fog lights

[evolutionmovement]

Every company makes junk. I mentioned Hella because their prices are reasonable, are readily available, and they've worked well for me. Trying to do two things at the same time results in neither being done very well. I'm vaguely familiar with the model, but I don't know if they're single lamp or dual lamp. Single would be much worse, but either way, their combining the two precludes the ability to mount them at a height that best fits both fog and driving lights. A dual lamp would maybe make them palatable as you'd then have the ability to run them separately and the reflector/lens designs could be better optimized, but you'd still be compromised. Compared to stock lights anything better than a candle looks good, but I don't think that means you should accept a poor solution.

[vrg3]

Hella definitely sells junk as well as good stuff. For example, anything in their OptiLux line of products is all pretty lousy.

But also, a lot of lamps are available with either driving or fog beam patterns. That may be what a catalog means when it says driving-slash-fog.

European headlights are a huuuuuuuuuge improvement over stock 90-91 North American headlights. They're better than 92-94 North American headlights, but not by nearly as much. 92-94 North American lights are actually about as good as they were allowed to be at the time.

Moreover, 92-94 North American lights use the same bulbs as European-spec lights, so the high-efficiency bulbs and upgraded wiring harness bought/made for a 92-94 will still be useful if you decide to also get ECE lights.

[All_talk]

...

European headlights are a huuuuuuuuuge improvement over stock 90-91 North American headlights. They're better than 92-94 North American headlights, but not by nearly as much. 92-94 North American lights are actually about as good as they were allowed to be at the time.

Moreover, 92-94 North American lights use the same bulbs as European-spec lights, so the high-efficiency bulbs and upgraded wiring harness bought/made for a 92-94 will still be useful if you decide to also get ECE lights.

My car is a '91 and the difference with the EDM is like, well... night and day. But you're right, with his '92 the change isn't as pronounced. Those '90-'91 9000 series bulbs with the external shield are not so good.

Gary

[vrg3]

They're downright awful! The 9004 bulb should never have been allowed to be put in cars. The engineering stupidity that went into that bulb's design is absurd. The filaments go side-to-side so most of their light goes up, down, forwards, and back, which means parabolic-reflector headlights can't make use of most of its light; they use the light that shines to the sides. They don't have a shield of any kind to keep light from the low beam from shining upwards. Even worse, the high beam filament is lined up parallel and really close to the low beam filament, so it starts to heat up and glow even when the high beams aren't on, sending extra stray light all over the place. The contacts in the base are tiny, so they heat up a lot and sap energy that would otherwise go to the filaments, and the base itself is plastic and big so the heat distorts its shape or could even melt it if too much current is drawn. So, the low beam filament is designed to draw a measly 45 watts, severely limiting the amount of light that can be produced, which is especially bad when the aforementioned filament design comes into play.

Yuck. No headlight with 9004 bulbs works well.

[Arctic Assassian]

Well, vikash... What is the solution to 90-91 headlights? I'm tempted to mount projector lenses from an 07 outback into my housings, but the old lens by it's self will distort the beam.

[SubaruNation]

you should, that would be sweet!

[evolutionmovement]

Hella 90mm. Cut the lens off with a Dremel and plastic weld a clear piece of polycarbonate sheet in its place.

[All_talk]

... What is the solution to 90-91 headlights?...

My vote... EDMs

Gary

[evolutionmovement]

Certainly less work.

[smh0101]

I'm planning on EDM headlights, Driving Lights mounted into the grill and JDM Fogs in the factory spot of course.

At night, the fogs help a lot at lower speeds.

[vrg3]

Yes, mainland European lights are probably the easiest solution for 90-91 models.

If you want to try installing 07 Outback projectors, you can, but like you say the old fresnel lens has to go. You can either do what Steve suggests and cut out the lens. You can also sand/grind the flutes out of the lens, if you're left with enough clearance; I believe you did that at first, Steve, and then found that the effort was for naught because the &%$^ things didn't fit?

[SubaruNation]

somebody should do those police spot-lights too while they're at it

[evolutionmovement]

I ground out the flutes and it took an ENORMOUS amount of time and still came out terrible - it was cloudy (damn polycarbonate doesn't polish as well as acrylic), thin, with stress cracks around the edges, and I couldn't get at the outer edges. Much quicker and easier to:
1. get Dremel with grout remover attachment and plastic cutting wheel.
2. set attachment height to thickness of lens to be removed.
3. holding dremel as perpendicular as possible to the surface of the lens (grind off the nubs with a sander or something first), cut around the lens.
4. Make template for new polycarbonate sheet.
5. Cut sheet, leaving a little extra around the edges.
6. Grind V-shaped channel into edges of the part of the old lens that you're welding it to (this is for the welding rod to go into).
7. find an edge of the new plastic that fits the housing pretty close and grind a V-shaped groove into it (this will probably be the bottom edge and it doesn't need to fit dead perfect)
8. plastic weld a bead to it (this is mostly to hold it in place).
9. grind/sand remainder of lens to fit housing (I used a belt sander).
10. V-groove the edges of rest of new lens.
11. Weld a bead all around. At the corners, you will need a heat gun to bend it to fit. -- Heat it slowly and carefully, as direct heat tends to cause bubbling on polycarbonate! It is not nearly as friendly to heat bending as acrylic even if they're both clear plastics often used in the same applications --

The above makes it look like more work than it was. The whole thing didn't take long (maybe two hours or so / light) and I had never plastic welded before. I had to redo the first weld and a couple small spots, but that was easy to pull out (if you can pull the melted weld rod out, you know you've got it wrong).

EDM is definitely easier, quicker (of course), and probably cheaper, but this is about the best solution for good lights. However, the above is just to do the lenses. The housings have to be heavily modified as well as some of the car sheet metal behind the headlight housings. It's all pretty simple since I've done the work and could show pics of what to do (and descriptions of how to do it better), but it may be intimidating to think of cutting into sheet metal and spending the time on this. You will also lose a little of the sleeper look. However, you will have a conversation piece with other car people and, unlike the Honda ricers, you actually did it yourself.

[mexicanzero]

wow you guys ASTOUND me
this is the only forum that has ever made me feel like i know the people who are posting in my thread. Its like we're all best friends!!

apart from the sappy love note to all of you

I've been looking at getting the hella ff75 or ff50 driving lights because i'm more into the idea of having a smaller low profile look rather than the huge round rally style.
i like the idea of having 2 sets of lights "just in case" and plus i just feel like finding a set of EDM's would be tricky and i would have to modify the installation, mostly because i got into a small accident which bent the mounting bracket holding the headlight, so i had to fab some plastic pieces and... rags to hold the headlight in place but you cant tell from the outside so i'm leaving it like that.

so unless anyone has a reason for me to not get those or get a different model thats what i am doing.

thank you all alot again you guys are the sh*t!!
-Alex

[vrg3]

Like I said, the Hella FF series is pretty good for the price and size.

The FF75 does a little better when it comes to seeing to the sides and the FF100 does a little better when it comes to seeing far down the road. They both do pretty well on both, but those are their biases.

But let's backtrack for a second -- are your headlights aimed well? Because if they're not, you should do that first. It's silly to install new lights when your existing ones aren't set up right. I would actually recommend you first do the lens polish, good bulbs, and heavy-duty wiring before you bother with adding lights.

[SubaruNation]

meh. we do what we can

i still need to get new bulbs....
hopefully this week

and we like to keep it simple

[mexicanzero]

Ok so i was about to order the ff75 when i saw this! same brand, decent amount cheaper and it has 2 bulbs with a 3 position switch (one is a driving light and one is a fog light, they have different lenses covering the bulbs) i assume that there is no way that it could perform either task 100% but personally do you guys think that it seems like a good deal? i mean I'd be saving a good 20$ and i could test out both styles.

i wouldn't consider it if it wasn't a Hella (because I've herd so much good input on the Hella brand) but i like the idea of having both options so I'm leaning towards it. I'm just looking for some reassurance.

http://www.autobarn.net/heop20dufoli.html
Hella Optilux 2020

[mexicanzero]

oh and about my headlights they are aimed properly even though they are barely being held in place (my shop has a headlight aimer) and the lenses are very clean, i suspect they have been changed before.
I will look into better bulbs, i have installed the Phillips ones before and they seemed to make a noticeable difference i just haven't found a dealer yet. And as i said before I'd rather have an other set of lights first because it just appeals to me more right now.
So the better bulbs will come later on.

any input on the Hella Optilux 2020 will be appreciated

thanks
-Alex

[vrg3]

Like I said before, all the Optilux stuff is pretty lousy. I would not recommend the 2020. The idea of a combination driving/fog light is flawed from the start -- fog lights need to be mounted low to work well, and driving lights need to be mounted high to work well.

Also, in general, the larger a lamp is, the better it works. A 2-bulb combination light in such a small package means two tiny lamps.