308/328 Headlight Shootout - The Results Are In!

great to know Frank, but most of us that actively drive our 308's and work on them dont care about concours, it is a very valid point though, and a good one to keep in mind.

the lights on these cars suck and are not safe , period.

i will upgrade the lights and bypass the dash light rheostat on every 308 that i own. safety to me is more important that what some stuff judge thinks sitting on a lawn on a sunny weekend. when you are driving at night , in the rain / early morning fog and cant see a damn thing, you will know what i mean

 

Yep, been there, done that in the old days... but I don't do concours anymore anyway, since I've made too many mods to improve and modernize the car's brakes and suspension components.

 

Not so much brand name, but yes, they'll look to see if they are sealed beam as original, or if they've been "converted" to something else like H4's.

 

Well, with a login name that translates to "headlight man" that's what I'd expect!!

 

This is a great thread and I join in thanks to the gurus who have shared their experience and wisdom.

I wouldn't mind replacing the 328 OEM headlights with something brighter/whiter, but am frankly chicken to get into the car's electrical/wiring systems. And I would like to continue using the original light switch.

So my question is: If you would like to replace just the headlights and leave everything else as-is, is there a good replacement light around? That will provide at least some improvement without placing any more strain on the car's electrical/wiring systems?

 

I would agree with Mike's recommendation. I have used such bulbs, but could not determine if they were indeed "brighter". The bulbs typically use a bit of xenon gas mixed in with the halogen, to raise the color temperature of the bulb. Now the question I have is whether this really increases output, or just lends the "appearance" from the higher color temperature (because the output is "whiter"). That has always been the marketing BS with a lot of the Japanese and Korean bulb manufacturers that claimed "180 watt" output from a standard 55 watt or 60 watt bulb; that the higher color temperature (quite high in fact, becoming bluish or purplish) made it equal to the higher wattage bulb...or something. Daniel, can you comment on this, and sort us through it?

 

There's a critical distinction between the "100 watts of light for just 55 watts of electricity" / "55/60 ==> 110/130w" bogus claims on the one hand, and the actuality of improved lighting performance from high or ultrahigh-efficacy bulbs on the other.

The former claim is based on nothing more than purported light "color temperature" (which is a real phenomenon but not in the sense the marketeers claim). Take a look at an orangy-pink Sodium-vapor street light through the clear part of your windshield. Now look at the same light through the blue stripe across the top of the windshield. The light looks "whiter" (less orange) but it also gets substantially dimmer. The same effect is at work with the scam "wattage equivalence" bulbs.

Then there's IPF's latest gimmick/scam product: the "X51 Fatboy" bulb, which is a 60/80w bulb (sixty over eighty, 60w high beam and 80w low beam). They've revved up their hype machine with all kinds of meaningless gobbledygook about this bulb, e.g. "190w optical effect on low beam, 150w optical effect on high beam". There is no such thing as "optical effect", and a bulb's wattage is only a measure of its electric power consumption, not its light output. Also, the large size of the glass on the "Fatboy" bulb is visually impressive, and I'm sure it'll trick lots of people into shelling out $70 for a set of these bulbs, but here's something for potential buyers to remember: The *smaller* the glass tube of a halogen lamp, the better its performance!

Now that we've dispensed with that category what about the high or ultrahigh-efficacy bulbs that make no such "optical effect" or "wattage equivalence" claims? Those are considerably more real. Maximum legal luminance gets you part of the way there, but there's no such thing as a legal bulb that produces 30 or 50 percent more raw light; the rest of the benefit comes from optimized filament size/shape, tweaked fill gas makeup (to allow the more compact filament coil to run at its intrinsically higher surface temperature and still have an acceptably long life) and high-precision filament placement/focusing; this improves the focus of the resultant beam pattern which increases headlamp performance. Sorry, nothing sexier than that. H1, H3, H4, etc. are very old bulb designs (1962, 1965, 1971 respectively); we're now up to H14 plus numerous non-H designs. The state of the art has advanced; these high- and ultrahigh-efficacy bulbs simply are the result of applying what's been learnt in the development of newer bulb types back to the older types.

Refer to my previous post (Silverstars) for more information about how bulb legality is determined and the range of light output from different variants of any given bulb type. Also in my previous post are links to the AutoExpress bulb tests, which bear out what I'm saying here. Also there are sales-y product sheets with data charts Here.

"Xenon", by the way, is probably the single most tortured word in all of automotive lighting. It's been used to sell High Intensity Discharge headlamps, in which the Xenon gas is only present so that there is some bare minimum amount of light present as soon as you hit the switch, which is a legal requirement—if the Xenon weren't there, HID headlamps would have a minutes-long warmup like street or gymnasium lights.

"Xenon" has been used to sell bling-bling blue krapola. No further comment.

"Xenon" has been used to sell legitimately upgraded bulbs with clear glass, but it's been overused in this context. Sure, Xenon facilitates high filament surface temperatures without filament self-destruction, but only in very small percentages. Once you get over about 5%, you're at the point of no further benefit. Hit 7% or so, and adjacent filament coils start arcing to one another. So these claims of the existence of "30% Xenon!" "50% Xenon!!!" "80% Xenon!!!!!!" and "100% XENON!!!!!!!!" bulbs are all balderdash.

Xenon gas does not change the operating temperature or the "color temperature" of the light—that is primarily a function of filament design. A more-compact, tighter-pitch filament such as found in a high-efficacy bulb tends to run hotter and therefore produce a "whiter" (if we must) light of a higher color temperature. A looser-pitch, larger filament such as found in a long-life bulb tends to run cooler and therefore produce a browner light of a lower color temperature.

So, in sum, there are two factors at work here...the amount of raw light put out by the bulb, and the effect of the bulb's geometry upon the optical focus of the assembly.

 

Golly gee whiz this is a great thread! Thanks supercalifragilisticexpialidociously to you experts!

 

That's fair enough, but just to clarify, the original headlamp switchgear is not bypassed when relays are installed. They continue to function normally.

 

Whew! Thank you for the exhaustive answer...but...do these high efficiency bulbs truly produce a measurable increase in light over a standard bulb, in a regular automotive light housing? Say, like the Cibie's you sell? And is it really +50%?

 

Gee, I'm sorry, I got so caught up in explaining the how-and-why that I didn't give you a simple answer to your question.

Yes, they do produce a measurable increase in light over a standard bulb, in a regular automotive light housing. This can be seen by examining the bulb comparo results in the AutoExpress links I posted the other day, though you have to look hard to find it hiding in small type below each bulb's image.

The "Plus-50" doesn't mean they'll improve the hot spot intensity by 50 percent in whatever headlamp you put them in. It means some intern at the bulb company spent a lot of time in a light tunnel running headlamps on the photogonio range until he found one that experienced an improvement of 50 percent at some point in the beam with that bulb. The "Plus 50" is an "up to" improvement number, but the improvement is real, measurable and beneficial in whatever headlamp they're installed in.

That said, no bulb turns garbage headlamps into good ones. You can't buy a piece of junk (as partially enumerated in my previous posts) and put in a good bulb and wind up with anything but...a bad headlamp with a good bulb.

 

The big difference is that with a relay harness, the headlight switch controls the relays which in turn switch the power to the lights.

In 3x8s, that's a VERY important difference. It will enormously increase the life & reliability of that no longer obtainable headlight switch.

I've just finshed repairing a couple of headlight switches where the contacts got hot enough to melt the contact ends off of the headlight switch! I asked several service shops & they said that's usually what they find when a switch fails!

IMHO, the switch contacts are barely adequate for the standard wattage bulbs, running any higher wattage bulbs w/o a relay harness is asking for column switch failure. Even with std bulbs, a relay setup will noticably increase brightness as was described earlier in this thread.

 

I have just read this thread. I don't know if Rob still has "post of the month" but this qualifies. True expertise. Thoughtfully conveyed. Thanks, Daniel.
Philip

 

Thanks, Philip! Glad to help.

 

Agreed, truly useful information.

 

Hello from Germany,

I just read this highly interesting thread and therefore have decided - after years of complaining about dim headlights - to finally installing a relay setup for the headlights of my 308 GTB with a self manufactured harness ( Bosch relays are incredibly cheap over here ).
But my question is; do you have a suggestion for the best location of the relays ? ? I think somewhere where the relays are protected against dust, dirt and moisture. But WHERE ? Do you install the relays inside the dash near all the other relays and fuses ? Or in the front compartment, where the relays are exposed to dirt and moisture ?
Any suggestions, ideas or hints would be greatly appreciated.

Best Regards and thank you in advance

Martin

 

I mounted my relays to the square beam the heater blowers are mounted on. Had my spoiler off at the time, but am pretty sure the beams are accessable via the two access panels in front of the front wheels.


OOPS! IS MY FACE RED:
BTW, was rebuilding a switch & realized that the contacts that melt are the ones actuated by moving the headlight stalk up - middle -down. They actuate the motor relays, park lights, tail lights, etc. but not the headlights. Haven't traced the wiring diagram, but from the size of the contacts & wires to the contacts, I'm pretty sure that it's switching them directly.

So my revised recommendation is to also add relays to off-load these contacts.

The headlights are switched by relays actuated by a tiny switch inside the headlight stalk's twist knob. However, those relays are up on the relay panel, so the wires from battery, to relays, & back to the headlights are very long & the lights definitely would benefit from a 2nd set of relays mounted close to the battery with short, heavy (10gauge) wires.

 

My 2 cents. Switching both of my dubs, '72 (7" round) and '95 (Hella for VW), to e-codes made a huge difference in night time viewing while still using the stock wiring harness and legal wattage bulbs. Did the same thing to my Porsche 914 (7" pop-up headlights). The nice thing about the e-codes we run are the euro parking lights in the lamp housings. Typically a 4-watt within the housing that you connect to the parking light circuit, so it illuminates the light housing, similar to a day-time running light but much less illumination.

So, in our experience, a wiring harness isn't necessary when switching to stock wattage e-code headlights -- lighting will still be greatly improved. As my Norweagan friend commented, you will no longer be driving with candles (crappy DOT vs. E-codes).

The Cibie curved lamps is good news, we've had some customers wanting e-codes but liked the 'old' look of the curved lamps.

 

I was fortunate to locate a pair of vintage E-code Carellos for my car. Their beam pattern is similar to the Hellas which I've been using since Carello discontinued these units.

Thank you for your informative posts Mike and scheinwerfermann.

Barry

 

I tried the whole thing on my '72 Alfa GTV with four headlights. New headlights, premium Philips H1 bulbs ( legal wattage 55 W ) and all contacts and connections cleaned. After this I had no more significant voltage drop in the circuit.
It was better but still being unhappy with the light output I installed a relay harness and this made a HUGE difference.
Therefore my next project will be doing that on my 308 GTB. BTW it protects the headlight stalk and regarding the costs and/or labour involved when the headlight stalk contacts had melted, the relay solution makes sense for this reason alone.

Best Regards from Germany

Martin