I finally got around to installing the new Hella E glass lens with 914rubber LED bulbs. The Phipplis lights are super bright compared to the old sealed beams. The installation is easy other than getting the old rusty retaining screws out.

I wanted a real world comparison so I matched the HIDs on my Explorer to the new LEDs.

I have not changed the 914 adjusting screws so they're set up just liked the sealed beams.

I'll post some better pics this weekend. Naturally my cell phone 914 street pics awe blurry but you can see the LEDs and the new HIDs are a close match.

I Recommend!

(Pic 1 is the sealed beam. The Explorer fence low and high. 914 low and high. Street Explorer Loe and high. 914 street low and high)

Careful! You're going to burn that damned fence down!

Keep me updated when these go final and are plug and play. I will get a set.

The bulbs are PnP. The issues were getting out the rusty screws. It's probably 30 minutes per side the second time around. These are super bright and equally comparible to my Explorer.

Wonder what they would do in a set of Cibie Z Beams

I'm still well on the fence on LED headlights.
All the credible unbiased reviews I've seen say the same thing, LED's look brighter, may well be brighter up close (pissing off other drivers), but still do not throw the light as far as quality halogen bulb.

And this is when they are new, LED's degrade losing something like 30% of their brightness in a few hundred hours.

I'll need something better than a seat of the pants review, at that standard my '67 bug's T4 engine must be at least 350hp....
What?? you don't believe the seat of my pants????
YMMV

Mark I am just like you I want distance like my Ford explorer that lights up the street two blocks away. After I get these adjusted properly I'll take better pictures. As to the LEDs losing their brightness over 100 hours... for me that's probably five years of night driving.

Well for me I don't commute, but my aircooleds are my summer (up to 8 months) daily drivers.
A lot of night driving, mostly rural, lots of twisties, with fuching big whitetail deer.

Not knocking Mark's products, just LED's in general.
LEDs might be great in the city, but rural they're not ready for prime time yet. Just IMHO.

I got your back.

I'm working on a mega comparison with my stash of sealed, DOT H4, Ecode H4, 80w bulbs, 5k bulbs, HID bulbs, retrofit HID projectors, and stock HIDs. I'm going to try to get Marks LEDs in it too.

Yes I want to get as much data out there as I can. I plan to send Rob a pair to look at too. I just picked up the Hella lenses.

For me, even if they were only as good as the original sealed beams, the current draw is negligible. That's huge in my 240Z. After 43 years, the corrosion built up in the lighting circuit and when I finally used the headlights to drive to an early morning event at Reno-Fernley Raceway, I melted my fuse box. I've replaced it with solid state PCB Since then and put in a new lighting harness with a relay, but with LED headlights, I turn on the lights and the idle doesn't change a bit.

As for degradation over time, it would take me 20 years to get 100 hours. I just do so little night driving with my toy cars...

I'm with Mark, as I'm on the fence too. High output LED's and its associated circuitry puts out some good heat. I'm just not sure how well these circuit boards will hold up with today's junk solder.

I bought 6 GE LED light bulbs for my bathroom sconces. It wasn't more than half a year that these lights were playing a game of whack-a-mole. You would never know which light would turn on in the morning and which ones would stay off. After taking one apart and removing the conformal coating, I noticed 3 cold soldered joints on the leaded devices on the board. This is only 6 months, and all my bulbs are doing the same thing. This lead free solder sucks!

Click to view attachment

The ones I sent Bandjoey and theones Rob are getting (unless you want the less expensive ones) are the Phillips chips. The are of very solid construction and waterproof. From the quality of the rest of the part I do believe these will hold up longer.

What? Resin core is now lead free, also. Why? We don't eat or drink from it.

Nice upgrade!

For me, I'm game for swapping current-hungry incandescent technology with LED replacements.

As for new factory integrated LED units, I have reservations after having to spend $250+ to replace an LED tail light in my wife's Bimmer due to a failed board - I'd rather replace a bulb for a few dollars. And then I wonder about replacements in the out years, especially for our Elise as we'll likely have that car until we pass it to the kids in another 15-20 years.

Lead-free is the current eco-friendly mantra for the electronics world. I work with a major rail transportation company and they don't use lead-free solder for reliability purposes. Also lead-free is good for consumer electronics when most of these will quickly end up in land fills and won't harm the ecology.

About the cold-solder joints, some of the issue is due to what has been described as micro-vibrations. This stems not necessarily by vibrations we feel in our cars (doesn't help matters) but the movement of components and PCBs where heating/cooling cycles cause components to expand/contract and stress the solder.

Every component/PCB has a coefficient of temperature by which they expand and contract. This is the micro-vibration. When the PCB and the mounted component do not have the same coefficient of temperature, the only thing holding them together (solder), begins to fail.

Back to the rail transportation company I mentioned, they go so far as to re-ball BGA (Ball Grid Array) packages (FPGAs, CPUs, etc) with leaded balls before mounting on boards.

I too question a LED's ability to reach out. I added LEDs to my Cayenne, not in the OEM fixtures. Very white but they don't project like the Pilots I have in the 914's fog position. Perhaps different lenses could make a difference but I'd have to see it.