Headlights upgrade

I have lights like that one you linked from rockauto on my two Alfas. I use these two
https://www.amazon.com/GE-Lighting-69821-Nighthawk-Replacement/dp/B00BQX2BT8
https://www.amazon.com/SYLVANIA-Round-Street-Headlight-Contains/dp/B00OYR8MVO

Great for the 308 as well but it is 7". The mondial uses 5.75", so far I have only found this one:
https://www.speedwaymotors.com/United-Pacific-31267-LED-Headlight-White-5-3-4-Inch,327603.html

 

Try this. Daniel Stern. Lots of great info and I have used him.

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/home.html

This is what he told me when, I was looking to upgrade my 1985 qv.

"The original headlamps are sealed beams. No matter what brand or when made, plain or halogen, these are primitive and barely marginally adequate. They produce a dim, narrow, brownish tunnel of poorly-focused light, very little light on the road surface, no side spill, and a great deal of upward stray light that causes backdazzle in bad weather. You can do much better than these, but you have to be picky and shop carefully because most of what's on the market is junk (though all of it is advertised as an "upgrade").

High beam upgrade is an easy pick: put in good quality
Cibie
parabolic H1 high beams ($79/ea). Use Flosser/Narva Rangepower+50 H1 bulbs in them ($15.59). The flat and convex lamps put out about the same amount of light, but the beam distribution is different. The flat lamps have a somewhat wider beam, while the convex lamps have a somewhat longer-reaching beam.


Low beams, you've got some options.

First, decide how well you want to see at night and how much money you want to spend doing it. This should be decided based on how much nighttime driving you do and at what kinds of speeds, and/or on your personal preference for how important it is to you to have highly effective, well-focused headlamps. H4s are the standard upgrade everyone "knows" about (in quotes because most of the "knowledge" is not grounded in reality). They are _not_ advisable if you are planning on doing much night driving. H4 lamps (of any brand) in the 5.75" round size are not very efficient, because with H4 (any H4 bulb in any H4 lamp), only 55% of the total reflector and lens area is used to collect and direct the light for the low beam, because of the low beam filament shield inside the H4 bulb. That's OK if you have a large lamp, but with small lamps like the 5.75" rounds, you really can't collect much light from the bulb. But if you don't do much night driving and want to keep the cost down, a quality pair of H4 lamps (Cibies are the ones to get, $79/ea) will still give a broader beam coverage than the sealed beams.


If you do much of any night driving, instead of H4s, put in the Hella BiFocal H1 low beams ($139/ea), which are the most efficient, best focused replaceable-bulb halogen headlamps in this size format, and I stock the commercial-duty version with toughened hardglass lens, extremely resistant to chipping, pitting, cracking, and breaking. Use Flosser/Narva Rangepower+50 H1 bulbs ($15.59). These will give vastly better performance than the sealed-beam junk _and_ vastly better performance than any H4 conversion (much more efficient optics; entire optical area used to form the low beam). Illumination is broad, long-reaching, and very well focused, with no upward stray light and significantly less glare to oncoming drivers (because the light is focused where you need it) -- a substantial upgrade from the sealed beam lamps' dim, narrow tunnel of light with no side spread and excessive upward throw that causes backglare in bad weather, and likewise a substantial upgrade from the H4 lamps' relatively meager beam performance.

Take a look at http://dastern.torque.net/Photometry/explication.html and then http://dastern.torque.net/Photometry/575.html for beam isoplots of halogen sealed beams, H4 units, and the BiFocal.

The BiFocal low beams incorporate a built-in parking lamp which you may hook up or not, at your option. This is a small 5w bulb ($4.59/ea) that sticks through the lamp's reflector into the lamp itself, a short distance away from the main headlight bulb, via a socket and grommet. "City light" is a common casual term for this. The official term is "front position lamp" or "parking lamps". It is _only_ a parking lamp, not capable of producing an effective or legal daytime running light or turn signal function no matter what bulb is installed. Electrical connection is by a standard 1/4" spade terminal, which you wire into vehicle's parking lamp feed. The city light illuminates the whole headlamp in a "pilot light" sort of fashion; this makes for large-area parking lamps, and if a headlight bulb ever burns out, oncoming traffic still sees you as a double-track vehicle. Outside North America, parking lamps must emit white light, the North American style amber ones are not allowed. In North America, parking lamps may emit white or amber light, and these white ones built into the headlamp are a legal form of parking lamp in the USA and Canada.
This type of parking lamp is not used on vehicles with hidden or pop-up headlamps.


If you go with the BiFocal low beams, there's a minor/easy mod required to keep the low beams lit when high beam is activated (which, contrary to appearance, is not presently the case). This can be handled at the same time as you install headlamp relays. I can supply a parts kit as follows:

BiFocal low beams, for vehicles with kickswitch jumpered as described above:
RIK-H1H1K, $49

BiFocal low beams, for vehicles without jumpered kickswitch:
RIK-H1H1, $59

H4 low beams: RIK-4, $59

The RIK is not a harness, but a _parts kit_ containing all relays, brackets, terminal blocks, terminals, plugs, sockets, fuses and fuseholders. You supply your own wire and use the parts from the kit to build up your own wiring harness. The concept is explained at http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/relays/relays.html .Parts are specially made premium-grade items (e.g. ceramic headlamp sockets) that accept large-gauge wire; this is not the "consumer grade" junk you can find at the parts store. All the components (relays, etc.) are compact enough that you'll have an easy time hiding them and they won't crud up your engine bay.

Or, I can have my harness builder custom build you a ready-to-install harness assembly using the same components. Cost for this option is $161.49 (including parts and labour - you pick _either_ one relay kit _or_ one custom-built harness to do the entire job). It costs more than the $40 to $90 cheapy prefab harnesses because this is not a cheapy prefab harness; it's built to order. Installation is simple: you run the marked wires to battery positive and to battery negative, snap the harness plug onto one of the vehicle's original headlamp sockets, snap the harness sockets onto the headlamps, and secure the cable runs and relays neatly out of harm's way.

Either way, parts kit or built-up harness, the in-car switches continue working normally.

You will need to see to it that the lamps are aimed carefully and correctly; low beams per the "VOL" instructions and high beams per the "VO" instructions at http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/aim/aim.html . Note that every headlamp producing both a high and a low beam is aimed on its low beam setting.

Result of this installation will be modern-car levels of headlamp performance: broad, even, bright white (NOT brown, NOT blue) well-focused low and high beams instead of the dim, narrow tunnel of brownish light from the original sealed beams. Also total elimination of backscatter in rain/fog/snow."