I finally got tired of guessing where parts of the road were when using the standard halogen headlights. The color is yucky and lately I've been doing more night driving than normal and Ca has some of the ****tiest major roads of any state. The ****tyness of the road vs the car count per minute is totally off its **** some of these turds dont even have lines and pot holes 6 in deep while supporting hundreds of car per minute. I was like **** these headlights and **** this ****ing state... well at least I can get better headlights!

At first I was thinking about getting LEDs that screw into the back of a standard halogen prism type light housing they were like 400 bucks and had a fan built onto the back for cooling which I wasn't real thrilled about. I kept looking and found that the good stuff is all sealed beam projector style LED and the top two brands are JW Speaker and Vision X. With the Jw Speaker being totally US deigned and built so I went that route

The Latest and Greatest is the JW speaker 8700 Evo 2 Dual Burn. This system run both high and low beam at the same time when high beam is selected. Previous models switched off low beam and ran only the high beam. These are something like 3Amps on high beam and DOT approved

The cutoff line is very crisp and these lights fit perfect they are slightly more compact case size wise than the original 7" lights I pulled out and come with a high quality h4 connector. No dicking around required at all.

Because of the high price (about 800) for a set I figured I would take a bit of time and attempt as mostly scientific comparison with the best tools I have (a nice full manual camera) in an attempt to accurately compare one vs the other and attempt to accurately depict how they look in real life.




This is engine running, with alternator spooled to reg limit producing 13.8v indicated measured 13.4 at headlight plug. Stock Halogens, Low beam
Camera: ISO 100, F6.3, shutter 10 seconds, No exposure bias / bracket



Exactly the same as above but high beam.

This is a good to very good representation of color and light output as far as digital recreations of actual life events go. The light metering settings were picked to attempt to recreate a real life like image as it would appear if you were there....The result is not bad. Somethings in the distance may appear brighter than in real life due to the long shutter speed but its close



Engine not running at 11.4v shot dead center...This is a comparison of color between the two this is a very good representation of color. The LEDs are a very good white light very slightly blue. The garage door is white, This is low beam, The LED side is actually brighter than it appears by a small amount the center of the LED hotspot is over exposed and has pixel saturation (pixel is at max brightness value but true brightness is higher than its max value and cant be displayed) I should have set light metering for LED side and not halogen side but I was more concerned about showing color difference....It does a good job of that! Camera: F6.3, ISO 100, Shutter 1/10th sec




Same as above high beam




Low Beam Same as above but with engine running, alt spooled to reg at 13.4v indicated at light connector, Oblique angle as engine vibe prohibits contact with car.




High beam same as directly above image.



One of my concerns was the LED system might look distracting or out of place. They actually aren't too bad. They do come in black which I considered but rejected the idea as that likley would have been distracting and out of place...but If my car was dark or black in color I would have gone with back.





This is a head on color comparison the halogen looks a bit brighter because of its sloppy cutoff line bleeds more light onto the CCD.
The below are at different shutter speeds.




above image is F6.3, ISO 100, shutter 1/8th sec



Above image is ISO 100, F6.3 Shutter 2.5 sec


A now the comparison between the halogen and the LED on the same street. They are somewhat adjusted but not perfect all other conditions are nearly identical. This is with both LED headlights installed in the vehicle... The below image should be compared against image 1 (low beam halogen)



This is engine running, with alternator spooled to reg limit producing 13.8v indicated measured 13.4 at headlight plug. LEDs, Low beam
Camera: ISO 100, F6.3, shutter 10 seconds, No exposure bias / bracket Same as test with halogen (image 1)



Exactly the same as above but high beam Also same as (Image 2)



Low beam side by side for comparison... My dynamic enviroment changed a bit which slightly pisses me off from a comparison perspective but you get the idea...This is a pretty accurate depiction of light level increase if anything the LEDs look slightly brighter in real life I would say this is a 95% accurate depiction. Look at color change at x distance...Green is green with the LEDs distant objects are much easier to see...



High beam side by side...The lights from the LED look more evenly diffused on the pavement in real life as well this also could be due to road crown and the slight nose high attitude of the car as it was on uneven ground. When driving around I dont recall them looking blotchy at all once adjusted proper. Could be due to CCD exposure vs the human eye as well....But again overall this is a good representation of light output.

So far Im pretty happy with them im not at all upset about the price after driving with them for a few minutes on some back roads away from city lights...They are quite impressive. The lens is cool to the touch after running them vs warm to hot range on the halogens. On high beams it makes reading things like street names and speed limit signs very difficult as they are extremely bright and overexposed...switching to low beams makes them easy to read.

The amount of light that now illumines the edge of the road is the biggest improvement on both low and high beam. The width of this beam pattern is absolutely massive especially compared to the halogen.

 

Great write up. I just finished installing headlight relays and I'm in the market for hi beams (69') . If the price is right I'd consider LED. I bought some cheap h4 housings for my low/hi's (outers) with 50/55 Watt bulbs. We'll see how they do.

Quick question, have you done any tests from the oncoming position? I mean from a lane over and you look at the front of the mustang from another car or standing. I know that many aftermarket headlights in general either aren't aimed well or don't have great horizontal cutoff thus blinding oncoming cars or even through someones rear view mirror. It can't be only me that feels even some OE headlights do this.

 

I havent yet which is something I plan to do...I did follow their aiming instructions and I can see the cutoff line is below the window but thats only once they are close enough to see the cutoff line which about 70yds

I do plan on making that test at some point though.