New R32 LED Headlights

[TXSquirrel]

This just came out in late January, so I don't expect anyone to have actually tried it.  But what are your first impressions?

http://www.78-works.jp/shopdetail/000000000171/001/X/page1/recommend/

 

Edited March 7, 2019 by TXSquirrel

[GTSBoy]

Being LEDs, there's every chance that they suck at making light go on the road.  They would also be a lot nicer with less shiny bling inside them.  They would also draw the cops' attention (here in Oz) in seconds and earn you a defect.

If it wasn't for all those things, I'd probably give 'em a try.

[Dylannn]

I agree with GTSBoy, I like them otherwise but.

At a guess though I think theyre priced around $1250... for this amount you could your headlights retrofitted in Australia with top of the line gear and you could get them made to your particular tastes. All in all money could be better spent otherways IMO
 

[niZmO_Man]

One crappy output picture = instant crackpipe. I have some OE LED projectors to retrofit, I'll get around to it eventually.

I'm not a fan of quads, but those housings look interesting. So we should see those on alibaba soon

[Robzilla32]

It's probably irrational but I sort of want these. But what I really want is someone to buy 1st and show me how awesome they perform. Black internals would be better.

I have N1 headlights which are candles. Would love to upgrade.

[niZmO_Man]

Try Philips Racing Vision H4 bulb, or Osram Laser. If the reflector coating is starting to "wear out" then yeah you won't have many options.

[TXSquirrel]

You can sell your N1 headlights on eBay and get decent money back to fund these LED ones.  

Personally I like the factory headlights because they are made of real glass and won't oxidize.  I recently bought a factory projector assembly and I think I know why it is so awful.  The assembly is ~189mm long overall with a ~31mm thick lens.  I will throw a few different modern lens on it and see if that improves anything...

[niZmO_Man]

Nah the projector is just shit, it's using H1 bulb.

Replace it entirely with a modern projector.

[mlracing]

That company makes some cool lights, we've imported a few S15 ones for people and they seem pretty good so I'd guess these would not be so terrible either

[GTSBoy]

30 months later and there are still no half price backdoor 2nd shift ones available on aliexpress.

I'm still sorta tempted. The black housings are less blingy and therefore more tasteful, but somehow the massive change in appearance from the stockers also isn't the way I want to go.

The alternative appears to be the Morimoto M LED 2.0 projectors that you can retro in the same way as previous HID options, that seem to be a good choice. To be fair....anything new, even a bad LED, is likely to be so far ahead of the stock projectors that it will seem like perfection. But the Moris are going to cost >$700 landed, and then you still have to dismantle and rebuild the housings. Seems like a tough value proposition against the Coplus/78-works ones at circa double that price point. Plus, with the full replacements, you put the unmolested originals in the shed.

[TXSquirrel]

Personally I think the "massive change in appearance" looks better than retrofit.  It's got a nice design and makes the car look modern, plus the sparkling daytime running light looks way better in person.  With any retrofit it looks, well, retrofit.  In addition to the contrast look of an aftermarket projector, the gap between projector and factory bezel just never looked right.  Again, that's only my personal take.  As you mentioned, being able to keep the stockers as whole and unmolested sealed the deal for me.

I can tell you the LED is not as bright as HID, but the cutline is very crisp.

[GTSBoy]

Another 30 months later and I have bitten the bullet and put these into my car. I got the chrome blingy ones because, after consideration of the black alternative, I realised that the chrome ones were by far the closest in appearance to the originals, and I thought that the black ones wouldn't look as good on a white car.

And look good they actually do. There is a tiny little problem with the HB projectors making it look a little cross-eyed compared to the wider eyed stare of the original projectors. But they certainly do not look like they are weirdly out of place.

They are also spectacularly bright and sharp compared to the dull, vague output of the original projectors.

An unexpected outcome is that when on high beam, all 4 projectors are on. There must be a cross connection inside and a diode. The low beams do dim a tiny bit when the highs come on, so the extra drop across a diode would make sense. That, and the tiny, scrawny little wires they provide for the 3 pin connector. The return current for both HB and LB has to come back through the earth wire, which is the same thin little thing that the other two have. So there is probably quite the voltage drop on that wire. I measured ~4A current on each LED before I installed them. 8A through skinny wire is...dubious.

And the other weird effect is that my set of 4x relays that I installed behind the original headlights with fat direct battery feed simply would not allow the LEDs to switch on. I don't know if I got something wrong in my head when I built the adapter harnesses needed to allow me to keep the the relays, or if there is some weirdness caused by the internal wiring of the LEDs. I shall have to look into it again later. Not eager to pull the front end apart again soon.

Yes, I'd forgotten that to get the headlights out of the car you have to remove the bumper skin, which is an extra hassle.

 

[Tillis3]

They sure do look good, though!

[ianp]

Been going back and forth on these for the past year. I like them but also thinks it makes the front end look a bit goofy.

 

 

[TurboTapin]

15 hours ago, GTSBoy said:

Another 30 months later and I have bitten the bullet and put these into my car. I got the chrome blingy ones because, after consideration of the black alternative, I realised that the chrome ones were by far the closest in appearance to the originals, and I thought that the black ones wouldn't look as good on a white car.

And look good they actually do. There is a tiny little problem with the HB projectors making it look a little cross-eyed compared to the wider eyed stare of the original projectors. But they certainly do not look like they are weirdly out of place.

They are also spectacularly bright and sharp compared to the dull, vague output of the original projectors.

An unexpected outcome is that when on high beam, all 4 projectors are on. There must be a cross connection inside and a diode. The low beams do dim a tiny bit when the highs come on, so the extra drop across a diode would make sense. That, and the tiny, scrawny little wires they provide for the 3 pin connector. The return current for both HB and LB has to come back through the earth wire, which is the same thin little thing that the other two have. So there is probably quite the voltage drop on that wire. I measured ~4A current on each LED before I installed them. 8A through skinny wire is...dubious.

And the other weird effect is that my set of 4x relays that I installed behind the original headlights with fat direct battery feed simply would not allow the LEDs to switch on. I don't know if I got something wrong in my head when I built the adapter harnesses needed to allow me to keep the the relays, or if there is some weirdness caused by the internal wiring of the LEDs. I shall have to look into it again later. Not eager to pull the front end apart again soon.

Yes, I'd forgotten that to get the headlights out of the car you have to remove the bumper skin, which is an extra hassle.

 

I've also been going back and forth on these... but seeing them on an actual car now, I think I'll get them. They look much better then I expected. What LED bulbs do these use? Easily replacable for both low/high beam? RHDJapan has them much cheaper then other sites. 

[GTSBoy]

2 minutes ago, TurboTapin said:

What LED bulbs do these use? Easily replacable for both low/high beam? RHDJapan has them much cheaper then other sites.

Yeah....that's a bit of a shortcoming. There is no replaceable bulb/parts on these. The 3 wires are potted in the back of the housing and there is no way to open them up to see what type of LED is in there. To access the insides you'd have to do a full deconstruct by taking off the lens and gutting the chrome reveal trims and then remove the projector lenses.

I mean, it won't likely be a commercially/consumer available LED anyway. They will just have mounted a COB onto some heatsink. You might be able to replace that if you got in that deep.

I'm banking on having to buy new ones if they die. I will retain the option to refit the originals while I work on cracking a dead one of these open should that come to pass.

I got mine from RHD. They (RHD) are a bit shit though, because there was some extra ~$100 "transaction fee" for the pleasure of buying from them, and then I had to pay a bunch of import duty to get them from the courier company once they were in Oz. All up, it cost me >$1600 to get them in had, which is a bit tough to swallow. But as per my other discussions on the matter, by the time you buy some decent Morimoto LED projectors to retro into original lights, you're halfway to that much money anyway, and then you still have to crack them open do the work, reseal, with the various elements of risk attached to those steps. As it stands now, I have perfect condition R32 GTR headlights in boxes in the shed, that are currently worth at least $500 each, probably more, and are only going to increase in value. If my car ever gets crashed again, I'll be much happier splatting some polycarbonate lensed aftermarket lights than genuine ones that are going to be effectively made from unobtainium.

I mean really...when you get down to it, just throwing stupid amounts of money at things on these cars is now par for the course. I don't really have any regrets. The initial sting of it turning from a $1000 thing into a $1600 thing has already passed. I won't even remember it in a few months.

[niZmO_Man]

Wow! nice purchase!
Can you get a nice wall shot of the beam? Low and high beams would be nice. Try to find a white wall somewhere flat (e.g. shopping center car park), maybe 10m back from the wall if you can.

Honestly, the LED vs. HID thing, I still think HID are better. My BMW has factory LED projects, they are friken awesome, but compared to my missus' Mazda3 D4S AFS projects, I find her HID better (I changed the factory aging bulbs with Osram cool blue boost for that 5,000K beam). I find the beam of the Mazda (Koito AFS basically as good as it gets barring the Lexus) wider and much less foreground.

But am very interested in these.

[GTSBoy]

I might head on down to the Bunnings precinct when I go out for pizza tonight. Tilt-up concrete walls are as close to white as you'll find anywhere in the local crime zone.

[GTSBoy]

On 8/16/2024 at 10:45 PM, niZmO_Man said:

Can you get a nice wall shot of the beam?

This is ~7.5m from the wall. The apparent lack of horizontal-ness would be because of the slope of surface the car is on.

Camera sat on top of steering wheel, to attempt to give similar view as I get. For context as to height of the cut line - the high side (left side) of the Z is about numberplate height on a Forester or RAV when following at normal 3ish car lengths. This may be a tiny fraction too high still.

Hi beams may be still aimed a little high. I haven't had a chance to run them on a dark road yet.

[niZmO_Man]

the low beam looks impressive enough, but that glare is concerning. Could just be extra exposure (it is hard to capture what your eyes would normally see).