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Hello!
I've always owned 1st Gens because I happen to like the pop-up headlight look. When they are down, it makes the car look very aggressive!
However, they don't seem to reign supreme in light output. Therefore, I have been on the quest to find a viable solution to this problem.
My first attempt was on my '91 SL back in 2004 in which I purchased the Projector H4 conversion. It looks cool and matched the style of the stock fogs. However... it created horrible glare. I could barely see anything with those.
Now I own a '92 VR4 and after doing some research, I decided on getting some e-Code headlights. These are European spec and have the sharp cutoff that projector headlights usually have. I compared numerous threads on other forums regarding which conversion kit to get. Most agreed that Hella and PIAA are the best ones out there, but they usually run quite high.
Eventually, I found e-Code headlights from a company called Autopal. I purchased these for $45 shipped. Roughly the same price as the 2 Sylvania Silverstars that I recently put in.
They come in 2 flavors, with and without city lights. I wanted to purchase the ones without city lights, but they sold out of those when I went to purchase them. I asked the seller on ebay regarding the light output and cut-off in the version that includes the city lights in comparison to without. He responded quickly and let me know that the extra city light spot will not affect light output or the cutoff.
You can see the city light in the bottom right corner of the headlight assembly. It easily comes out for replacement with another bulb. I decided not to wire the city light, but I imagine they can be wired to come on with parking lights.
If you look at the glass itself, you will notice that it is designed to have a cutoff and an upward spike towards the top right. We will discuss this later.
Here is a closeup of the glass and various labels.
The default kit comes with an H4 bulb. I plan on getting HIDs put into these so I opted not to get any upgraded bulbs. This is the one that came with the default kit.
The bulbs fit in the back of the housing so it makes replacing bulbs a bit easier than the stock sealed beams.
When I did the conversion on the '91 SL, I had to splice wires, crimp them, etc, etc. Eventually I ended up just stuffing the wires through a molex connector and electrical taping it secure. A few years down the line, something malfunctioned. Therefore, I wanted a wiring harness this time around. I found this! It has our stock plug on one end and the H4 on the other. It really makes H4 conversions plug and play.
Now, without further ado, the comparison test. I will be comparing the Sylvania Silverstars that I had installed on the car with the Autopal H4 conversion.
These are the Silverstars.
Please pardon how low they look on the garage door, my driveway slants downwards towards the garage. The Silverstars are quite bright and aim light kind of in a straight beam forward.
Now we have the Autopal on the left and Silverstars on the right.
The Autopal definitely have a sharper cutoff at the top with a spike on the top right to illuminate traffic signs. They also shine light more evenly on the ground.
Here we have both Autopal headlights installed.
In case people want an even more defined cutoff, you could fabricate some kind of glare shield to give this kind of an effect.
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Originally Posted by ntcmpjg
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