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— LED Headlights Pro & Cons—

Joined
30 April 2017
Messages
143
Location
Los Angeles
Niguel Motors is changing my timing belt ect..So I figured why not take a chance on some LED’s since the stock ones are useless..
 
...Bad when wet and dark out.

Would you mind expanding on this please?

I agree that the lumen light output of a single 30W LED doesn't match that of a single 55W HID yet, but it's still better than the incandescent bulb that came with the pre '02's.

I also think the nighttime wet driving is a function of the color temperature. I think the bluish and purplish HIDs and LEDs make it more difficult to see in these conditions. Less than 4500k temperature seems to be OK but it may not be as bluish as some like for looks.

All high-end OEM cars come with LED headlights these days. I like them.
 
Would you mind expanding on this please?

In my limited research on LEDs, I see that many of them have a heatsink. Some even have fans to keep cool.
I am not sure how to keep the heatsink exposed and still keep the headlight sealed from the elements (for the pop-up configuration). For this reason, I went for the proven HID option (WhiteNSX kit) with positive results.

I know a few people have converted to LED. Perhaps they can shed some light on the conversation. :)
 
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In my opinion, running 2 set of leds on 2 current vehicle, when it's wet out the road just does not light up good. I drive a lot of country road, it would be different in city with lit street lamp. Majority of the led will be at or around 6k to give off that "moder" look we are after. I find it even harder to see if the the road are asphalt, black, in the rain. It seems as though the light output just get soaked into the road. But when it is dry out, everything lit up. Which is great. I dont know all the technical behind all of it, but for me led headlights are good when dry and not good when wet and raining.
For as much as the led kit cost now, you may as well get hid by whitensx. Then you dont have to deal with the exposed back of the headlights.
 
Picked up the car today, in the daylight the LED’s look absolutely amazing, Very Whiite. The high beams looked yellow in comparison but they always worked great, especially at my place in the Forrest.. Lots of bears,.2 were struck recently.
I’ll get back with an actual night review soon..These LED’s have fans & are a new offering from Precision LED..So new they have no reviews yet.. There interior kit & the back up LED’s are great..
FYI as usual Ramon did an amazing job with the timing belt,19 hoses, fluids and a oil pressure relay of some type was leaking a lot of oil..SOS sold him one for a little over $200 honda wanted $300...A Honda mechanic, 20+ years of experience, wanted to pull the engine & transmission, he thought it was something else-Thanks again Ramon-Niguel Motors.Hard to believe, his real passion is Muscle Cars..
 
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Picked up the car today, in the daylight the LED’s look absolutely amazing, Very Whiite. The high beams looked yellow in comparison but they always worked great, especially at my place in the Forrest.. Lots of bears,.2 were struck recently.
I’ll get back with an actual night review soon..These LED’s have fans & are a new offering from Precision LED..So new they have no reviews yet.. There interior kit & the back up LED’s are great..
FYI as usual Ramon did an amazing job with the timing belt,19 hoses, fluids and a oil pressure relay of some type was leaking a lot of oil..SOS sold him one for a little over $200 honda wanted $300...A Honda mechanic, 20+ years of experience, wanted to pull the engine & transmission, he thought it was something else-Thanks again Ramon-Niguel Motors.Hard to believe, his real passion is Muscle Cars..

I looked at those but they didn't provide any specs on color temp and light output so I went with the Morimoto equivalent as shown here:
http://www.nsxprime.com/forum/showthread.php/210410-Morimoto-2Stroke-2-0-LED-Retrofit

I had a chance to try and align these last night and I'm not too impressed with the light output. Yes, the light output, color, and cutoff is great, but somehow they provide too much illumination right on the ground in front of the car. Good if you need to see right in the front, but bad because it keeps your pupils closed more and not able to see further down the road. I need to try and make some tweaks and then I'll update the Morimoto thread.

Glad you're happy with yours. A bit OT, but since you mentioned the other LED lights you had installed: Did you install LED taillight bulbs in the OEM housings, and if so, what kind and do you like them? Thanks.
 
....Good if you need to see right in the front, but bad because it keeps your pupils closed more and not able to see further down the road....

You make an excellent point. Sometimes I see people with bright interiors. Their gauge cluster make their face glow. Based on your point, their dash-light-setting probably ruins their night vision.
For that reason, I always appreciated the red light interior lighting. (although I have heard green light has some benefits)

Going back to headlights, are you seeing a spot or is the light spread out? I can image a spot light having little benefits.
 
You make an excellent point. Sometimes I see people with bright interiors. Their gauge cluster make their face glow. Based on your point, their dash-light-setting probably ruins their night vision.
For that reason, I always appreciated the red light interior lighting. (although I have heard green light has some benefits)

Going back to headlights, are you seeing a spot or is the light spread out? I can image a spot light having little benefits.

Right, I always keep my interior dash lights as dim as possible. Of course, sitting so low in the NSX you're almost constantly blinded by oncoming lights anyways, so maybe this is all a moot discussion. I just don't like driving the NSX at night these days.

I see concentrated spots on the ground right in front of the car. Wish I had taken before/after pics to tell the difference. I'm guessing it's because the way the LEDs are oriented (primarily in a vertical orientation in the housing that makes the emitted light output pointing to the sides) not as good as the incandescent and even HID bulbs that have a uniform light source.
 
The best headlight upgrade for our popup headlights is the Organized Garage Status HID projector retrofit, it blows every other option out of the water and visibility at night is incredible. The downside is that it's very pricey to have done and the DIY option is very time consuming.

http://www.nsxprime.com/forum/showt...Thread/page4?p=1984898&viewfull=1#post1984898

+1 Just had this done and very happy with the results. I did high and low beams (quad projectors) and it wasn't cheap, but the quality of the workmanship and the results are worth it. Only driven it at night once, briefly, since getting it back a couple of weeks ago but the results are amazing. Will get pix asap.
 
First Impressions: Took the car out the other evening, went to a movie,Yesterday, little thin on plot but not bad..when we came out it was dark so my first impressions were on well lit streets, I couldn’t really get much sense of anything, they weren’t casting down on to the street like some other cars ahead of me.. Finally turned onto a semi well lit blvd and immediately noticed a highly defused white and even soft light, though not super bright, it was oddly difficult to get a sense of how much they were actually illuminating so I decided to go down some totally dark streets with no lighting whatsoever..i stopped shut the lights and it was totally dark...I turned the lights on and everything lit up in a very uniform soft diffused white illumination, I was pretty impressed especially after repeatedly turning the lights on and off..I was surprised that the signs were all highly reflective up to about 150-200 yards....I’ll need to spend some more time in a number of different situations to better judge these Cree led’s but at least compared with the originals I’m cautiously impressed..
 
I looked at those but they didn't provide any specs on color temp and light output so I went with the Morimoto equivalent as shown here:
http://www.nsxprime.com/forum/showthread.php/210410-Morimoto-2Stroke-2-0-LED-Retrofit

I had a chance to try and align these last night and I'm not too impressed with the light output. Yes, the light output, color, and cutoff is great, but somehow they provide too much illumination right on the ground in front of the car. Good if you need to see right in the front, but bad because it keeps your pupils closed more and not able to see further down the road. I need to try and make some tweaks and then I'll update the Morimoto thread.

Glad you're happy with yours. A bit OT, but since you mentioned the other LED lights you had installed: Did you install LED taillight bulbs in the OEM housings, and if so, what kind and do you like them? Thanks.

Installed the back up lights only & I’m very happy with them.
 
I had a chance to try and align these last night and I'm not too impressed with the light output. Yes, the light output, color, and cutoff is great, but somehow they provide too much illumination right on the ground in front of the car. Good if you need to see right in the front, but bad because it keeps your pupils closed more and not able to see further down the road. I need to try and make some tweaks and then I'll update the Morimoto thread.

This is a fairly common issue with trying to retrofit other bulb types into incandescent projectors. You end up with way too much light up close with very little long-distance visibility.
 
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