E-code H4 headlight conversion with comparison pics Cheaper than Silverstars

After looking at the cost of CIBIES and Hella's it occured to me that "E code" headlight
just means it conforms to European standards; for light output, sharp cutoff, and not
BLINDING other drivers. So in that sense a "cheap" E-code housing/lens still at least
lives up to those standards... Thus it's going to be WAY better than our DOT stuff
(which only have to be under a certain wattage and have no metrics governing light
output, glare or anything else)


So 30 seconds and one ebay search popped up some generic european H6054 H4
conversion housings 2 E-code housings with generic bulbs for 21.95 and 14 shipping.
(searching with: euro conversion h4 should bring them up throw in -diamond
-projector to filter out all the Chinese housings. I don't know what standards if any
the Chinese have but I trust the European ones Specifically those anal German
engineers and their Autobahn. Acourding to the auction these are right hand drive
(non british or french) lights.

I was replacing old wagners first pic is using the twilight setting on the camera. They
aren't blue, or advertized as silver they are whiter, but still a nice natural color.

This next one is using some fill flash in auto mode to try and shorten the exposure time.

And here's the famous sharp cutoff everyone raves about. I have to rave too, these
blow DOT headlights away, the cutoff allows intense light further down the road
without any glare, In fact you have to be LOWER than my bumper before these
start to look like high beams. So even a lowered ricer is not going to be blinded.

The high beams look more like off road lights and I wouldn't want to accidentally
leave them on. As far as the normal beams go so far absolutely no one has flashed
me. Which I keep expecting due to the fact that I'm putting light so far down the
road it feels like I'm driving with highs on.

So the pictures on the left are your old set up? If so... what was it? Pictures on the right I take it are the new ones? So, having said that, what all did you change? The housing itself? What about bulbs? Have you upgraded your wiring harness at all? Please specify what you changed and total costs please. My factory lights blow... I'm pretty sure a biker (w/pedals) and a safety light can putt off more light than I can. I would like to know because this looks like something I would like to do to improve my lighting at night. Thanks for the info and good job on the write-up/info. So all in all please list what you changed to have this set up. Thanks.

So do these light up the road better/farther?

I drive a lot of long, empty, roads, and I need to see ahead for animals. I currently have the sealed beam silverstars and they have been phenominal. A buddy however has suggested I upgrade to H4/Euro housings.

RickyN29 said:

So do these light up the road better/farther?

I drive a lot of long, empty, roads, and I need to see ahead for animals. I currently have the sealed beam silverstars and they have been phenominal. A buddy however has suggested I upgrade to H4/Euro housings.

Click to expand...

if you have the stock wiring harness, first off make yourself an upgrade using the online 'how-toos' I just put one on my stock with Silverstars.. was amazing how much better it lit up the road, and not just out front, more of the ditch and shoulder too. Do the wiring and if thats not enuf track down the parts for this upgrade too... I would think that would really brighten things up.

Do you have a link to the harness upgrades.

best diagram I have found is at
http://chevyhiperformance.com/howto/p33272_image_large.jpg
other than that the walk thru talk thru on GoJeep's page is top notch. Google GoJeep Once you find it scroll down... granted once you find that site you will have more ideas other than just upgrading your wiring harness. have fun

1bolt said:

Acourding to the auction these are right hand drive
(non british or french) lights.

Click to expand...

If you have current 'E' code Right Hand Drive lights they will likely dazzle oncoming traffic in the USA as they have a prism in one corner that is supposed to illuminate pedestrians on sidewalks. RHD sidewalks are on the other side of the road so the lifted part of the beam will be in the lane of traffic to your left. I have personally never seen any RHD lights without the prism but that's not to say that there aren't any. Perhaps they are Japanese and comply with basic regs???

If you have current regulation RHD 'E' code lights, a quick fix is to put some duck tape over the prism which can be seen as a triangular section on the left of the light viewed from the front.

Here is a photo of my British XJ in California with the sidewalk prisms masked out for the USA with Duck tape.


As far as I know the only RHD europeans are British or Irish, all others including the French are LHD so you should be able to find LHD 'E' code lights easily and probably cheaper than RHD.

nice, i wonder how well they run will higher wattage bulbs...

Vince said:

If you have current 'E' code Right Hand Drive lights
As far as I know the only RHD europeans are British or Irish, all others including the French are LHD so you should be able to find LHD 'E' code lights easily and probably cheaper than RHD.

Click to expand...

By right hand drive I meant the side of the road, not the side the steering wheel is on, My bad :sure: you know I actually thought to myself "right hand drive sounds like right hand drive postal Jeep maybe I should edit".

Anyway yeah my triangles are on the right (facing them) here's a photo you can see the brand and E-code marks:



Also if you look at my pics this triangle effect is visible up and to the right side of the road (just above the mail box).

These are fantastic lights, it should be obvious from the pics but they are easily 3 or more times brighter... The old ones were just poor little yellow hot spots that didn't illuminate s**t on the sides of the road.

At one point I only had one light in and both the old ones out and that one new light was way brighter than both old ones.

1bolt... you never mentioned how much total cost was... and if you upgraded bulbs or wiring harness at all... please post more info on total costs and if you did any other upgrading to this headlight system. Thanks!:yelclap:

Bdiddy11 said:

1bolt... you never mentioned how much total cost was... and if you upgraded bulbs or wiring harness at all... please post more info on total costs and if you did any other upgrading to this headlight system. Thanks!:yelclap:

Click to expand...

It's there in my first post man 22.95 and 14 shipping. No harness upgrade I plan to later but just don't have free time for it right now. The bulbs are the stock ones that come with the housings!

Seriously I think this is the be-all-end-all cheapass solution. They should be brighter than Silverstars, and as far as I know silverstars do not have the Eurpean style sharp cutoff (the very sharp well defined horizontal "edge" where the light stops which allows the light to be much brighter without glaring or bothering other drivers. The cutoff is below eye level. They may even be MORE friendly to other drivers because above the cutoff is zero light, where DOT sealed beams scatter light all over the place.

Think about it, you have to have good headlights that do NOT mess with other drivers if you are on a highway that has no speed limit (at least parts of the Autobahn have no legal limit). These are legal in europe and pass all their minimum standards.

The best part is these are NOT "diamond" "blue" "glow ring" or fake "projector", chinese crap.

They are generic european H4 made in India crap But crap that has passed some kind of quality standard.

I'm running a set of $40 eBay e-code housing (glass, not plastic housings), homebrew wiring harness with relays, and a pair of $10 80W-100 bulbs from NAPA. I have them aimed a tad low and never get flashed. They work well and wow the highbeams light up the night!

Thanks 1bolt... that's what I was looking for. So it was $22 for the set? I wasn't sure if you had used a different bulb or upgraded harness. Thanks again. This is something I definately have to look into. My lights suck butt pretty bad. Did you buy them from a small company or a person? If it's a company you bought them through, what's the name? Thanks in advance.
Oh, how long did it take you to make the switch to the new housing?

I just ordered some of these the other day, and they came in today. My only thing is one was busted when it arrived so now I have to wait a few more days before I can put them in. I got them from here..Ebay

I also ordered a harness from here Ebay

Once you add up the price of the plugs, relays and wire it comes out to more than these do and you get a set of bulbs with them. I figured I would give them a try. I built my own harness for my YJ, but figured I would just order one for the XJ. Can't wait to try it out. I'll let you know how the harness is.

lawsoncl said:

I'm running a set of $40 eBay e-code housing (glass, not plastic housings), homebrew wiring harness with relays, and a pair of $10 80W-100 bulbs from NAPA. I have them aimed a tad low and never get flashed. They work well and wow the highbeams light up the night!

Click to expand...

Mine were $37 shipped came with bulbs and are also glass not plastic.

jwtrapper said:

I just ordered some of these the other day, and they came in today. My only thing is one was busted when it arrived so now I have to wait a few more days before I can put them in. I got them from here..Ebay

I also ordered a harness from here Ebay

Once you add up the price of the plugs, relays and wire it comes out to more than these do and you get a set of bulbs with them. I figured I would give them a try. I built my own harness for my YJ, but figured I would just order one for the XJ. Can't wait to try it out. I'll let you know how the harness is.

Click to expand...

I bought the exact same ones, but I used "best offer" which he has on some of his auctions and got a pair for 22.95. Same seller, Autopal lights (you can see it in my last pick).

Hizzo: I am going to upgrade the bulbs maybe this weekend and will post up another comparison shot when I do.

The included bulbs are just fine (way better than anything in a sealed beam h6054) most of the dramatic increase in light is the much better reflector shape and lens. But that said I've heard lots of good things about GE Nighthawks so I'm going to pop 27 bucks at Wal-mart for two H4 bulbs and see how they compare.

If I get around to upgrading the harness any time soon I'll take pics of that as well.

I looked at the link posted.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/200m...ryZ33710QQihZ014QQitemZ330007065644QQtcZphoto
These should work then.

If you read towards the bottom he gives bulb upgrade options. Might be good to just go with a higher wattage bulb for not much more cash? You can substitute a 100/90 white bulbs for only $6 more at the start.

I also found this harness at summit
http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?autofilter=1&part=AMC-509102&N=700+115&autoview=sku

I have the parts to make one except the wire laying around. I need two eventually though. One for the XJ and one for the 93 dodge towrig.

1bolt said:

Mine were $37 shipped came with bulbs and are also glass not plastic.

Click to expand...

Now that I think about it, mine were AutoPal brand as well. I got them a few years back and just recently swapped in the 80/100 bulbs. I still really like the beam pattern on these and being glass means I don't have to worry about melting them.

37.95 for me. He accepted an offer of 22.95.

About double the price of a set of wagners, but hopefully they are better! Still alot cheaper than everything else I looked at for Hella. I have 3 vehicles that use this headlight size so they will go to use somewhere.

Andy

jwtrapper said:

I just ordered some of these the other day, and they came in today. My only thing is one was busted when it arrived so now I have to wait a few more days before I can put them in. I got them from here..Ebay

I also ordered a harness from here Ebay

Once you add up the price of the plugs, relays and wire it comes out to more than these do and you get a set of bulbs with them. I figured I would give them a try. I built my own harness for my YJ, but figured I would just order one for the XJ. Can't wait to try it out. I'll let you know how the harness is.

Click to expand...

So the harness, if purchased, just acts like an adapted between the factory connection, and the new connection?

So if I buy the harness , I just remove light housings, replace, add harness "adapter", adjust, and I'm done?!?! Or is it not that simple?!