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Subaru Quad Beam Upgrade


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Recently I bought a DL Quad beam setup with the intention of getting some brighter lights on my car! 

Ideally I'd pick up these in high and low 

https://www.amazon.com/JW-Speaker-8800-Evolution-Headlight/dp/B00X6BYMIQ

 

but they are wildly expensive so I'm looking for a cheaper alternative. Has anyone done anything similar? 

I was also looking at these housings.

 

http://www.highperformancelighting.ca/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=124_126&products_id=559%20review

 

and getting some LED or HIDs to put in them. The only fear I have is blinding oncoming and also getting a VI.

Really don't want to be that guy but would like some brighter lights. 

 

Can someone recommend a cheap way to get some brighter lights that don't blind the public. 

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I have a LED kit in my car and provided they're adjusted properly they don't blind other drivers.

 

High beams, yes.

Low beams, no.

 

Personally I'd buy a lens with a 9007 in the back so you can put a LED bulb in there. If you want the cheapest potential.

 

But when it comes with LED headlights, typically a 25$ set have a really bad beam pattern.

 

Most headlights that blind other drivers are due to out of adjustment, or they're the projector style and the car is going up or down a hill.

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  • 4 weeks later...

OPT7 FluxBeam x

Very nice beam pattern and they're really bright. But on my 04 Baja, I have horrible interference.

Most cars doesn't experience the interference to the level I do, so I've been told. But whatever. I Bluetooth.

Edited by golucky66
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Let me stop you right there.  The first option you referenced is the correct avenue to go down.  Proper 4x6" LED and HID lamps are expensive because there has been actual engineering and math put into the design and dispersion of light across your field of vision.  These lamps WILL be an upgrade over your sealed-beam halogens.

 

Cheaper alternatives are cheaper for a reason.  They were "designed" around a halogen bulb, which is fine, but they were never intended to provide the correct beam pattern when fitted with an LED or HID "plug-n-play" bulb.  The qulaity and legality of the PnP kits is enough for its own thread, so all I'll say about them is they are illegal for road use in all 50 states (IIRC) and are sold for "off highway" use only.  These lamps WILL NOT be an upgrade over your sealed-beam halogens.

 

The problem with slapping PnP LED/HID bulbs in these cheap lamp housings is that the shape of the light source from each of the three types (halogen/LED/HID) is different.

 

 

www.DanielSternLighting.com:

 

A halogen bulb has a cylindrical light source: the glowing filament. The space immediately surrounding the cylinder of light is completely dark, and so the sharpest contrast between bright and dark is along the edges of the cylinder of light. The ends of the filament cylinder fade from bright to dark. An HID bulb, on the other hand, has a crescent-shaped light source -- the arc. It's crescent-shaped because as it passes through the space between the two electrodes, its heat causes it to try to rise. The space immediately surrounding the crescent of light glows in layers...the closer to the crescent of light, the brighter the glow. The ends of the arc crescent are the brightest points, and immediately beyond these points is completely dark, so the sharpest contrast between bright and dark is at the ends of the crescent of light.

 

This diagram shows the very different characteristics of the filament vs. the arc:

 

filamentarc.jpg

 

The halogen lamp's reflector bowl shape and distance from the projector lens is different than that of a lamp that was intended to run an LED, which would also be different from that of an HID 4x6" lamp.

 

There are other alternatives to the JW Speaker lamps, such as Grote and Truck-Lite, but you want to make sure you are buying DOT compliant lamps.  That compliance testing and R&D costs money, no way around that...

Edited by carfreak85
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