240Z LED Headlight Wiring

[AK260]

I'm sort of in the place. The headlight relay kit isn't available for the 260, so I'm thinking LED's are good interim fix until builld my own (working on specs for that now). And I agree, 3000 is a more comfortable color. I use 2700 in my home. Is that an LED bulb in a generic H4 housing, or something similar to the eagle lights that w3wilkes is using? 

 

 I don’t like the relay kits so I designed my own and moreover I don’t like relays in a hot / harsh engine bay and want to position them behind the dash on passenger side. I bought all the bits but ran out of time - a job for another day. I will still do it to reduce load on stalk contacts.

 

It is as simple as a take the bulb out, plug the LED replacement bulb in solution. It has a bigger bottom but our cars have plenty of space in the headlight bowls to accommodate. One of the best mods ever! Especially as it reduced the alternator load too.

 

The actual bulb bit rotates so that you can get the beam pattern right - remember LEDs have more directional light. So whereas your halogens have to be top to bottom oriented, these bulbs need to be side to side.

 

 

Here is when I incorrectly had them facing top to bottom - lots of light but the beam pattern wasn’t going up on the left (as they should on RHD cars).

 

 

 

 Also you will notice a “hotspot” directly in front of the car which is where you don’t want the light (as it makes your eyes close up and reduces your night vision).

 

I don’t have a photo of it corrected but suffice it to say the light spread is far more uniform without any obvious hot or dead spots and the beam pattern had a very sharp cut off and break point. The cut off is important to avoid dazzling.

 

Phillips are the market leaders but are expensive at 4 times the price. So I took a punt with the cheap Vanssi ones as others had used them without issue.

 

One last thought - in the UK, we have some European legislation on type approval for use of LED bulbs. And the majority of non-factory fitted don’t have the approval. But UK law is fuzzier about the approval. It is more focussed on practical things like beam pattern and dazzling. I have passed and sat behind many a police car at night without bother. I have however been pulled over a few times by police who are car enthusiasts and wanted to have a good look at a rare beast! [emoji41]

 

Just make sure you don’t get into hot water with law enforcement in your jurisdiction.

 

[grannyknot]

3 hours ago, AK260 said:

It has a bigger bottom but our cars have plenty of space in the headlight bowls to accommodate.

That's great info,  so are you saying that there is enough there space in the headlight bowl so you don't have to cut a hole in the back?

[AK260]

That's great info,  so are you saying that there is enough there space in the headlight bowl so you don't have to cut a hole in the back?

Exactly! [emoji106] 

Lots of space for the heatsink and connectors without touching the bowls or being squashed in.

 

Edit: just read the rest of the thread properly.

 

I’ve never had the “directional” issues mentioned above but I wonder if a European ‘77 260z has different wiring to early 240/260?

 

On flickering - only get that issue on cranking. If idle is set too low, I see them drop in brightness a little. Even with a custom undersized pulley, my alternator spins slower than stock due to the ATi damper’s blooming stupid half sized pulley.

 

 

[anthony_c]

AK260,

In the states we look for the "D.OT. Approved" label.

Lots of options on amazon, none with a brand name that i recognize.

Edited July 10, 2019 by anthony_c

[AK260]

AK260,
In the states we look for the "D.OT. Approved" label.
Lots of options on amazon, none with a brand name that i recognize.

I hear you!! That’s why I went with Vanssi because at the very least, I knew others had success with them. Frankly if they weren’t great, at £30 (c.$40) for a pair I could afford to put it down to experience and bin them without feeling like I’ve been taking food out of my children’s mouths or crying too much about it. But, 2 years on and no regrets yet!

[anthony_c]

As SteveJ mentioned earlier, in order to run LED's on a US spec 74 260z I would need to re-wire the dimmer switch to switch on hot instead of ground. I'm not prepared to go that far so will probably just drop in a relay and be done with it. Depending on amp load I may upgrade to halogens, but tbd.

[AK260]

That’s good thinking - otherwise too much hassle! [emoji106]

I’ve found that on 4 other classic cars I’ve helped with, the 50% brighter H4 halogens with relays will rival most modern car halogen headlights.

There are the 120% brighter halogens but they tend to have a blue tint I really am not a fan of.

Defo do a before and after shot in the same lighting conditions.

[grannyknot]

1 hour ago, AK260 said:

I’ve found that on 4 other classic cars I’ve helped with, the 50% brighter H4 halogens with relays will rival most modern car halogen headlights.

Absolutely,  but I would add that the power and ground wires need to be at least 12ga

[AK260]

Once the kids FINALLY went to sleep, I went out for some carb playing / tuning at night. So I thought I’d take some photos to show how well the LED bulbs work behind standard H4 lenses. It was bugging me that I hadn’t shared that ;)

 

The iPhone camera does it no justice but here’s the beam pattern with a rock solid horizontal cut off on the driver’s side (RHD car) and the break in the middle kicking the light up onto the pavement side of the car.

 

 

And here is dipped beam on a piece of (sorta) straight road:

 

 

And high beam:

 

 

You can just about see the way the high beam lights the stuff in the distance - like I said the iPhone 6s camera isn’t great at night - time for the upgrade I’ve been putting off! ;)

 

Oh and got stopped by the local police again. Got the usual chat: “I used to lust after that car as a little boy sir!! Straight six, right? Sounds really nice!”