the reflectors by sloshing pure alcohol around and then rinsing with distilled water.
Regards PhilipA

so far that I've found are the Philips Ultinon globes pretty much perfect.
A tad exxy compared to others out there of similar design, but I've had mine in for 5 years or so now, and brothers D2(same lights as D1) have been for a bit of 2 years now.

When I fitted the bros globes, I found a dark spot on high-beam coming from the left, but the right was fine. Was annoying on high-beam, and felt better to leave on low beam.
But a few weeks ago I found that I'd installed it crooked on the LHS .. made sense.
Once fixed, his lights work just as good as the D1 does.

If you pay around the low to mid $100 mark, I reckon you'll be happy with a pair of LEDs.

Note that the D2 don't have a lot of room behind the headlight for heatsinking the LED chips.
Why I chose the Philips(back then) was that their heatsink designs seem to work well for the D1/D2 type headlight design(ie. little room behind for heatsink) .. if you don't want to mutilate your front panel that is.

The Philips have two types of Ultinon globes(can't recall each name etc, but there are two types to be mindful of if you choose to try.
The more expensive type has a hard aluminium heatsink that screws onto the globe holder after you've installed everything(ie. once all sealed up with the rubber cover). Once it's all in place, you then screw the heatsink chunk on last and then press headlight into place. I find a lot easier to install.
The Ultinons I got for the bros D2 tho, have a braided loop type heatsink system. You need to fit light into headlight lens, then clip it in then force the braid through the rubber boot cover. Not hard, but not as easy as the screw on type.
But the screw on design cost 2x the price of the braided type.

The other point of difference is the electronic brains box(led driver) is much smaller on the cheaper model and hence easy to find a spot to fix it too behind the lens.

I'll make the point that I much prefer the neutral white of an LED over the hideous yellow of a halogen, having gone that way now.
Most prefer the warmer yellows of halogen, but I find it fatiguing beyond belief. I drive for a living, have done so for many years, and now driving company vehicles with halogens is starting to grate my nerves.
So much so, that I refuse longer distance jobs due to the halogen lights!

I've seen Stedi and JW Speaker also do similar H4 LED types to the Philips. I can't be sure, but I reckon the heatsink design of the JW Speaker may not fit the D1/D2 without hacking the bulkhead of the vehicle.
The Stedi uses the braid heatsink that the Philips did. So easier to fit.

Originally Posted by AK83

so far that I've found are the Philips Ultinon globes pretty much perfect.
A tad exxy compared to others out there of similar design, but I've had mine in for 5 years or so now, and brothers D2(same lights as D1) have been for a bit of 2 years now.

When I fitted the bros globes, I found a dark spot on high-beam coming from the left, but the right was fine. Was annoying on high-beam, and felt better to leave on low beam.
But a few weeks ago I found that I'd installed it crooked on the LHS .. made sense.
Once fixed, his lights work just as good as the D1 does.

If you pay around the low to mid $100 mark, I reckon you'll be happy with a pair of LEDs.

Note that the D2 don't have a lot of room behind the headlight for heatsinking the LED chips.
Why I chose the Philips(back then) was that their heatsink designs seem to work well for the D1/D2 type headlight design(ie. little room behind for heatsink) .. if you don't want to mutilate your front panel that is.

The Philips have two types of Ultinon globes(can't recall each name etc, but there are two types to be mindful of if you choose to try.
The more expensive type has a hard aluminium heatsink that screws onto the globe holder after you've installed everything(ie. once all sealed up with the rubber cover). Once it's all in place, you then screw the heatsink chunk on last and then press headlight into place. I find a lot easier to install.
The Ultinons I got for the bros D2 tho, have a braided loop type heatsink system. You need to fit light into headlight lens, then clip it in then force the braid through the rubber boot cover. Not hard, but not as easy as the screw on type.
But the screw on design cost 2x the price of the braided type.

The other point of difference is the electronic brains box(led driver) is much smaller on the cheaper model and hence easy to find a spot to fix it too behind the lens.

I'll make the point that I much prefer the neutral white of an LED over the hideous yellow of a halogen, having gone that way now.
Most prefer the warmer yellows of halogen, but I find it fatiguing beyond belief. I drive for a living, have done so for many years, and now driving company vehicles with halogens is starting to grate my nerves.
So much so, that I refuse longer distance jobs due to the halogen lights!

I've seen Stedi and JW Speaker also do similar H4 LED types to the Philips. I can't be sure, but I reckon the heatsink design of the JW Speaker may not fit the D1/D2 without hacking the bulkhead of the vehicle.
The Stedi uses the braid heatsink that the Philips did. So easier to fit.

Also got the Ultinons and recommend them. One of the design features that becomes apparent when you are aware is that the LED itself is positioned in the same spot as the Halogen arc of a standard H4 which possibly explains Philips point about experiencing dark spots with most LED's appearing.